Skinning realistic gold

Valandar

Okay, I'm working on an axe for the Game-Artist challenge, and have come to a realization: I'm not exactly certain how to texture realistic gold.

Would I simply use the same techniques I'd use on steel, but with a slightly desaturated yellow-orange hue? Or what?

dejawolf

here's a nice page, might give you a few ideas:

http://theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Elements/079/index.s7.html

it pretty much depends on the purity of the gold.
gold with silver in it will have a less yellow tone, and such.

Rick Stirling

It's all about the shininess and reflection.

Quick answer - bung a reflection map on it as well as a specular.

CheeseOnToast

Here's a quick and dirty example I made just using flat colours in Maya's hypershade, to give you an idea.


If the engine you are aiming for also has the option for a gloss map, make it quite dark to give you a fairly broad specular highlight, or it might end up looking more like plastic than metal. Some playing around is always necessary, but hopefully this gives you a decent starting point.

MoP

Gold tends to reflect a lot, so if you're just painting a diffuse map (no specular), you should probably make the base colour quite dark, desaturated brown/yellow (as CheeseOnToast shows above), then paint a fairly wide highlight with a quite saturated yellow/orange midtone, then pick out some sharper spots with white. I find that using the Dodge tool set to "Highlights" mode gives a nice saturated ring around the highlight, which is what I think helps define the material.

aniceto

The reflection seems to help a bunch.
I made this with an orange tinted reflection map and a bright specular, didn't touch the diffuse.


used this pic from Dejawolf's link as ref
http://theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Samples/079.4/index.s12.html

Rhinokey

a lot of times i like to just play around with difrent color specs,, i know ona few pieces at work i got a decent look using a more purple hue spec,

Valandar

Okay. This is for the challenge at Game-Art.net to make a Medeival weapon at under 250 polys, with 512x textures. So basically make the Normal map, give the Diffuse maybe a muted Khaki, and the spec map a nice orangey yellow... I'll probably also bung on a fake reflmap in the diffuse, but somewhat muted, and see how it ends up looking.

CheeseOnToast

Please show us how it turns out

Aniceto- that looks great with the reflection map, especially the less saturated one.

Rick Stirling

250 polys and a 512 texture? Mental.

Vitor

Yes, i'm surprised that it isn't following the next gen specs rules... wasn't 2*2048*2048 old news already?

But very nice references, gold is crap to make it look decent on a non-normal maped model already.

Rick Stirling

Was thinking a 512 was overkill for 250 polygons.

Vitor

Was trying to sound that 512 was small for 250 polys...
Damn internet with the sarcasm.

(just to clear it out, i agree with you, perhaps a 128 would be the most correct i think )

Pedro Amorim

ahaha

interweb blows to make sarcasm!

coldwolf

Hah! That's what smileys are for

Regarding metallic textures, is a spec map different from a gloss map? If so, how do I create a gloss map? I always thought the two were synonymous...

EarthQuake

Yes quite different, glossyness is the "size" or "falloff" or "sharpness" of the specular highlight, where spec maps control the value.

[edit] also spec maps should be 24 bit if your engine can handle it, whereas a glossmap has no need to be more than 8 bit. So you really could just put a gloss map in the spec map's alpha channel.

coldwolf

Thanks!

Crap. So many maps...

Do you know where I can find examples of gloss maps versus spec... and come to think of it, emissive as well. Google isn't being very kind to my queries

EarthQuake

emissive is just a glow/illumination map, to see what a gloss map would control just load up max or whatever, add a material and mess with the gloss settings, its not that complicated. With most engines you would just set this as a value in the material, and not use an actual texture for it.

coldwolf

Oh good, I thought I'd have to learn to generate Yet Another Map. I'll be sure to funmble around max materials a bit more.
Thanks EarthQuake, you rock.