Common Art - Week 11 - Initial Block Out - 'C' Stage

  

Tree V3

Because the previous tree version showed noticeable billboarding artifacts in dense clusters, this iteration focuses on mitigating the carded-leaf look.
The approach is straightforward: use the dot product between the original quad normal and the view vector—i.e., $\mathbf{N} \cdot \mathbf{V}$(equivalently, the angle between normal and view)—as a criterion to further cull/fade quads and reduce the artifact.

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In the prior version I had already replaced the normals in Houdini with spherical normals. For this pass I modified the model again by baking the original per-face normals into vertex colors, so the shader can access both; this ultimately reduces the carding effect.

Skybox

I also integrated a dynamic skybox system for the project. In addition, several existing materials were minimally adjusted so they correctly respond to the day–night cycle.

Terrain Textures

Using Substance Designer, I authored stylized Grass and Dirt textures and applied them to the terrain materials.(The showcased stylized grass texture was the stone-included variant, but I removed the stones because they caused noticeable repetition/tiling on the terrain)

P4V ScreenShot: