To begin I looked at what type of floors are seen in forges and what sort floors look like in World of Warcraft, below are the references I gathered
.
I also gathered videos on materials similar to the look I wanted below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqHo-rwkz3M&ab_channel=3dEx
https://youtu.be/zu9tq1P_Q9M
Material Features
I attempted a few different patterns using the random brick node in designer, I was not fond of this, so I decided to create a cell like pattern using a tile sampler> histogram scan> distance node the histogram scan emphasizes the lights and darks on the tile sampler which is then blown up by the distance node making a a random rocky formation.
This helped create the pattern I wanted. A major feature of this material is that I blended a second rock layer beneath this to allow for variants while texturing. How it works is a histogram scan connected to a flood fill node isolates a rock in the pattern and reduces the visibilty of said rock revealing the alternate smaller rock pattern beneath making it seem damaged, I made a damaged version and an undamaged variant for the group to use where they see fit.
I beveled the pattern and applied slope blurs multiple times, this creates an uneven appearance making the material look uneven. I also blended a cloud map onto the rock to make the surface uneven along with the edges.
I made tiles uneven to one another however decided to tone this down majorly as tesselating a material with that much height info would be intensive on the scene.
I designed the rocks to match the colour scheme picked by our group using blues and reds below.
Lastly I added some stones using the polygon node to help sell the idea the material is meant for floors.
I was quite pleased with this material and decided to upload it to my portfolio after rendering out a turntable in artstation below:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/G88x03
Wall Material
The wall material is very generic, it serves to contrast with the floor and initially I chose a darker color scheme matching the colour scheme picked by the group. I felt this did not look like a brick wall and I was criticised for it looking like a floor. Below is the result:
I decided to brighten the material up and increase the scale of the bricks, this helped make the wall stand out and feel less complex so it wouldn’t distract from the scene as intended. I had a major issue creating the layered effect with the larger line of bricks, I couldnt figure out how I blend it into the rest of the bricks and finally decided to cut out a section on the thinner bricks and overlay the larger bricks by using another histogram scan>gradient. The end result is below:
