Texture Advice needed

ThaSlimShady

Heya Polycount. Its been a good 3 years since i last been here. I've picked up where I left with texturing and I've gathered the courage to go and ask the masters. I've started texturing (just for fun) a unique Japanese styled AWP for CSGO. My initial intention here is to get a better workflow going and ofc. some in-depth texture c&c. Here's the album with some wips and progress shots and a small video I made a day back with the current progress. I know my normals are heavy, was testing things out

Album
http://sta.sh/2sv3uoicle9

Video
Some Progress: https://youtu.be/caJC1OfZ9QM

Ill post the maps when I get home. I should sort out my layers, too. Nearing 60 atm and Theyre all over the place.

Bummer6

The lighting is pretty terrible. Why did you choose to present it in almost complete darkness?

MisterSande

Bummer6 wrote: »

The lighting is pretty terrible. Why did you choose to present it in almost complete darkness?

a bit harsh and not very constructive.

A better question would be why you are showing us renderings from Crazybump instead of Marmoset (?). It would also help allot if you could show us your texture maps and explain us what your current workflow is.

I really digging the look you achieved so far though! definitely worth taking a step further.

ThaSlimShady

I dont have marmoset. Ive considered getting a few helpful meshviewers / 3d viewers at the time, but i dont have any of that. Fresh install, too, so I just used what I had for the time being.

Also yes, Ill expand more upon that tomorrow hopefully.

Rawbert

I really like the decoration idea, but the normal map right now is too noisy and blurry making the awp look blobby or is it just me?

proximity

Try Sketchfab its a free 3dmodel viewer, Its free and has good pbr shader. will make your presentation sky rocket no need to install software either

ThaSlimShady

proximity wrote: »

Try Sketchfab its a free 3dmodel viewer, Its free and has good pbr shader. will make your presentation sky rocket no need to install software either

Now this is an idea I like. Thanks! I'm going to clean up and post the maps in a sec

ThaSlimShady

So, like promised, here's the maps. Please mind, they're heavily WIP.
I want to flatten out the normals a bit because CrazyBump creates a
normal from a diffuse where as other 3D software would create a normal
from the high-poly model (thus resulting in smoother surfaces and such).

For my workflow, it's really all over the place. The problem is materials.

Example: I want the stock pattern with the dragon to "pop". I want to give
them a metallic feel / material. Achieving this material, however, is pretty
difficult for me. I've read loads of texture tutorials from around the net,
spend 1,5 years (literally every day) texturing and being active on NGHS.com
and trying to improve both my textures as workflow. The latter is still lacking.
My textures have become much more realistic, especially environmental textures
such as structures, foliage, skyboxes etc, but, in the weapons department I've
always had a little "question mark".

I have the following questions at practically all times when I am trying to make
a gun texture;

- How can I achieve this material? (mainly plastic / polymer / metal I'm bad with)
- How do I start and where do i start? (really, I go from one end to the other, trying to stitch things together)
- What does it need to have in order to look appealing? (making good use of all the 3 maps (normals / spec / diffuse)

For instance, with this AWP, I started out on the design. I got reference images,
searched other skins people made, looked at different styles of skins in my own
library (things like wear, reflectivity, corrosion / rust /wear etc. etc.) and
thought about if I could adapt a few of those things to my skin and so on. Then,
I just grabbed the UV, and, quite amateurishly, started zoning different parts
of the skin. I used a nice pink color to get everything that belonged to the body
in place for my base texture (the blue, done in crazybump as I didnt have any
other 3D software to view the model with at the time). Then, I proceeded with my
design and made it fit on the gun. From there, I started texturing individual parts
of the gun, like the mag, barrel, added in details and wear so the rest of the skin
wasn't all black and such.

But, how should I've went about this in the first place? Zone everything and make a
base for each part seperately and work on top of that? When I think about it, it does
sound way more efficient. Also, sorry if this is all over the place, my English isn't
at its best when it's night and I'm also sick.

Cheers, don't be afraid to leave loads and loads of C&C. I like reading replies anyway.

3dReaper

If you want to achieve the material you are going for I would advise you to look into the PBR workflow instead of DNS. You will be able to pull off your project goals much more realistically.

ThaSlimShady

3dReaper wrote: »

If you want to achieve the material you are going for I would advise you to look into the PBR workflow instead of DNS. You will be able to pull off your project goals much more realistically.

As in? I'm 0% familliar with PBR. Just found an article on Marmoset which I'm going to read, but some links would be welcome. Consider me a 'starting out' artist, as I've taken a 3 year break and I wasn't the best texture artist before said break

reckzilla

You're diffuse is fine it's your normal map and spec map that are really hurting you. You're normal map is too noisy in areas where it shouldn't and your normal map will influence the lighting of your surface and with it being noisy it hurts the reflectivity. so smooth out the normal map so that you are only getting information that rounds edges and defines details like bolts and surface changes. Your spec also should be adjusted you have this really wavy pattern on most of the surfaces and that pattern is more the pattern of sand rather than metal or paint, your paint is also very noisy. Remember simplicity is key only put what you have to.
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-conversion

Here the marmoset guys show how to take a previous gen asset and make it next gen, here they show their guna nd the textures for it and you'll see what I am talking about.

ddoan88

I agree with what everyone else here is saying about the normal maps and spec maps. If you haven't been sold about Marmoset yet I highly recommend it. It makes even your WIP renders look good. Unfortunately you just missed the 30% Sale but it is worth every penny. Keep at it and read up on the PBR stuff. Looks like the industry is threading in that direction.

ThaSlimShady

As much as I'd like to, seems like I'll first have to create a paypal account as I'm European.

But like you guys said, it looks like a huge improvement over my current assets. I'll consider it, because I'm not planning on becoming a full-fledged artist.

Teessider

I agree with the others in this thread too.

With your normal map, this tutorial springs to mind:

http://www.farfarer.com/temp/normalMapMiniTut.jpg


if you remove any trace of lighting in your diffuse/albedo map then that texture will be ready for Physically-based texturing (PBR).

Have a look at Unreal Engine 4's documentation on PBR texturing and of course Marmoset tutorials .

3dReaper

Here are some tutorials/explanations:

http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory

http://blogs.unity3d.com/2015/02/18/working-with-physically-based-shading-a-practical-approach/

https://www.allegorithmic.com/pbr-guide

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP7HgIMv4Qo[/ame]


This is a spot on explanation:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNwMJeWFr0U[/ame]


Polycount wiki:
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Texturing

ThaSlimShady

Thanks man!