WIP - Hand Painted Texturing
Hello fellow polycounters! This is my frst real thread. I'm Dev, an aspiring texture artist. I've recently started working on some hand painted textures inspired by those found in World of Warcraft and Torchlight. I'll be posting my progress here and would really appreciate your crits and comments. 
First up, a collection of brick textures I've created over the past few weeks. I ran into a few bumps trying to keep things simple. Who knew that'd be so hard?
Next, one of my more recent works. - WIP
Keep an eye out for future updates!
First up, a collection of brick textures I've created over the past few weeks. I ran into a few bumps trying to keep things simple. Who knew that'd be so hard?
Next, one of my more recent works. - WIP
Keep an eye out for future updates!
Replies
The first two might have too much painted in lighting. The highlights really stand out and might cause problems for lighting levels?
Thanks, much appreciated! The 2nd to last stone texture was actually my first attempt all together. I thought it was too detailed and tried to step back to something more simple (The first two for example).
I agree about the highlights. I made the mistake (wont happen again) of not working from reference and really fudged a lot there. I really need to start importing these into a game engine to see if there will be lighting issues. That's definitely something I want to improve on. Thanks again!
Thanks, those are great suggestions! Will do.
The new wood is a great improvement. Note that I'm not so much qualified to give respectable feedback, but when I was looking at the new wood texture I couldn't help but think: When the boards end and another begins, you can see the inside edges on both of the planks. If you were looking DOWN on a floor that looked like this, it would mean that the edges of the boards were shaved inwards for both ends to be showing like that. It would make more sense to me if they were flush with each other, or more flush than they are here.
...I hope that makes sense? Definitely looking more like wood now, though!
I mean, if it was for a floor you'd have gaps between every wooden tile which would be uncomfortable to walk on. But maybe that's not the way it's intended to be used.
I also like the look of the last ones in your first picture, very modern and tidy looking.
I'm glad I posted the texture at the stage it is now. My main concern is that I'm over complicating things and getting caught up in the details. I have no problem taking a step back for things to improve. Hell, I'll start from scratch again if need be. To be honest, I'd be thrilled to reach the same quality as the wood found in Rhinokey's image below.
Any pointers? I'll keep at it! I'm seriously writing these comments down.
P/s - Rhinokey, lemme know if I should remove that pic. Hope I'm not stepping on any toes.
/cracks open Photoshop
while there is probably too much color variation here to make a good, small tiling texture, its a cool image to look at to see the age and variation in the surface.
this one pushes a bit more chunky destruction and splinters, i think it shows a bit more "wood" (huh huh) while staying a consistent color.
also:
some good points of reference there to try to push the wood further.
in step 3 when i say smrear i didnt mean smear with the smudge tool its just a brush, whole project was done with one square brush i notice now that teh second hue sat hardly changed it at all oh well seemed like more this morn,, in fact i think i liked it better without that hue change at the end..
I'll add that while the boards fit together nicely vertically the horizontal gaps look a lot like stone bevels, wide at the top but meets at the bottom.
So gaps a bit more like this:
Also there isn't a pronounced wood grain in these end cuts which sends a "this is stone" signal to the viewer but if you close the gaps you don't have to worry about that I guess...
rember cracks in wood unless its a knotch made by a foreign object usualy run along with the grain of the wood, so will be almost straight with the grain.
on this here i laso selected some paterns in the wood, copied to a new layer an hue sat them to get the darker grain patterns, along with some just old fashioned painting its loose an sloppy (insert mom joke) but i think it gets the idea across, also ene pieces need grain and rings
Rhinokey: Thanks for the awesome tutorial and paint over! The point about the cracks running along the grain really makes sense. The lasso + Hue/Sat trick is pretty nifty as well. Much appreciated!
Vig: Thanks for the paint over! It's clear from your example that the gaps between the boards need to go. If you asked me now, I couldn't tell you what I was thinking. I've got to get my mind out of stone painting mode. Thanks a ton!
DarthNater - Will do, thanks!
I'm going to sit down this weekend with all the great feedback and see what happens. Thanks again guys!
*Edit - Woo I'm a Vertex!*
and wood is a fantastic medium for putting all sorts of subtle shades in. go crazy with your color picker!
oh, Vig is right, but Vig, he could use just a bit of the gaps instead of closing it all, a bit of randomness maybe?
current image 25% size
this one i moved the middle right board down.
Bugo: I'd love to somehow work some gaps and randomness in. For now tho, I'm going to try and focus on basic readability and tearing myself away from making things look like stone. Thanks!
Cowboyorange: Good point. I actually noticed that last night. I'm pretty sure I'm going to start from scratch based on the new feedback. Each attempt is great practice and I think it'll be interesting in the end to have a collage showing the progression. I'll definitely address the tiling issue when I get started. Many thanks!
I'm feeling a lot better about this attempt but there's still a lot to be done. Mainly, I'd like to work in some better highlights and maybe some more interesting knots and scratches. That aside, here's what it looks like tiled..
C&C welcome as always. Thanks for all the help so far!
tho your creases may bee too black, bring that back to a dark red brown an you are golden
Vig: Thanks man! :poly136:
Rhinokey: Thank you for the kind words. Very motivating!
I agree about the creases. I kept telling myself that I needed to push the contrast and went too far. Definitely on the top of my fix list. /notes
HOWEVER
i think you're losing some of the flavor and softness your orginals had. Try pulling the ammount of pure black you're using back, and put a little more bouce & ambient light in there.
The details sing a lot more now, thats for sure, but i think its "lost that lovin feelin" the original had (despite not looking quite as much like wood as it does now!)
chaosquack: Thanks!
moose: Much appreciated man! You've been a great help. I agree 100%. The flavor / soft texture is what I'm really shooting for. However, I keep falling back on my own personal style (many brush strokes) when I run into something I don't understand. It's funny how keeping things simple can be so complex. On the upside, I feel I've learned a lot this round and should be able maintain the flavor / soft look better on the next go. Thanks again!
Another quick update. As suggested, I tried to pull some of the black out from between the planks. However, it's hard to tell the difference after I touched up the highlights. See below..
What do you guys think? I'm pretty eager to work on the next attempt. Thanks again for all the help!
I like some hard black in there because it really seperates the planks. With only dark brown in there they fuse a little bit.
Maybe just put 25-35% more black back into it. Or maybe not.
But the highlights look great.
when selecting your dark colors for shading, try to always move the color picker down and to the right to keep good saturation in the color and it does not always have to be even the same color, sometimes you can shade with a completely diferent color depending on the look you want
the only thing I would say is the insides look a bit 'wavey', versus having any structure in the form of the wood/knots:
http://imagedir.org/Textures/wood-planks-texture.jpg
http://www.depesz.com/wp-content/uploads/Image/wallpapers-2007-01-13/old_wood_planks.jpg
http://www.eagleeyesigns.com/images/wood2.gif
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3215/2598356969_8b6466ff49_o.jpg
but maybe it's the type of wood.
great progress!
bounchfx: Thanks! I agree about the 'wavey' look and plan to focus more on knots and such on my next texture. As it is now, I'm thrilled to have things not looking like stone. I also think the overall look really depends on what type of wood you're going for an how it was cut. For example, the first reference you linked has some nice grain but looks like it was cut at Lowes. I do however like how it has both horizontal and vertical texture to it. If I had to, I'd say I'm going for something around the third image. Either way, I need A LOT more practice. I really appreciate the help man!
Sorry if it seems like I would be high jacking your thread, but i read rhino's tut (thank you very much sir!), i had to make a quick trial to see if i was getting the hang of the overall flow...
It sucks of course, but i think if i actually sat down to work on one it wouldn't turn out so bad...
Brilliant stuff though mate, this thread is a real inspiration for me to keep working on my hand painted works...
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=67978&page=2
There's also a cool guy named Nickity from the Torchlight forums who's created a similar tutorial but for ice. That link is..
http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=2838&start=40
Hope they help!
About your image and this hijacking business...don't worry about it!
There's also (as you have no doubt seen) a lot of other experienced people here in this community. If there's anything I would suggest, I'd definitely look into creating a post dedicated to your personal progress and get busy. Even if it's just in the form of a sketch book. Anywho! I'm very happy to hear you find this thread inspirational. Thanks!
*Status Update* I in all my epicness just realized that there's a world outside of my room and that Christmas is indeed a few days away. I've got to get out there and buy some presents! Oops! Might be a few days before I can post a real update. Keep an eye out tho!