that does look a lot better, still not happy with the texturing on the front side of the lid. it just looks like you threw a quick bit of paint onto it to make it the same colour insted of putting the same love into it as the rest of the asset, and looking at your unwrap there is a lot of wasted space =/ hope your planning on doing something about that
@Tokoya: Thanks for subscribing, and yeah, Ima sharpen all my textures from now on :P
@aghostdream:
Plant texture was just a block in by the way, I'll make it pretty at some point haha
@AzzaMat: I think what's missing from the front side of the lid is the grain, I'll make a note to myself to fix that. Also, that's not my final texture map. I'm gonna fill all that white space with other prop textures. I guess I could have used the same texture on each side of the box, but then I'd be lacking variety
Overall, the day has been pretty crappy. I've been rather uninspired and everything I paint looks like shit. I swear to god I painted the wood paneling on the house wall 5 times. I need a beer
I decided to paint some tiling textures, and it's just resulting in more frustration:
So I blocked in the grass and sand textures...and what the heck do I do now? I tried a version where I painted blades of grass in patches, similar to this: http://www.telekineticfrog.com/junks/grassTile01.jpg
but it looked bad when I added the plants on it. Any tips would be awesome
I think I might model the terrain in my scene next...
So that first pic is a horizontal tiling texture which I'll use for some random things, maybe a well, and also for detail on the lighthouse.
I'm calling the 2nd and 3rd row finished (the long flat ones), so if you'd like to critique them that would be awesome
(things I need to fix probably...more contrast and stronger highlights. )
Wow, I think your second and third rows look super sweet! Good damage variation. I think maybe you could add in some smaller surface detail here and there, like wear and pockmarks over the general flat area. Like in this pic. Also you repeated every other stone in the row, but I would probably make each one unique to reduce tiling. Awesome
Seeing the boxes beside the lighthouse looks a little strange, they both look great on their own but together I think the boxes are too bright compared to the lighthouse, however the plants seem fine to me. Or it might just be the super bright highlights on the edges of the boxes not being cohesive with the rest.
Looking mighty fine sir, On your brick tiling texture the top three rows are picture perfect. The forth row (Large bricks at the base of the tower.) The highlight/specular have very noticeable paint brush strokes. Which makes it look different compared to the top rows. The biggest thing that catches my eye is the two large bricks are copied twice over. Two different bricks is better than one brick repeated. I would like to see variation at the bottom. I do apologize if this information has been repeated.
This is looking legendary, I'll be sure to check in often to see your progression.
I think you need to fix your levels again, its what is causing that contrast between your crates and the tower
hope this helps, you should always level your textures. =D keep up the good work
I do agree with AzzaMat. Playing with your levels would really help the bricks match the crates and the rest of the scene. The painting looks so good though!
I think sharpening the crate was a bad idea, as is adjusting the levels. The crates look ridiculous because they are too sharp next to the building, The solution definitely isn't to sharpen the building either. The people giving you advice are thinking about the texture in too much of a pictorial sense. Your texture is not meant to be a pretty picture, it needs to sit well with everything else, and part of that is keeping the value range tight and letting color variation create interest. The lighting will push the value range later, doing it in the textures will diminish the final composition.
Where you want hard edges, paint them, because you surely don't want them everywhere. I think your stuff was looking better before most of the critiques. My main suggestion is to paint more volume into the texture, use some larger strokes and more shadow information to push the forms out, But still avoid super darks like you had been.
Have to agree with Laughing Bun. The texture on the crate is so sharp it cuts your eyes. The less extreme levels might also work better once you have lighting in the scene, as will having a bit less AO since there will be AO in the scene (or am I remembering wrong?). I'd say put some of your assets in a rough mock up scene and do a quick lighting pass just to see what your stuff looks like with lighting.
Making a texture look great in PS is one thing, if it doesn't look good when lit then it's back to the drawing board. One last thing; make sure you're consistent with your levels and contrasts. If you aren't careful you might end up with textures that are all over the place which will need a lot of individual correction later. On the other hand, if all your textures are more or less uniform then it's (hopefully) a matter of batch processing your textures if they need a bit more contrast or whatever.
I so agree with the above posts. The sharpening + level adjustment killed the subtleness and depth in the crates. You did such a fine job with the geo and textures first and then slapped that adjustment on. Now it looks like you're trying to bake in the "time of day"-engine lightning in to the textures. That's not the way to go IMO. Keep them textures looking a bit dull and flat in photoshop and keep your adjustments balanced and pegged to what the engine lightning will bring out of the textures.
*sigh of relief*
Thanks for all the advice everyone, my thoughts exactly on everything. In order for the bricks to match the crates, they would need to be sharpened. So thanks for mentioning that because it's something I totally missed! However, Laughing_Bun and urgaffel are right, and I've been feeling the same way about my textures. Side by side, the sharpened one obviously looks better, but when you have a large scene it's just going to become chaotic.
@dejavo: I am trying to bake the time of day in just a little bit - this scene is not using normal maps so a lot of the highlights and shadows are going to have to come from the texture. Should I tone the highlights and shadows down a bit?
The critiques have been great guys, really appreciate it
So here's an update..
Finished the brick texture. Personally, I like the way this looks and I am calling this the final texture (minus adjustments I'll be making once the scene is finished). So, critique away:
Jessica: Added pockmarks and history to the stones. I'm really liking the shallow dents in the bricks. I imagine pieces of it falling off like shale or something. Thoughts?
urgaffel, here's a rough mock up scene in udk. The terrain is in no way final :P
A few questions for you guys...
1.) How should I sort out the normals on the middle ring of bricks? It seems like it's a simple fix but when I soften them , they go all lumpy, and when I harden them, they are too hard.
2.) Dem clovers. The alphas are acting all weird and overlapping and making me mad. How fix?
So everyone's telling me to add normals to my textures, however I much prefer them without normals.
Here's a super quick UDK screenshot comparing both. I made a SUPER rough normal map (converted colour to B&W and then crazybumped. If I use normal maps, I'll obviously put work into them)
You're too popular, the bandwidth limit has been exceeded
Love the new stone brick texture though, the little pockmarks add character. Another thing you could keep in mind with your textures when you make them is the type of environment they're in. In this case, they're close to the sea so there will be wind and maybe sea spray and rain wearing them down. You're doing a good job of weathering them, just thinking if a tiny bit of moss here and there could help. Maybe as decals, maybe in the texture itself... Although if you add it to the texture the tiling might be a bit too obvious.
FUUUU I hate photobucket so much! Kills my quality AND is covered in ads AND has a dumb limit. What do people use? I don't have a site yet, and I don't wanna upload all my WIPs there. Right now I'm using devArt for all my larger images...I guess I'll just keep using that even though it's a bit of a process submitting.
Good idea with the moss, urgaffel! Our UDK teacher just showed us vertex painting in UDK so I might make a "stone w/ moss " texture and blend between it and the regular one
(going back to edit my recent posts with devart pics)
Been lurking for a while now, but didn't have anything constructive to add that wasn't already said by someone else.
As far as the normals go, I like both versions. The mapping makes the individual parts of the brick texture stand out really well, but if that isn't the look you want then I wouldn't use it. If you did use some normal maps, I'd say keep them relatively flat/subtle since the style is so cartoony having deep/tall maps might clash.
For the clovers, if the setting for the alpha material is anything like Unity (which it probably isn't) there might be a threshold slider/value you need to adjust so that it knows what should be "cut off" from the transparency effect.
Yeah, Darkmag07 is right. If you do use normal maps, don't have any high frequency detail in it. For the bricks, the most I'd use would be the brick shape and that's it. You don't really need all that extra normal detail imo. The diffuse takes care of that.
As for image hosts, I'd say dropbox but unfortunately it's blocked at work so I wouldn't be able to check your thread half as much as I'd like. What about imageshack/imgur?
Good tips guys; I decided that if I have time by the end of this, I'll put in some subtle normal maps.
Stayed at home sick today, so I didn't really get much done...
I worked out the sand and grass textures and tried out some vertex painting to see how they worked together. What do you think?
When I begin work on the actual landscape, I'll add proper edge loops on the paths and stuff so the blending doesn't 'leaf' me with so many transparent clovers :P
I think you should try using a texture to control blending, the clovers look like they are currently getting covered by the sand when they would be popping through it.
Today I worked on my simple gate locking mechanism. (yeah, it's a bit over the top for a simple lever, but I thought it would be fun to rig and it's a nice break from all the large objects. :P)
So, question:
How does that polycount look? This is going to be the only lock on the entire map. The nail heads I see can be two tris less each, so I'll fix that up when I start refining everything for UDK.
Next up, I'd like some critique on my grass and sand textures. They will basically cover all the horizontal areas of the terrain. I tried to keep them simple so they didn't overwhelm everything else. Do you think these can pass as done?
Thanks!
EDIT: Rather than bumping this thread I'll just post in this post.
Do you think once I have my town done, it will be consistent?
Not the final layout, or the final models. Needs lots of tweaking. The plan is to have 1-4 stories for each house. These are the pieces Im going to use for that. I'm thinking 10 houses maybe? There's going to be a chunk that are combined, like an apartment complex
Did the barrel today! I'm pretty happy with how the metal turned out. Way better than my first try. Also, did some texture work on the bucket and hanging basket, but still need to work on their metal. Critiques and comments welcome as per usual :P
I just noticed something silly; the nails on your crate don't line up with the mesh. Doesn't really matter but thought it was funny. Also, you could probably lower the amount of nails on the top piece of the crate, you have 4 a side.
I think your props look AMAZING xD, especially the barrel and buckets Sorry if it's been explained already, but are those your concepts? I like your terrain textures too, esp. the clover grass. I think it might be good if you made a second sand texture with more apparent pebbles in it, so you can dot parts of the path with more detail. Once you add foliage and rocks on top, it's gonna look great
Your houses kindof look like furniture to me, more like bureaus than buildings haha. I'm not sure what it is though, maybe once placed in the environment they will look more like buildings? Maybe add some more house-like elements such as chimneys and awnings? Keep it up, I love this thread.
@Jessica: Yup, concepts are all my own. Posted the link to the rest of them in above post ^
They're also on the first page, but photobucket has a limit or something so their gone for now. They aren't the greatest, but I really wanted to design all my own everything so that way I could call everything in the scene my own, seeing as I'm entering an industry where I'll probably never have that chance :P
Good idea with the sand texture, definitely putting that on my things to do list. I'll also make a dirt texture, which I can put between the sand and grass blends, and under the buildings.
I think the buildings look like furniture right now because of a few things. One, the curvy shapes on the roof and 2, there's nothing really there to compare the scale with. Awnings are a good idea, and would be fairly simple to make. I shall get on that.
Also, here's "The Chimney"
And I fixed the barrel so the seam wasn't so obvious. And added fish roe and fish to the texture.
And here's what my prop texture is looking like so far.
Ah, sorry I didn't see you posted the concepts links right before I posted ahaha. Great update - the roe and fish really make it!! and I love the chimney ^_^
That's loads better! One thing, add a border around your uv islands. The mipmapping will make the barrel have white artifacts at a distance. Having a white background isn't the best so having a colour closer to your props is good. Although since you have several different colours maybe just have general block of colour around the things that doesn't overlap...
Love the fish! Are you planning on adding spec/gloss or keeping it diffuse only? some tighter highlights could help define the wetness of the fish/roe
subbed!
I don't know if you did this on purpose on the fish, but every time you draw a face, there are specific types of expressions you always use. It's funny, I like it ! xD
I'm sure you won't have any problems making the fish and roe wet. It's you after all owo;;
Unfortunately I haven't worked on this in a very long time
I've been working on a realistic sci-fi scene and a robot instead...
I don't think I'll finish this as a town. Probably just display the props for my demo reel
However, I can always come back to it after I graduate which I think is what I will do.
I really like your textures and of course the concepts! What i think it's not great as the 2d work is the 3d when it comes to: silhouettes. Especially the tower stones have in the 3d model just a flat silhouette during the concept has a really stony one. That's what i general don't like at 3D
Replies
@aghostdream:
Plant texture was just a block in by the way, I'll make it pretty at some point haha
@AzzaMat: I think what's missing from the front side of the lid is the grain, I'll make a note to myself to fix that. Also, that's not my final texture map. I'm gonna fill all that white space with other prop textures. I guess I could have used the same texture on each side of the box, but then I'd be lacking variety
Overall, the day has been pretty crappy. I've been rather uninspired and everything I paint looks like shit. I swear to god I painted the wood paneling on the house wall 5 times. I need a beer
I decided to paint some tiling textures, and it's just resulting in more frustration:
So I blocked in the grass and sand textures...and what the heck do I do now? I tried a version where I painted blades of grass in patches, similar to this: http://www.telekineticfrog.com/junks/grassTile01.jpg
but it looked bad when I added the plants on it. Any tips would be awesome
I think I might model the terrain in my scene next...
So that first pic is a horizontal tiling texture which I'll use for some random things, maybe a well, and also for detail on the lighthouse.
I'm calling the 2nd and 3rd row finished (the long flat ones), so if you'd like to critique them that would be awesome
(things I need to fix probably...more contrast and stronger highlights. )
Larry1, why are spambots never sentence know how to?
This is looking legendary, I'll be sure to check in often to see your progression.
hope this helps, you should always level your textures. =D keep up the good work
Where you want hard edges, paint them, because you surely don't want them everywhere. I think your stuff was looking better before most of the critiques. My main suggestion is to paint more volume into the texture, use some larger strokes and more shadow information to push the forms out, But still avoid super darks like you had been.
Making a texture look great in PS is one thing, if it doesn't look good when lit then it's back to the drawing board. One last thing; make sure you're consistent with your levels and contrasts. If you aren't careful you might end up with textures that are all over the place which will need a lot of individual correction later. On the other hand, if all your textures are more or less uniform then it's (hopefully) a matter of batch processing your textures if they need a bit more contrast or whatever.
So go for the less sharp, more subtle approach imo
Thanks for all the advice everyone, my thoughts exactly on everything. In order for the bricks to match the crates, they would need to be sharpened. So thanks for mentioning that because it's something I totally missed! However, Laughing_Bun and urgaffel are right, and I've been feeling the same way about my textures. Side by side, the sharpened one obviously looks better, but when you have a large scene it's just going to become chaotic.
@dejavo: I am trying to bake the time of day in just a little bit - this scene is not using normal maps so a lot of the highlights and shadows are going to have to come from the texture. Should I tone the highlights and shadows down a bit?
The critiques have been great guys, really appreciate it
So here's an update..
Finished the brick texture. Personally, I like the way this looks and I am calling this the final texture (minus adjustments I'll be making once the scene is finished). So, critique away:
Jessica: Added pockmarks and history to the stones. I'm really liking the shallow dents in the bricks. I imagine pieces of it falling off like shale or something. Thoughts?
urgaffel, here's a rough mock up scene in udk. The terrain is in no way final :P
A few questions for you guys...
1.) How should I sort out the normals on the middle ring of bricks? It seems like it's a simple fix but when I soften them , they go all lumpy, and when I harden them, they are too hard.
2.) Dem clovers. The alphas are acting all weird and overlapping and making me mad. How fix?
Here's a super quick UDK screenshot comparing both. I made a SUPER rough normal map (converted colour to B&W and then crazybumped. If I use normal maps, I'll obviously put work into them)
Love the new stone brick texture though, the little pockmarks add character. Another thing you could keep in mind with your textures when you make them is the type of environment they're in. In this case, they're close to the sea so there will be wind and maybe sea spray and rain wearing them down. You're doing a good job of weathering them, just thinking if a tiny bit of moss here and there could help. Maybe as decals, maybe in the texture itself... Although if you add it to the texture the tiling might be a bit too obvious.
Good idea with the moss, urgaffel! Our UDK teacher just showed us vertex painting in UDK so I might make a "stone w/ moss " texture and blend between it and the regular one
(going back to edit my recent posts with devart pics)
As far as the normals go, I like both versions. The mapping makes the individual parts of the brick texture stand out really well, but if that isn't the look you want then I wouldn't use it. If you did use some normal maps, I'd say keep them relatively flat/subtle since the style is so cartoony having deep/tall maps might clash.
For the clovers, if the setting for the alpha material is anything like Unity (which it probably isn't) there might be a threshold slider/value you need to adjust so that it knows what should be "cut off" from the transparency effect.
As for image hosts, I'd say dropbox but unfortunately it's blocked at work so I wouldn't be able to check your thread half as much as I'd like. What about imageshack/imgur?
Stayed at home sick today, so I didn't really get much done...
I worked out the sand and grass textures and tried out some vertex painting to see how they worked together. What do you think?
When I begin work on the actual landscape, I'll add proper edge loops on the paths and stuff so the blending doesn't 'leaf' me with so many transparent clovers :P
Check this tutorial out for vertex painting with an alpha. Really well explained.
Today I worked on my simple gate locking mechanism. (yeah, it's a bit over the top for a simple lever, but I thought it would be fun to rig and it's a nice break from all the large objects. :P)
So, question:
How does that polycount look? This is going to be the only lock on the entire map. The nail heads I see can be two tris less each, so I'll fix that up when I start refining everything for UDK.
Next up, I'd like some critique on my grass and sand textures. They will basically cover all the horizontal areas of the terrain. I tried to keep them simple so they didn't overwhelm everything else. Do you think these can pass as done?
Thanks!
EDIT: Rather than bumping this thread I'll just post in this post.
Do you think once I have my town done, it will be consistent?
Not the final layout, or the final models. Needs lots of tweaking. The plan is to have 1-4 stories for each house. These are the pieces Im going to use for that. I'm thinking 10 houses maybe? There's going to be a chunk that are combined, like an apartment complex
@urgaffel, yeah, I noticed that too. How does this look?
Your houses kindof look like furniture to me, more like bureaus than buildings haha. I'm not sure what it is though, maybe once placed in the environment they will look more like buildings? Maybe add some more house-like elements such as chimneys and awnings? Keep it up, I love this thread.
@Jessica: Yup, concepts are all my own. Posted the link to the rest of them in above post ^
They're also on the first page, but photobucket has a limit or something so their gone for now. They aren't the greatest, but I really wanted to design all my own everything so that way I could call everything in the scene my own, seeing as I'm entering an industry where I'll probably never have that chance :P
Good idea with the sand texture, definitely putting that on my things to do list. I'll also make a dirt texture, which I can put between the sand and grass blends, and under the buildings.
I think the buildings look like furniture right now because of a few things. One, the curvy shapes on the roof and 2, there's nothing really there to compare the scale with. Awnings are a good idea, and would be fairly simple to make. I shall get on that.
Also, here's "The Chimney"
And I fixed the barrel so the seam wasn't so obvious. And added fish roe and fish to the texture.
And here's what my prop texture is looking like so far.
subbed!
I'm sure you won't have any problems making the fish and roe wet. It's you after all owo;;
I've been working on a realistic sci-fi scene and a robot instead...
I don't think I'll finish this as a town. Probably just display the props for my demo reel
However, I can always come back to it after I graduate which I think is what I will do.
Also, I use Google Sites.