the tools of the texture/shader artist trade
polycounter lvl 17
i'm a huge admirer of the environment artwork that Naughty Dog produces and i want to learn how to do what they do. i have no real advanced shader network creation experience to speak of, but i am aware that it's a thing. a thing i need to get intimately familiar with in order to be able to create environments that come close to having a chance at approximating the quality bar set by Naughy Dog...
I watched the Ben Cloward vids about shaders, along with whatever else i could find on the subject online. i found out that Naughty Dog uses Zbrush, Photoshop, Maya and the Hypershade to do their texture and shader creation, but what i am stuck on is how they layer and blend the stuff together...
is there a book or dvd i can buy that will explain how to blend tiling textures using the techniques Naughty Dog uses in Maya i.g. vertex paint, facing angles, ramps, RGB to HSV, layered shaders?... whatever the case may be?...
if there happens to be a texture/shader artist out there willing to list the most commonly used terms/tools/nodes in their arsenal, i would gratefully google those things and could hopefully learn about them that way at least maybe possibly...
thanks for taking the time to read this
I watched the Ben Cloward vids about shaders, along with whatever else i could find on the subject online. i found out that Naughty Dog uses Zbrush, Photoshop, Maya and the Hypershade to do their texture and shader creation, but what i am stuck on is how they layer and blend the stuff together...
is there a book or dvd i can buy that will explain how to blend tiling textures using the techniques Naughty Dog uses in Maya i.g. vertex paint, facing angles, ramps, RGB to HSV, layered shaders?... whatever the case may be?...
if there happens to be a texture/shader artist out there willing to list the most commonly used terms/tools/nodes in their arsenal, i would gratefully google those things and could hopefully learn about them that way at least maybe possibly...
thanks for taking the time to read this
Replies
for doing things like the texture blends, they are useing vertex paint, more or less hooking up the vertex colour of a mesh into a linear interpolate between 2 textures. Usually with a few other things going on to make the edge of the blend nicer.
if you really want to learn shaders, my suggestion would be to download UDK and work with the unreal shader editor included with it. It is a very powerful but simple to use node based editor for shaders.
they don't?
Lots of resources for those.
anywhoo... can you recommend some Digital Tutors/Eat3d titles that will get me going?
https://www.3dmotive.com/f100601
there was a eat 3d one i remember but i cant find it. also https://www.imbuefx.com/ has some decent stuff.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=118365
BOOP ( <- honestly this was necessary)
This thread goes into some detail about some of the resources available and how to start up with HLSL in particular, which is possibly what Naughty Dog uses. But it is a good intro into the hard stuff, although the Ben Cloward DVDs probably have also taught you that.
As for 3D schools, I have just finished my Degree (yep one of those) and they have taught us how to create shaders in UDK, they give quite a lot of support to this and in the industry in general this is probably one of the best ways to teach shaders. I personally was lucky enough to get a work placement for a year where I was taught HLSL and shaders, then ran with it on my own.
Finallly shaders in Maya, well I would like to know how to achieve this as well. I get compoletely confused with what types of nodes I should be using. So if some one could point me into that direction I would be grateful.
I can see how Technical Artists would need to know that stuff, but do Texture Artists really use that much higher math in their duties?... If so, i guess i better get on it...
thanks for the links and the insight, everybody!
Laughed pretty good when i read that. Then cried, Cause its true. Currently in school for Game art and design and we don't even touch an engine....
Good thing school is a slice of pie and I have tons of time to learn all the stuff they don't teach me. So...everything.
As everyone is saying here, 3d motive, eat 3d, all that jazz will help a ton, But they just give you something to do while your learn nodes and all that. To really learn what they do and how they can apply to what you want to create, you need to get into the material editor and just start toying with it all.
The whole "shader artist" thing suggested that you wanted to really get into material creation. Open up some of the default materials that come with UDK and you'll see the maths in action. That happy skybox with the rotating cloud layers and sun disk? All a single material, 2-3 textures and a lot of math to make it go.
For texturing and such its, AFAIK, good old art skills and some technical pipeline understanding (what's a normalmap anyway? how do I vertex paint and why should I?)
i've been browsing the Eat3d, 3dmotive, Digital Tutors, and Gnomon websites looking for training vids, but it's hard to decide which vids are the right vids for me...
udk's is node based and simple to use, since it takes care of the lighting and specular calculations for you, so you don't need to implement your own lighting model.
Also you should just try things out before you let the M word scare you off. No one said you need to be a pro as vector math, linear algebra and trig. You just having some knowledge will help you and make you better at shader material creation.
Seriously when i was a kid in high school i seriously regret actually listening to people, saying my math skills are too weak when i said i wanted to learn programming and some 3d. Since back than the reason why i sucked at things like trig, and linear algebra was because i had nothing of interest to apply the concepts too.
Fast forward a few years and here i am i can program in 4 different languages, and can create shaders for multiple different games engines and hlsl shaders for maya.
Open up UDK, examine the shader nodes, read the UDN wiki, experiment, ask questions. That's how most of us learned (probably with different tools, but the process is the same).
The nodes are stand in's for mathematical and programmatic expressions.
an add node = +
a texcoods node = the euclidean plane in the UV dimensions
etc.
If you want to do more than plug textures into the existing outputs (diffuse to diffuse, normal to normal, etc) then you're going to need some mathematical understanding.
Like passerby says, math is much more accessible when it has some direct connection to what you're doing rather than being rote calculation, or theoretical exploration of logic.
3d vector mathematics is the most useful thing you can teach yourself for making custom materials, and knowing what node to hook into what other node.
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MaterialsCompendium.html
So you can open op UDK and mess around.
...anywhoo, i'm gonna immerse myself in the UDK stuff, as you have suggested
If you want to start learning shading right away you can try grab some of the textures here and play with them in engine. They're also great reference if you want to learn texture creation.
After that, just keep working. Work a lot. That's the only way to improve your skill.
I personally am a big fan of Unity now. Some game modelers are publishing their work via Unity so they can be viewed real time right on websites. It's freaking awesome
http://www.gilbertomagno.com/MaxUnity.html
Cheers.
@ Msansook - What are the textbooks? Is it math stuff?...
We went over some math/art related items for our general education at the beginning of the degree. As far as textbooks, we had a online course that really didn't have a textbook. We used Aleks but all other information was taught via lecture. Sorry, I'm not much help here.
The solid huge textbooks that we do have are ranging from Maya textbooks to The Animator's Guide Book. We have a LOT and then the whole Eat3D website.
Haha good stuff