Need help - Hand painted textures
polycounter lvl 3
Hey guys
My first post here, and I've been struggling a little with handpainted textures and generally trying to get that stylised/lowpoly look. I started trying to make handpainted textures about 7 weeks ago and I have no drawing background what so ever, and whilst finding some really useful tutorials I still find myself struggling.
So a part of my year-long project I've been making some meshes and my most recent one is this mine cart.
I started on the wood texture, but the detail on the wood doesn't look right.. Haven't properly started the metal trim texture, not sure on how I should build the texture up.
EDIT: Would really appreciate it to get feedback on how to improve it (including geometry of the mesh). Referencing other people's work, annotations on the screenshots or tutorial links would be really helpful
Geometry
My first post here, and I've been struggling a little with handpainted textures and generally trying to get that stylised/lowpoly look. I started trying to make handpainted textures about 7 weeks ago and I have no drawing background what so ever, and whilst finding some really useful tutorials I still find myself struggling.
So a part of my year-long project I've been making some meshes and my most recent one is this mine cart.
I started on the wood texture, but the detail on the wood doesn't look right.. Haven't properly started the metal trim texture, not sure on how I should build the texture up.
EDIT: Would really appreciate it to get feedback on how to improve it (including geometry of the mesh). Referencing other people's work, annotations on the screenshots or tutorial links would be really helpful
Geometry
Replies
As for metal, there's so many thing you could use for reference depending on how you want the metal to look. Look up rusted metal, brushed metal, shiny metal, and put together a sheet of what you want your metal to look like. It really helps if you start on it so people can give critique. You'll be surprised with what you can come up with on your own.
Yeah that does look a lot better, especially the detail. I'll give that a go now, and see what I can come up with.
As for the metal I really want a dark, scratched iron looking metal.
I've been using the picture below as a sort of reference for ideas, and I like the style of dark metal with bright scratches/highlights. But unsure on how to build up the base of the metal texture.
There are a number of very good handpainted models there, and you can also look up the artists portfolio to see more.
The only difference between 2d art and 3d hand painted is you have to pay careful attention as to how you light the object in 3d so it reads well for 3d. Bearing that in mind you can look up all types of concept images and stuff too, pick a style you like and go for it. If your still really struggling just make some shit and get critiques here and continue with the tutorials. If you are really serious about getting good, you should be making progress all the time. Starting out, I would expect a person to spend hours on there own just trying to wrap there head around stuff and replicating it. Eventually you will get it!
[edit] I would say the reference you have above is not the best sorta reference you could use. It has some interesting details but a bit noisey and monochrome for my tastes. For example, if you made different pieces of wood slightly different hues it would really help sell the piece a lot. check this out: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=98160
As for my desired style, I really like Blizzard's design style and I realise they use a lot of Z-Brush sculpts to bake detail into their textures but I have no experience in 3D sculpting (but I hope to dive into that once I get a bit more confident with my tablet).
Anyway, its a pretty cool workflow, but totally unnecessary for you especially if your main goal is to become a better artist. I think understanding the basics and simply being able to paint your own textures will take you a lot further at this point. Good luck man!
I'm wondering if I should just redo that detail, any suggestions?
I kinda like this look of wood, looks a bit more messy and old (Hopefully a step in the right direction). Would like some feedback on it
Yeah I think they've been doing it for 2~ years now, but your right its a bit of a distant goal, but something I'd like to one day pursue
Thanks for the help I really appreciate it
[ame="
Yeah I actually came across that tutorial a couple of weeks ago actually. Its been really helpful, and I used his technique of adding grain to wood, I think from his 2nd video. I'm really looking forward to the tutorial series he is creating, he did a free one about painting grass, but the others are going to have a fee but they will be well worth it.
Thanks for the feedback spectre
I added some more highlight/shadow with the seams to try and seperate them more (maybe they're a bit too seperate now?) anyway below is the picture including new/old diffuse
Although I wouldn't make the seams any darker than you already have.
When it comes to hand painted textures, you will want to paint a lighting direction into the texture. Light normally comes from above. Because of that, you should try to think of which planes are top-facing, and highlight them.
In the case of these boards, the top edge of the boards creates a top-facing plane, so you should highlight those. The edge of very top plank should stay dark, though, because the metal overhang would prevent the light from hitting it.
Here's a quick example, I hope it helps:
Just woke up and added those highlights on the seams, thanks DemonPrincess ^^ Update picture below (maybe looks too beveled for planks?)
@spectre
Yeah man I'll give that a go, just need to properly wake up, I'll update hopefully next within the next couple of hours. Thanks again for your input
Done a little work which I think looks better, but would like feedback on it.
I still need to add some cross-plank cuts, chips and try to add some height/depth along the plank like riceart did in their example.
Anyway feedback/suggestions are appreciated ^^ Thank you very much for all your help so far
I like riceart take on it.
Here is a quick pass I did on ricearts, mainly I just wanted to add larger details, and breakup the color a bit. Might be getting a bit too contrasty/messy but thought it might give you some more ideas.
Anyway update photo below, once again thanks a lot for your guys input
Tried a couple of different markings in the wood.
Had a hard time trying to replicate the angles(?) of the surface of the wood (pointed in picture below) I tried making a screen layer and used a hard brush to make a sharp angled area, which is then highlighted with another screen layer, but it just looked out of place and unnatural.
You can see my update picture only has a couple of extra added features, its been a lot of trial and error and I need an early night but I thought I may aswell post it. If anyone could give some help with the circled bits above, I would greatly appreciate it. Also still looking for feedback and suggestions overall
Personally, I'd get out of the habit of relying on blending modes for this kind of detail and just paint it in the way you want. No need to over-complicate things.
I'll do a bit more experimenting this morning see if I can find a better way to do it
Have you tried using a hard square brush? That might do the trick for you. I agree with Jason Young also. You can paint the majority of it with just a normal layer, I usually do a multiply (shadows) and linear dodge add (highlights) pass at the very end. Just as long as you establish some strong lights and darks / colors in the beginning with your normal layer, you can color pick and paint the majority of it.
I'm beginning to think I should just move onto finishing the rest of the texture, I've got a lot more work to do after this mesh, and all my previous work I've done is getting outdated because I'm slowly making better textures, so thats just adding onto my workload. I'll pop a screenshot of the other meshes I've painted over the last couple of months.
What do other people think? Should I use the wood texture in it's current state?
That said, the more you push this texture, the more you will learn from this one session. To that end, here's some additional feedback:
The one thing you could stand to improve in this texture is the crispness. Try to work in more of a planar approach. The top edge of each board creates a plane at a particular angle, the sides of the boards creates another. Try to represent each angle by putting a different value on them, without a soft transition between the two.
For this, it's best to use a brush with 100% hardness and a fairly high opacity. I tend to stay between 30% and 50% opacity.
What applies to the top edge of the boards, also applies to the cracks, just on a smaller scale.
On a final note, you don't need to make absolutely every detail completely hard-edged, because that would look unnatural as well. But try to select a few areas you want to accent.
Here's another quick paint-over to illustrate the points:
By the way those paint overs are really useful, thanks again for your help
What I've done so far isn't really anything special, and is just really an assortment of layers with different shades of grey. I'm unsure exactly how to build up metal (with the wood I followed Jamin Shoulet's awesome tutorial but unfortunately he doesn't have a section on metal). I'm going to keep on searching the internet for answers, but if anyone can show me an effective way to approach a metal texture, I'd greatly appreciate it. Also I'm aware it needs highlights and such, but first I would like to get the base look of metal before I go into things like that (I'm hoping to apply what I've learned from painting the wood when it gets to that stage)
Also big thanks to everyone who helped me with the wood texture, learned a lot over the last few days
The wooden cart is slightly more different than the other two, but I want the top part of the metal trim to share similar rough scratches. Below is a really quick mockup sketch I created before I started modelling, and in fact the first concept I've ever drawn (If you can call it that) But instead I want to remove the bolts along the trim and add a single bolt on each side of the corner pieces (I'll create new geometry for the bolts, but probably not the corner pieces)
Never the less I'll take your hint and do some more experimenting in Photoshop
Can't wait for the tutorials!
Take a look at this texture.
http://awesometextures.blogspot.com/2012/04/jessica-dinh-metal-texture.html
EDIT: I'm too tired to concentrate, I'll post an update in the morning
The other thing I would reccommend is dont forget to grab some real life metal photos as reference too, other game art is always helpful but how surfaces react to light in real life is the basis for these too.
I thought your profile seemed familiar ^^, yeah I think I went a little over the top with trying to add extra layers (I kept brightening it up and eventually just covered up the original dark colour) and your right about having contrasting highlights, I'll keep this in mind when I start working on it tomorrow
@StevenZer
Yeah I agree definitely, but should I always use the transfer option on my brush? I had the thought that maybe its looks so blurry because of the random opacity changes on each layer. Currently when I'm working I use the original circular brush with transfer option enabled, and i just change size/hardness depending on what I'm doing. Maybe I should sometimes turn off transfer?
And don't be scared of trying out new things do some tests on canvas by painting a box and adding details using different methods.
And watch this video. This will give you some hints on painting textures.
[ame="
https://www.3dmotive.com/v101801
thats the 3dmotive link to the exact videos im talking about
Thanks for the link jinn
http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/726-Texturing-Low-Polygon-Game-Characters-in-Photoshop