Burned Grass

[Jorund]

I have to make a burned grass tile for a friends game (128x128), since he needs it soon, I'm not going to work with pure pixel (I'm still learning).
He told me: "I need black burned grass" So I search some images in google:
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/3392/copyof13072resize.jpg
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/7803/copyof1820534ee639a9abr.jpg
http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/9897/copyof6262541550x550mba.jpg
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/9110/copyofburnedgrass1resiz.jpg
http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/6262/copyofprairiegrassresiz.jpg

This is what I got for the moment:

I don't know I thinks is waaaaaaaay too dark, but the one that he showed me (and wanted redone because it was an edit from another game), was also really dark.

I don't know how to make it better. Its just a noise effect with some tweaking and texture.

Any help will be much appreciated  

[Lizzrd]

Have it more in clusters with black soil showing between.

[Jad]

remove the green, it's not needed - just keep it black with the grass displayed as ashy gray strands and possibly add some green tint in some of the value ranges.

That's all I've got for now!

[Jorund]

I completly changed it. No black. At least not that much. I'm gonna use black/brown for the path and other details.
Here's the new version. Its more of a grass ashes tile. Made it with some grass photo, and some tweaking and some brushes:


It tiles pretty well:
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/75/75677324yth.gif

[Jorund]

Now, I need to do something similar to this (but with my tile):

This one was made out of this tile:


Does anyone know how to do that? I thought it was just some kind of bevel and emboss effect done with Photoshop, but it's not, since that effect doesnt deformed the image just adds shadows and highlights.
I don't know... maybe I'll just try to create that effect manually deforming the tile ... but it's gonna take time, and I don't think its gonna look nice.

Any ideas will be appreciated. 

[EyeCraft]

It looks like a high poly 3d render to me. The sides look like they're normal-mapped a little.

To get that effect I would make a high poly plane in a 3d app, then start sculpting it... maybe even try zbrush, create a normal map, then do an orthographic render of it with the lightsource pretty much where the camera is, actually a tad below the camera.

[G_Dragon]

Alright, quickly mocked up how they could have done it.



If you use Blender, here's the blend file.
http://indreams-studios.com/g_dragon/tiles.blend

[Jorund]

Thanks a lot to both of you!

Today I being trying ZBrush, watching a looooooooot of tutorials, got a headache, then another one. There's still some things, that I think it should be easy to find in Zbrush. but... I... just... CAN'T! (When I stop editing/sculping and go back to the other -don't remember the name- mode, then I can't return to continue sculping the other "object". I'm always creating a new one from the last one i made and continue sculping it. // Now I'm getting some problems with masks (actually mask related), when I finish creating the mask (which I don't understand why I can make a square selection from outside the object, but not from inside) and want to start sculping, it mades me create a PolyMesh3D, and by doing that i lose the mask)

Enough with the ramble!

So, this is what I got so far:


It's reaaaaally messy. I don't know how should I set the mesh in ZBrush, so that when I import it with Photoshop I don't have to make it bigger.
There where other things, like:
- Lighting: don't know how to set it. The light appears to change when i rotate the model. I know there is a Light option, but it isn't changing anything.
- Exporting Object: when i export this:

I got this in PS (the mesh without the colors, maybe also without the material, I really can't tell, should try with some strange material so I could notice if there's any difference):

So to make it work I put the tiles in a layer on top of that in Color Dodge Mode, and erase everything, except for the elevations.

Ok. So again... thanks a lot for the idea!  
Even though I didn't finish with it and it took me the whole day, I'm really happy that I finally give a 3d program some consideration . The last time I downloaded Blender, I open it, created a sphere, look at it for a while and thought: nah, too complicated.

Tomorrow, I'll try Blender. Now it's too late, I don't even want to see that GUI again before going to sleep.
I just hope I'll have a dream in 2D.  

[EyeCraft]

Yeah I wouldn't try just working in ZBrush. I see it more as a detail program than a full 3d suite. My recommendation would be to sculpt in Zbrush, then export the mesh and import it into something like Blender or Max, and use that program to set up your lighting, camera and materials, then render an orthographic projection. Those programs will give you much more parameters for defining how large you want the render image to be, etc.

Then just open the render in photoshop and tweak and perfect it.  

[Jorund]

I end up doing everything in Blender, with the help of the file that G Dragon posted. Thanks again
This is what i got at the end: