First 'game ready' assets

[Ron Kapaun]

Hey all!

    New member, amazing software and a GREAT community.

     Just wanted to pass along my latest blog post. It has some images and assorted information concerning using PhotoScan Standard and converting the models to .dae format for game engines. Also, I have included some nice Blender renders of my 'high rez' source models.  BLOG link:  http://www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/22897

    Thanks for all the GREAT info that is in these forums. I could not have gotten as far as I have without all this amazing info.

Ron

[igor73]

Great work!.  I am also planning to use PS for a visualization project with UE4 and rift support.  I use Zbrush which has some great features to convert high poly to low.  Used to use Blender before but abandoned it. 

What are you using for normal mapping?  Looks like you have achieved really great normal maps. 

[Ron Kapaun]

Igor,

   I recently swapped from 3D Studio Max to Blender. Basically, I used a cage/projection mapping system in blender to generate the normals and project them onto the low poly model. Once I did that, I also figured out that I could bake the depth maps from the high poly onto the low poly and use (this is Torque 3D MIT version) parallax mapping to bring out even MORE detail. I have not shown that off yet but, it works REALLY well (in testing).

    Thanks for the positive comments on the normals! Like I said, I recently swapped 3DS Max to Blender. Normals have been working out well but, I am NOT thrilled with the 'muddy' look of the diffuse texture. To compensate, I am planning to try expanding the 'mosaic' generation from stock 4096 X 4096 to twice that. This way, I am thinking I can compensate for the 'smearing' that occurs when I use a 'projection cage' to project from the high poly to the low.

[igor73]

Interesting with the Blender projection method.  I have to look it up.  Any link to tutorial?  Zbrush also has a projection type of Normal map generation method. Its not perfect for the render engine i use though.  Are you using blender for UV maps?
Have you tried Xnormal? 

As for the muddy diffuse you are not using Photo Scan  generated UV´s are you?  They tend to use very little of the texture space. 

Until now i have only worked with high poly models for renders but will have to change workflow a bit for UE4.  For renders i use Octane / Blender plugin.  I do how ever have to go low poly to make a new UV map.  I usually go to 20- 50k ploys for a medium sized object.  I then subdivide and reproject the detail from the high poly photoscan model. That way i get a mesh with several sub div levels.  All this is done in Zbrush. Are you using a similar workflow in Blender?   Could use Xnormal to generate a normal map from high to low poly or Zbrush.   

I have been using 8k textures as i have had no reason to save texture memory for my small render scenes. Very clear and crisp textures.  Will have to re think that once i go UE4 and larger scenes though. 

[thesystemera]

Some great stuff man!!! Heading down a very similar path. Workflow has been the biggest hurdle. Mostly dealing with FBX import/export issues. But otherwise have managed some interesting results.  Alsu using it for Oculus Rift applicatoins. Wrote up a blog about it a few days ago. Also we got a site showcasing some of the stuff we are doing.

http://www.realityvirtual.co/

http://www.realityvirtual.co/blog/2015/3/12/combining-aerial-ground-based-photogrammetry-fucken-exciting

Would love to discuss workflow and share idea's if you have time time, information is rather limited in this specific area! I've talked to Andrea from The Astranauts in the forums here, lovely guy!

[igor73]

Very impressive website and projects!  Some of the best drone videos i have seen!  Great use of 60fps.  Love the 3D animation like  smoth feel of the videos. 
How did you pull the interior scenes off in this video?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bjGJh1R_ek&t=37¨
Warp stabaliser and high frame rate?  Looks like HDR video to?  Would love to get in touch with you exchaging ideas. 

[igor73]

Also interesting with the techiques you have developed for shooting glossy objects. 

[thesystemera]

Shucks! Thanks guys, at least someone appreciates it! Honestly, that video was done for Heritage New Zealand, was a big deal for os. Apparently they thought it was crap! Wanna make me cry really, put a month of post into it. But hey, these dorsk still want to use cherry pickers and balloons to obtain their shots, some of the shots we did would have been block buster shots worth $10.000 each a few years back. Any way!!!

But yeah, the photogrammetry stuff is also very exciting. And yes I have learnt a technique to capture non specular data on the fly completely portably. It's clever, and shoud allow us to capture incredibly remote locations with ease. Where the drone comes into it is the ability to do both ground and aerial datasets as to obtain no occlusion, only the ground datasets can have non specular details but the nature of the aerial datasets doesn't really cause us this issue. Once we find a way to use a polarized technique from great heights (immensely powerful battery required) I will do it.  Talk more about it in this blog post from a month back.

http://www.realityvirtual.co/blog/2015/3/12/combining-aerial-ground-based-photogrammetry-fucken-exciting

[thesystemera]

And yus. igor73! Would love to talk, sorry I didn't get back sooner, Agisoft isn't sending me updates on replies to my most. The only reason I noticed the reply was I spent 12 hours in an intense Google Analytics conference and discovered I had a peak in web traffic around the date of the post and was able to obtain it's origin as being from this post LOL!

Feel free to contact me through the site, or even just my email man! thesystemera@gmail.com

Also run a very funky game group on facebook Showcase alot of the latest stuff!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/229421777267476/