Next update is done! I have the second bark type sculpted and painted. I’ll show some other kinds of peeled bark when the other aspen trees are done. I also have the trunk in the game with the method of mixing the barks all figured out. I’m using a combination of the vertex groups and an image texture to do the masking. I think there are a couple things I’ll change in the sculpts, but at least everything is in there and working. I’ll update the download files later when I have a few more things done.
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One thing I wanted to share that I thought could help somebody else, and I thought was pretty cool at least, is I figured out a way to be able to create two masking images in just one image channel. So with an image that has an alpha channel, I would be able to get a total of 8 masks instead of the normal 4. The way it’s done is by first filling the channel with a solid color that will be 50% grey when it’s used as a mask. This will split the image into two images. Just as a note, I guess probably something to do with color space, but in Krita, I had to use a luminance value of 25 instead of 50 to get a result of 50% when the channel is used as a mask in Unreal. Then you just use a value that’s above 50% grey for one mask, and below 50% grey for the other mask. You can see it below, but when in the editor, just subtract .5 which will make the grey and anything under it a value of 0 and anything above it 0 to .5. After this, clamp the values to cutoff what’s below 0, then multiply by 2, and voila the texture will be a value between 0 and 1. To use the other mask, you just invert the texture first, then follow the same steps. It wouldn’t work for everything because you basically have half the amount of histogram color values, but for using it as a mix between two different textures like I’m doing, I haven’t been able to tell any difference. It would also work well for blending things with vertex colors, since you could go beyond the 4 vertex color slots.
I’ve also been working on implementing all of the sun and moon calculations in Kleiner Bear’s complex day/night cycle seen here: null - YouTube When I’m done with that I’ll add a way to make it so the user can rotate the game’s compass to be able to change where the sun rises, change how long the day is, and make a way to change what latitude the environment is at, making for some interesting and varied sun rotations, like at the polar circle. It will also be nice that the lighting will be changing throughout the year instead of just the same lighting every day. I’m also planning on trying to implement a way for seasonal changes to occur with the vegetation depending on which season it is. I already have some ideas for doing that, but I’ll have to see how it goes.