UDK Texture/shader issue - polished wood
Hello Polycount!
This is my first ever thread here!
So I'm just starting to texture this environment. It's a pretty rich space, so all the wood tables are polished and gleaming. I built a basic wood texture in photoshop to use as a base texture for most of the wood pieces in the room.
Before I go diving in, I wanted to do a few tests to see what I need to do to get some of this stuff to work.
But I'm having issues. Basically, my table (show below) is too perfect. I don't really wanna add grunge to it, per se, because this table is in a house that has a butler and maid and all that good stuff. So it wouldn't be grungy...maybe a few nicks and scratches?
I'm not sure I'm using the fresnel right, but I read somewhere that it would be good to have in the specular to give it more of a polished look. doesn't seem to be working.
How can I make this look more real?
***Here's what I'm kinda going for: ***
These are rendered with mentalray, so of course they look sexy. But I really want to get that look and I feel like my piece is just this much too plain.
I'd really appreciate some assistance. Thanks everyone!
This is my first ever thread here!
So I'm just starting to texture this environment. It's a pretty rich space, so all the wood tables are polished and gleaming. I built a basic wood texture in photoshop to use as a base texture for most of the wood pieces in the room.
Before I go diving in, I wanted to do a few tests to see what I need to do to get some of this stuff to work.
But I'm having issues. Basically, my table (show below) is too perfect. I don't really wanna add grunge to it, per se, because this table is in a house that has a butler and maid and all that good stuff. So it wouldn't be grungy...maybe a few nicks and scratches?
I'm not sure I'm using the fresnel right, but I read somewhere that it would be good to have in the specular to give it more of a polished look. doesn't seem to be working.
How can I make this look more real?
***Here's what I'm kinda going for: ***
These are rendered with mentalray, so of course they look sexy. But I really want to get that look and I feel like my piece is just this much too plain.
I'd really appreciate some assistance. Thanks everyone!
Replies
I don't know if you are forced to use the UDK for this but scenes like this will look much better in the CE3.
For the material, maybe it's just me, but I can't see the purpose of a Fresnel for the spec.
Polished wood generally has a high specular reflection and a pretty sharp highlight, so a stronger spec and higher gloss(spec power) would help. A cube map would help too, and for that I'd maybe throw a Fresnel on it and invert it(1-x node).
Also, your Specular Fresnel has a Normal map input. If you unplug the Normal map, the Fresnel would use the Tangent normal of whatever mesh the material is applied to. That will help with the highlight, as polished wood is either smooth or has a very subtle normal map.
But in this case it's the artist that's going to do the work, not the engine.
leleuxart has some very good points but I'd step as far back as to the model itself. It all starts at the shape language. The models you're referring from doesn't look better because they have nicer material definition but mainly due to their form.
The artist made good research on a particular furniture design and came to understand what makes them look a certain way. If you'd remove the textures you'd still be able to figure out what kind of materials they are made of.
So if your main goal is to make an entire scene don't bother about the technical stuff for now. Make the models as good as they can be and then move on to the next step. Of course there's nothing wrong with working on multiple phases at the same time but it looks like you're getting ahead of yourself at the moment.
If you want subtle imperfections to appear, then you can place them in the specular map. They'll show up only as the light moves around, giving the appearance of fingerprints, for example, on an otherwise polished piece of wood.
leleuxart: Thanks! I'll try that. I wasn't quite sure that I was doing with that fresnel. I don't really know how to apply the cube map, but I'm sure there is a tutorial out there somewhere. So I'll definitely give that a shot tomorrow.
AimBiZ : The scene is actually modeled. I'm moving into my texturing phase now. Basically, in recent months, I have learned about the power of the material editor in UDK. Before, for me, a texture meant plugging in an image (that I inevitably hand painted over the UVS in PS) into the diffuse channel of a lambert in Maya. I've learned boatloads in a couple of months, but most of it has been towards more stylized looks. I haven't tried to make a realistic environment yet. Now that I know the use of tiling textures, detail maps and the whole material editor tree thang, I'm trying to rethink my method of texturing and get a better workflow.
This is a really REALLY simple table that holds a vase of flowers. The point of using this one is that it is a simple thing to test out some materials.
The rest of the environment is laid out like this. It's an art deco apartment where a murder and theft has just taken place. Not in this shot is a wet bar, a spiral staircase (seen just a bit bottom right) with the dead body on it.
I'm really just getting started with this, but I want to make sure I'm not just cutting and pasting photos in photoshop for my textures. I want to learn to make better shaders.
Thanks for replying, folks! Much apreciated!
Here's a question:
Each table currently has its own material. Each one has a normal map and some ambient occlusion that I baked that is multiplied over the diffuse.
Should I be using material instances?
Lastly, using the info I got from here with cube maps and specular power and applied it to a black material for a piano.
My specular power is at 2000, but it still doesn't quite seem glossy enough. I feel like 2000 is such a high value but I'm still not getting the shiny glossiness that I want. Is there something I'm missing to get that super clear-coated varnished look?
Thanks, people, for your assistance.
Your issue is your understanding of specular power. The higher the specular power, the more focused the reflection will be. You want a lower specular power, probably anywhere from 5 to 20. At 2000, you're only going to see a reflection at a very exact angle from the light.
I generally avoid going to such high numbers in UDK - mess around on the lower end before blowing it out.
Making it appear blacker might also help, because it could increase the contrast. If you look at a black piano in real life, you get really black spots with really sharp bright spots. Very high contrast.