SketchBook: GhostDetector

GhostDetector

So I'm starting a Sketchbook because I wan't some outside opinion. Try not to be too harsh.

So I made some tiles and I just added the cavity and other maps on to the diffuse. The Cavity map was set to 27% Color Dodge. Wondering if that was okay.
The Top Right Tile, i added a glowing edge layer to it.
Since I wanted the 1x2 tile to be the for the wall. I copied the diffuse and specular map to each quarter of the 1x2 tile.

I also made the base texture and the specular map the same for each tile with exception of the 1x2 and just changed it with the cavity map.

Which one looks best?

I'm also thinking of scrapping the bottom left texture

rollin

hi there!

you have here a more or less grey texture with some rivets.

To be honest. They look all the same "quality". Not sure what you want to achieve..

If you want people to critic your work it's best to use something that can be held against some ref.. So if you want to learn texturing / material creation for environment choose some real world reference and try to rebuild it digitally.

Keep going!

GhostDetector

@rollin
Well they were just to look like tiles. I'm trying to design an environment using modular textures, so I thought that I'd just make one texture per tile design and just use vertex colors to change it around a bit.

So far with the current i made was to just look like tile pieces. To compare, you can either compare it to other games that use tiles predominantly, such as Portal.

GhostDetector

"you have here a more or less grey texture with some rivets. "

Can someone explain this to me? I was hoping to make a sterile type environment thinking that grey would be a good color. I added a shade blue in the specular though. I guess you can't see it unless you see the texture. But the lightsource in the image is pure white.

"To be honest. They look all the same "quality". Not sure what you want to achieve.."

What is meant by quality?

Where do I go from here?
I always thought that for maps I needed to make a diffuse, specular, and normal. Which is shown in the picture.

I guess I'll upload the diffuse/spec/normal here. Before I upload it. How would I do the overlay(to prevent people from stealing ). Would a watermark be better or should i just split each tile into 3 showing the diffuse, specular, and normal map at the same time?


I also forgot to mention that each tile square is only one face.

Any tips on what I should've done? Such as, whether or not people make multiple tiles and modulate that in their render.
I tried that one and it made my tiles seem identical.

Thanks for reading and your help!

GhostDetector

Here are the maps


The bottom left replaced the tile with 2 circles.
So these will be my templates for each tile I make.

Any Thoughts?

GhostDetector

I'm looking to color this but I'm kind of color stupid(I'm bad at coloring).
It's not that I don't know about color. It's just that I don't really have an eye for it.
See....


I know of mood, tone, color and that warm colors are bright and vibrant and cold colors are less saturated and blue.

Can anyone give me tips about color? Maybe reference me to a good link ?

If it's important, i am trying to make a sterile environment similar to the test chambers in Portal 2.
So the color scheme I'm thinking is blue and grey(gray).

rollin

heye there.. if you want to make a portal like env then I would suggest to block out the whole thing, models and textures, before you start to think about the color tone of your floor tiles

GhostDetector

rollin wrote: »

heye there.. if you want to make a portal like env then I would suggest to block out the whole thing, models and textures, before you start to think about the color tone of your floor tiles

That's what I was trying to do before you suggested to put color!

I'll probably do about 2-5 more tile sets:

• 1x4
• ...

and then I'll think about color.
Would the brightness of the tiles (Black, White, Gray) be around 15-20% difference?

For example, say the gray was 50%, the dark tile would be 30-35% brightness while white would be around 65-70%.

I'll test this later but I think I'll take a break from artsy stuff.
(I drew a ton of quick sketches of animals from here)

I don't really want to post it cause it'll make the thread look kind of weird.

GhostDetector

I refined the 1x2 and added 1x4.


The way I made this was that I used a normal map. Then I desaturated it making the base. Then I made a height map by changing changing the grout into a dark gray and the top part of the tiles into a light gray. I then used a cavity map and set it to screen this time. Finally for the texture I used the same texture I used for the other tiles.
The specular map is just the same but I changed the blending options so the specular overlay wouldn't be seen in dark areas(grout).

How did I do?

OXGears

sup, i'd suggest looking at the polycount wiki here to give you a bit of guidance. click around and see what suits you.

http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryEnvironmentModularity

GhostDetector

OXGears wrote: »

sup, i'd suggest looking at the polycount wiki here to give you a bit of guidance. click around and see what suits you.

http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryEnvironmentModularity

Thanks for the information. I took a look at a few of them already. Which do you recommend?

OXGears

the ones with polycount threads first. just to see if they have asked a question you might be mulling over, and probably have an answer for already. plus you can just hop over and ask a question without signing up somewhere else. that's what i'd suggest. also the viewcount on the sketchbook threads aren't as high as the others, so you might get faster feedback as well.

GhostDetector

I just made a map with my textures. I think I need some help in designs. I didn't really pay much attention to this because I think I need to change the ratio, maybe draw up some designs. Anyone know where I can learn about design?

Here are some screenshots. I'm probably going to re-do this with a template. So this was just to see how the texture looks.

The program used to render was Blender and I used a Normal, Diffuse, and Specular Map.

OXGears

design? have a theme or genre, references, and make some concept art pulling things relevant to what you're doing or want to do. hell, check out this.

GhostDetector

So I made a couple of level designs. I think that the environment looked bad with the tiles because it wasn't properly placed and it needed more attention and time to it. Quick question, where can I find references on scientific material? I've been trying to find crystal formations but the ones I find on an image search doesn't really fit what I'm thinking. I'm trying to find a Cone-Like formation. How do other people draw crystals? Or do they just draw rocks and color it differently?

OXGears

lol put on your researching hat and do some studies!

GhostDetector

Well I got kind of stuck on how to texture my tiles. I started over again!(see below)


I feel like it is too smooth.

So while I was stuck on that, I just drew some stuff. I think I still need more practice. Is there any exercise that you recommend?

Bridge Concept for level



Hands/Arm practice

Things I learned:
*drawing these are difficult.
*Middle Finger is the length of the palm
*thumb makes the hand(as in without it, the hand looks weird)
*Inner forearm, the opposite side of the elbow, are two muscles
*Bicep is in the inner of the arm(the place it bends on) and it ends right before the pit(opposite of the elbow)
*Triceps are 2 muscles
*Rotating the hand, changes shape of the muscles in forearm due to the bones rotating

Concept on some sort of platfrom(uses crystals)

I don't think I did as well as I hoped. I usually have trouble doing long flowing objects(like snakes, tails). And I didn't really know how crystals form(as in do the radiate from the center? or grow like a tree(straight up))

Practiced and understand making fins

I ran out of ideas.

Also, I drew these images small(Thumbnail size). Should I be drawing them bigger?

OXGears

yup too small. also i suggest looking at the wiki on this site, it is quite helpful.

OXGears

check these out.

GhostDetector

New drawings
I'm working on arms(last page is a bit blurry)
I think I'm getting better

Note: Each image sketch thing ranges between 1-3 inches.
first one is a bit blurry though.





Should I work on legs or torso next?

GhostDetector

For some reason the images shrink... I don't know why.

GhostDetector

So in the past few days, I've been drawing a penguin and decided I should just make a courier for dota2 or something. So I drew out some blue-prints and modeled the basic shapes in Blender and then did some not-so fine tuning on Sculptris. The first angle shots of the model is the one i have after the save. The second one was lost because I forgot to save .

Modeled:




Drew:






I still need to do some re-topology so I can rig it and texture it.

Any ideas on how to make the feathers?

Bummer6

Penguins do not have feathers...

GhostDetector

Penguins do have feathers. But their feathers are different. I wasn't talking about the wings. My question about the feathers isn't about how to model the feather, but how to put incorporate the feathers onto the model.

Any ideas or tips on how i can do this?

GhostDetector

So for the past week i was just re-topolgizing(around 5 times) the mesh and making some improvements. I also learned how to rigg (just the basics). So after I colored it it looks like this.


these are the polys 363 quads for a half (726) in total.



there are still some issues in the color due to the normal map being mirrored and causing a seam. But other than that i don't think any other mistake is noticable. I still need to put a texture to make it look like it has feathers. Coincidentally the AO map(from xNormal) baked a little weird and cause lines instead of noise, which in turn made it better for the mesh because now it looks like it has some feathers .

Can anyone explain to me how to make the feathers would look like? I'm planning to submit this in the dota 2 workshop later, so... dota2 style.

GhostDetector

I need some help.

I fixed the normal and the seams as best as I can, so then started to rig it. So when I rigged it (blender) the 2nd IK pulls the elbow resulting in stretching. I've noticed in many tutorials that the inner IK should be away from the mesh, but it just stretches the mesh. Can any tell me what I did wrong? Or should I just keep the IK right next to the elbow