One of the main things to have realistic final renders is realistic models. Saying this is easier then actually doing it though. Creating 3d models can be a tedious work, that requires time and expertise. And usually this means that you need to either approach it with traditional modeling, or photogrammetry. Both of these approaches have their Pros and Cons. The traditional modeling is good but you can’t really get everything to be 100% realistic. The photogrammetry approach will get you a 100% true representation but will require a lot of extra gear like cameras and software. Well this is where today’s post comes in as it covers a third option that will try and get the best of the two worlds.
What is this thing you are talking about ?
This is done with a product from the guys over at Ubiquity6. What i’m talking about is an APP for your phone called DisplayLand. The way that this APP works is almost like magic, well technical magic so to speak. Basically once you get the APP for you phone ( Android and Apple ) you basically have a scanner in your hand. All you have to do when you download the APP is just choose an object that you would like to scan, take a short video of it and that’s all. The main difference with regular photogrammetry is that you don’t need to spend time taking 100+ images. The way it works is by taking a short 20-30 sec video of the item you want to scan. But this is just the beginning in all honesty. What happens from here is where the fun begins.
Sounds fun, tell me more ..
Once we do our scan, what we can do from there is take the data and make it into a usable model. Since there are a few steps in this process and some of it has a few tweaks i decided to cover it with a video tutorial. To make it even simpler i decided to split it into two parts. In the first part we will see how to get the APP, and how to do a scan. Then we will go over the downloaded file and get it into 3ds Max. From there we will simplify it, unwrap it and prepare it for baking. So if this sounds interesting so far, check out the first video below.
Now going into the second video we will see how to bake the textures from the scan to the model we made. We will use a free program for this called Xnormals. From there we will go into Substance Painter and prepare the rest of the maps for the material. And last we will get the model into UE4 and create a material to go with it. So you can see how all of this looks in the video below.
Anything Else ?
As far as the technical portion of this video goes, this about covers it all. As a closing statement i would like to add that i actually had fun creating this video. And i can tell you from personal experience that doing it requires minimal effort and the results are great. So next time when you are on location at a client, grab your phone and take a few scans of certain objects they may have and surprise them in the end. Another thing you could also do is take a few scans while on a hike, and then use those models for your scenes as fill assets.
All i am saying is, get the APP and have some fun with it 🙂
Anyways, hope you guys had fun with these videos and as always managed to learn something new. If you enjoyed the video help share it around so it can reach other people that might like it. With that being said, keep learning and i will see you all in the next post.