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Grass Texture - Hand Painted

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Jakob Gavelli interpolator
Heya!

Been working on this for the past two days, the infamous grass texture!

It's mostly unique with some repeating elements to speed up the process, painting grass straws is really fricken boring.

I'm at a bit of a loss, in hindsight I wish I painted in stronger shadows and I'm reluctant to go filter crazy on it, it oftens ends up looking like plastic when I do.

I'd love some pointers as to how to improve the texture and where I went wrong.

Tiled 2x2 :
CgvanhWl.png
EDIT:
Without tiling:
IlSKI08l.png

Replies

  • Stockwell
    Nice details, but it is far too flat, i really had to lean forward to see anymore than a blob of greens and some brown. Getting up close I like it, but you should see what this would look like with far more contrast.
  • Jakob Gavelli
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    Jakob Gavelli interpolator
    @Stockwell : Yeah, I totally agree. I just don't know quite how to remedy the situation without starting over. I'll add the texture without tiling aswell, just for the record.
  • Needles
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    Needles polycounter lvl 19
    Quick play around with curves in Photoshop hope you dont mind.

    uJ0DviW.png
  • Stockwell
    Too much contrast, but the right idea i think, I think i would just add a brighter pass of highlights on the blades of grass.
  • Needles
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    Needles polycounter lvl 19
    Yeah Just a proof of concept lol xD
  • Havoc89
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    Havoc89 polycounter lvl 11
    Looks cool. Personally I disagree with increasing contrast. I've worked on a couple of hand painted stylized games as an environment artist, and you really don't want to have contrast in your textures. Doing so will generate far too much noise. You ideally want your lighting and special effects to handle contrast. The way you have it now is perfect for working with.
  • Grindigo
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    Grindigo polycounter lvl 6
    Needles wrote: »
    Quick play around with curves in Photoshop hope you dont mind.

    http://i.imgur.com/uJ0DviW.png

    That's way worse.


    I'd advise to darken the shadows, either by correcting using levels or painting in some areas then add more glossiness on the leaves to bring them out more, contrast will balance itself out as long as you change some hue and add the gloss highlights, paint on another layer any changes further on you make, also it might be mine personal preference but keeping it not so crazily contrasted should let you play more with lighting in game engine without making an eye sore.
  • Jeff Parrott
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    Jeff Parrott polycounter lvl 19
    I did a video of one way to do a grass texture fast. It's not the only way. Just a way I do it sometimes. It's nice to paint a few giant blades of grass with generic lighting info and then rotate, scale, etc around.

    [ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lV-8IGSyrk[/ame]


    I think right now your texture is just painted with too small of a brush. Practice that. Honestly I'm never a giant fan of this type of grass texture (even the one I did) it's like someone put plexiglass on grass and took a picture. It just reads as really flat to me.
  • Jakob Gavelli
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    Jakob Gavelli interpolator
    @Needles: Although harsh, it did get the point across. Comparing it to the original really made the values look washed out.

    @Havoc89: I see where you're coming from, I did some comparisons when it comes to values with some other grass textures from WoW and similar games, and mine lacks constrast in comparison. Not by as much as I'd think though.

    @Grindigo: I agree and I think I've done the proper adjustments. You get so used to looking at it though that it may still not be enough.

    @Jeff Parrott: Grass is something so common and yet so hard, for me atleast. I've tried the Allods way of creating grass meshes and rendering them out, your way of photoshoping it up and lastly now trying to just roll up my sleeves and go full purist mode on it.

    I think I ultimately got carried away and some minor perpective issues renders the whole thing flat. Maybe if I had more patience I would've spent more time on it before trying to copy some lumps of grass around etc.

    Thanks for taking your time to reply and give me pointers!

    I'm not quite out of the woods yet. Here's my attempt of salvaging the situation, I don't know. When adjusting values I always thinks it just looks like plastic :
    ntPsUDTl.png
  • Third
    I think the biggest issue with the grass texture right now is the strong direction painted into it. It's drawn from a 3/4 perspective with a clear 'up' and 'down' with how the leaves bend through gravity. Unless the texture will only ever be seen in that orientation, try painting a more strict top-down perspective.

    Quick example of a different viewpoint made in Paint.NET:
    dczXeQ8.jpg
  • Grindigo
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    Grindigo polycounter lvl 6
    I wouldn't worry about strong direction in texture if you are going to cover it up with grass sprites and use it on the hills to give it a flow, but that's one case scenario, you want to have pretty good grass that goes in different directions and is reusable, good examples I tried to find.

    GN_GrassE.jpg

    grassTile01.jpg
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