Texture - Generic Rock to Black Rock

Ace-Angel

Hey to all,

I was wondering if anyone had tips on how I could convert some 'generic' texture rocks into a more of a 'black' rock approach.

The reason I'm asking this because I have some rocks textured, which have all those fancy effects you kids ask out rocks nowadays, such as Edges which are worn and highlighted, the Dents oxidized and darker in hue with the occasional splash of green for algae like effect.

The base color is 'grey' of my rock, it's all in one flat with the other effects I just mentioned.

Is there an simple way for me to make this rock appear 'black' in PS? Any advice or tips, other then it's very glossy/wet like most black rocks appear to be?

ZacD

There's a lot of black rocks, do you want it to look like obsidian? It has a very specific normal map look it needs, and it needs a tight and bright specular, you could probably get away with a pure black diffuse if everything else looks right.

Ace-Angel

Oh yes, I know that to be the case, I'm more or less talking about the highlights around the edges and oxidation in the dents, and how I would go around in keeping said effects properly for a texture, say from a photo.

Black/darkened diffuse sounds good, but it ends up usually killing the details of said 'effects', or making it look outright tacky.

Example of an image:


I would like to keep the edge erosion and internal oxidation, but no matter what I do, it ends up looking real cheap and tacky.

Cheers!

commander_keen

You should just be able to do some adjustments and stuff. Heres a quick example:


If you want it to look like a much different type of rock then you could try mixing a couple rocks together or find something that is more along the lines of what you want.

If you want some more localized things like moss you can just find some photo source of that, process it in a similar way, then copy it around where you want it and mask it with a mask derived from the rock texture along with hand painted mask, and maybe play with some blending modes and edging (for example a sort of drop shadow to simulate AO and make it feel more connected).

Ace-Angel

Cheers Keen, your outline should help me get started!

S_ource

I also did want to give it a quick try

Scruples

The dirt covering the rock shouldn't be getting any darker.
Quick google search for obsidian brought this up.

I think I may have gone overboard to the point where it appears as though a bird has taken liberty with it

Ace-Angel

Source, that actually looks very stylized, gonna have to give that a try sometime!

Hey scruples, mind telling me how you achieved said effect? It looks pretty close to what I might want to achieve with another project!

teaandcigarettes

Ace: Not sure if that's how Scruples did it, but you could try using the Blend If feature. http://www.cgtextures.com/content.php?action=tutorial&name=blendif

You will simply need two layers, one would be your base rock and the second one would be your dirt texture. Then, go to the Blend If setting of your dirt and adjust the sliders of the "Underlaying Layer" until dirt covers the darker areas. If you press the alt button and click on one of the sliders, you can adjust the falloff.

The problem with using this method is that the mask of your dirt texture will rely on the levels of the layer below it. But, you can "collapse" your dirt layer by duplicating it and then merging it with the layer below.

Another way is to use a color range selection on your rock texture and then making a mask out of it. I don't like this method so much, since I find Blend If to be more flexible.

In any case, after you're done with adding your dirt, you can darken your rock texture and make it almost totally black. That should give you the result you're aiming for.

Ace-Angel

Cheers Tea, that looks interesting,will give it a try!