Help with textuing basics

andycain

Hi everyone.

I think I've just about got to grips with the basics of the modelling side of game asset creation but I'm now looking at learning about texturing.

I've just started doing a bit of research and it seems like a very complicated art.

Can anyone recommend to me a tutorial (or explain) the differences between the types of map. Ie. Normal, colour, displacement, gloss etc.

Are they all needed? When would you use some types of map but not others?

To give context to my question, I'm looking at creating 3D enviroments for CryEngine3 but initially I want to model and texture them in 3DS max before I export them.

What I'm going for is ultra realism to push the engine to it's limit.

Any knowledge or links to some good tutorials on this kind of thing would be really appreciated.

Thanks guys!

lotet

Check out the polycount wiki, lots of great stuff there.
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryTexturing

MethodJ

Hi andycain- I made this tutorial on tiling texture creation. I start with photoref and then process it quite a bit. I also create a normal map based on the diffuse.

Not sure if this is the kind of thing you're looking for but I hope it helps!

andycain

Hi guys.

Both of those links contain some really useful information! Thank you so much.

Here's my first attempt. Let me know what you think.

Bear in mind I've been using 3DS max (and 3D software in general) for about 3 months.

Any criticisms would be welcomed on how I can improve.

I've foucsed on the walls and the floor so please ignore the untextured window bars.

I'm trying to create a 19th century jail cell. Using images of Bodmin Jail as inspiration.











Really want to get to the level of the pro's on this forum.

Thanks everyone!

unscodst

Hmm the images didn't seem to load for me.

Eric Chadwick

Want to get pro critique?

Use another image host, like Imgur.com. And make a thread in Pimping and Previews not here.

andycain

Thanks Eric. Will do. I've updated the post to display the pictures now.

MethodJ

Andycain, the dim lighting in the scene makes it hard to see what's going on. Post some screens of just the texture file itself, that will make it easiest to give feedback.

andycain

Here are the maps. Sorry the renders were so dark.

Colour Map:




Normal Map:

Sinking

I think it depends on the engine you are using, but for UDK I'd make the broken parts and oil/blood spills into decals. So you have a clean base material and can decide where to put the decals. Sometimes they are a nice option to cover seams between tiled surfaces and further break up the monotony. Decals should be handled with respect though, as each of them is a separate drawcall, as far as I know. However, UDK can deal with a lot of them and you can translate and deform them, while your textures will always have the same kind of damage repeating.

You can make better use of your texture space too. If you use decals you don't have to repeat the texture of the stone wall, for example. Instead you take half of it and make 2 decals for the rest. This means you can scale up your texture more and get better results. Generally speaking you don'T need this much space between your UV-islands. Try to use the UV space as completely as possible; you can adjust the "bleeding" in your 3D program and move shells/uv-islands closer together.

Black as background color may not be the best solution. It's better to pick a color from your diffuse that is kind of neutral. The reason is that some bleeding across the UV edges may occur ingame, which can cause your models to get black edges.

UDK tends to blur all diffuse textures (because it compresses them), so it is a good idea to sharpen them once, before exporting to the game. It will look better, even though the maps may look overly sharp when viewed in Photoshop.

Nosslak

I think it looks pretty good, however as these textures doesn't stretch to the borders it would be harder to use it for anything practical. It might also be worth considering that for an engine like UDK you'd make the plaster with a shader (using vertex paint) as that would make it a lot less obvious that the texture were tiling and make the material a lot more dynamic and reusable.

The normal maps really need a lot more depth so for the planks you could easily make some bevelled rectangles and convert that to a normal map to get a lot better results. It would be a lot more work but the same could be done for the rocks as well.