Texturing a column
LATEST
Baked Normal and AO:
Hi all! This is my first post here, I have been following this great community for a while and I finally found some time to post my works.
Ok then, I am going to texture a column, I know, it may be a "boring" subject but this is is more about the process, I mean pre production, texture workfow and all this kind of stuff so I am going to show some work in progress to the community and hopefully I'll get some good feedbacks.
I usually start collecting some style reference, this time I mainly took inspiration from the works of sir Alma Tadema as I really like the contrast of the flat surface of marble and all the small details on the top, I think is a very effective way of guiding the eye and to enhance the interesting parts of the final asset. I collated together some references just to have a starting point:
Then I did also some very rough concepts on paper ;D that was useful to start planning the texture layout:
Baked Normal and AO:
Hi all! This is my first post here, I have been following this great community for a while and I finally found some time to post my works.
Ok then, I am going to texture a column, I know, it may be a "boring" subject but this is is more about the process, I mean pre production, texture workfow and all this kind of stuff so I am going to show some work in progress to the community and hopefully I'll get some good feedbacks.
I usually start collecting some style reference, this time I mainly took inspiration from the works of sir Alma Tadema as I really like the contrast of the flat surface of marble and all the small details on the top, I think is a very effective way of guiding the eye and to enhance the interesting parts of the final asset. I collated together some references just to have a starting point:
Then I did also some very rough concepts on paper ;D that was useful to start planning the texture layout:
Replies
Don't forget about the base. The bottom of A can be used for this, just move A's bottom tile edge upwards a little.
You could also eliminate the A section in the texture and still have variation. Make the center of B tile with the edges of B. Then both A and B on the mesh could both use B on the texture. The A section of the column could have its U offset by .5 and still tile with the B section of the column.
Thank you, yes that is just a quick test I will need to allocate some space to put two or three tilable decorations that I can place on the base, on the necking (the discs that separate the capital from the body) and on the boss(that is the very top of the capital). I have learned these two terms while doing some research on columns so I have to use them and feel very erudite!
Regarding the variation A and B they will each be tiled twice horizontally on the body so I can have on the bottom section A-B and on the median section B-A!
And, finally I decided that the decorations on the body will look like this!(the white space is allocated for the rest f the column parts)
Now I just have to copy this scheme and transform this in a nice texture, and I will already know roughly how it will look like... the power of pre production!
I will work on flat surfaces, ideally if you cut the column in half and open it, that would be the mesh I will use. This will help me a lot with sculpting and normal map bakes and it will also give me a texture that can be applied to any flat, concave and convex surfaces(for example I will be able to use it also for a wall or pillar!)
Then, for the body I have prepared these 3 meshes to be used as geometry brush, I will put my texture on the bottom as reference and simply copy with my brush my meshes around. On the right you can also see a little deformation test, I think these work quite well as a starting point.
For the capital I have modeled some acantus leaves and the same berry that is on the body. If you wonder why I decided to go for a tomato shaped berry the reason is these are going to be a copper like material and the sections will give me an interesting place to put some cavity detail. They also look more interesting that round berries!
I have made half of the capital and I already placed the pieces that will be on the tile so I should have no problems sculpting and placing fruits in the middle!
That is all for today, I will start sculpting tomorrow!
And the decorations to use on the column body:
I'm not so sure about the pumpkin/gourd shaped details on the top. They look too random for a column that's been sculpted from marble. A more regular pattern might fit better here, or at least one without major overlaps? The overlapping gourds look very 2.5D-Zbrush style.
I decided to go for bronze on these parts so that it'll look more credible and I will have also a nice contrast with the leaves.
I have baked and assembled these two parts of my texture, see with normal and AO only: