3D Game Textures - Create Professional Game Art Using Photoshop
polycounter lvl 12
So I bought this book because I heard a lot of good things about it. To tell you the truth, the example steps taken are incomplete with missing information and is filled vague steps that are left for interpretation. I'll post the one Amazon book review that really struck a chord with me:
"In contrast to the glowing reviews found here, I felt that I should warn potential buyers about the flaws of the book that most seem to disregard. The book reeks of missing information, behind the scenes manipulations that are not discussed and incorrect settings and values for filters and effects. I can and will list some examples of this:
Chapter 5, first tutorial: creating a base metal texture that will be used for all other textures in the chapter. If you compare your final result with what is present in the accompanying DVD, you will find that your image has a lot more contrast and does not tile nearly as well. I repeated the tutorial 4 times to double check myself but still ended up with a noticeably different texture. My brother, who is familiar with Photoshop, reviewed the steps with me and said that the Spotlight setting of the Lighting Effects filter was the primary culprit of this large amount of contrast. He recommended that I use Directional light instead of Spotlight (though the author specifically indicated Spotlight) and top off the image with a slight Levels adjustment. Lo and behold, my results were much closer to the what the author depicted. Additionally, while the book is geared towards beginners, the last step is this glowing gem:
"Copy the layer and offset it and erase the seams so you end up with a tileable image. Your image should look like Figure 5-2."
He does not explain how to copy and offset the image or erase the seams. Granted copying and possibly offsetting are pretty basic and easy to figure out, but "erasing the seams" is not. Do you use an eraser or a mask? If you use a mask, should you use a large, soft brush or a small, hard brush? What opacity setting should the brush have? In the end, I created a new layer and used a small healing brush that samples all layers to cover the seams. That was a technique I learned from Matt Kloskowski's excellent book "Layers: The complete guide to Photoshop's most powerful feature". That's a real book written by a real professional that doesn't hide anything from you and wont frustrate you with missing information or incorrect steps.
Later on in the same chapter for the Wall Panel tutorial at step 11, he instructs you to apply an Outer Glow to the working layer. He does not, however, tell you to change the default yellow color to black. In the end, his example image looks nice with deep shadows while yours ends up looking shallow and with ugly yellow blotches.
Another example is in chapter 4, Tiling Stones Using Edge Copy. The author asks you to find the source image on the DVD without giving you a name or path (normally this wouldn't matter but the directory structure in the DVD is nonsensical and needlessly convoluted). He then asks you to copy a section of the image to tile, except that the image he shows you is a highly touched up version of the source image in the DVD. Two pages later he writes a small side note that hints at the fact that he touched up the source image before doing the steps he told you to perform but doesn't bother to tell you the details. He explains that he cloned, re-sized and re-shaped several stones to give them a more uniform shape. And while this is vague enough as is to a beginner, he doesn't even mention that he adjusted the colors and tones on the source image to make it more monochromatic and easier to modify hue with overlays. He then has the audacity to claim "This process may take some time so be patient and get those edges clean". It is only a time consuming process if you follow the incomplete steps in this book and then try to fill in the gaps yourself. Anyone that knows the exact steps can wrap this up from source to tileable image in 15 minutes tops.
Ultimately, it is hard to recommend this book to beginners because it is incomplete and misguiding. I also cannot recommend it to Photoshop connoisseurs because they will call it out for what it really is: a lacking book written by someone that had a highly inflated sense of self worth and felt it pertinent to withhold "trade secrets" as many ignorant "professionals" of all careers do. The only reason I gave it 2 stars instead of one is because, at the very least, the book does offer a decent amount of guidance on achieving a uniform and consistent look, which is very crucial to creating believable 3D worlds, stylized or not. Additionally, some steps in the tutorials are fairly thought provoking and help paint a larger, if not vague, picture of the entire texture creation process. The last real value of this book is convenience because it has instructions for several textures of related themes, which is better than finding a mishmash of unrelated tutorials online.
If you do purchase this book, be prepared to fill in the gaps through lots of experimentation or supplementary sources. Do not make this your one-stop-shop for all things textures. You will be disappointed if you do.
You might think the fault is my own and that I am unable to learn from books without a guiding hand. I can assure you that is not the case. I have taught myself several programming languages and technologies from books alone without ever taking a single programming class in my life. I also happen to write code well enough to make a living out of it for the past 5 years. I have read dozens if not hundreds of instructional books on art (3D modeling, Photoshop, design, etc.) and technology. This is a sub-par learning source"
I appreciate the effort of the author but things just feel incomplete. Especially when you're using a different version of Photoshop than the author uses. Filter > Render > Lighting Effects gave me the most fits. There is a lot different from the Lighting Effects used in the book and the Lighting Effects filter in CS6.
I went over the Gamasutra article on the High Pass Filter recommended by the author a number of times, taking extensive notes. Now that was an article filled with great information.
My question is: Has anyone bridged the gap between the discrepancy in the book? Also, I'd like to know of any other instruction out there (books or videos) for creating high quality game textures. I'm mostly concerned with hard surface texturing techniques for props/vehicles/ships/planes etc. of all sorts/and environments.
Thanks for reading!
"In contrast to the glowing reviews found here, I felt that I should warn potential buyers about the flaws of the book that most seem to disregard. The book reeks of missing information, behind the scenes manipulations that are not discussed and incorrect settings and values for filters and effects. I can and will list some examples of this:
Chapter 5, first tutorial: creating a base metal texture that will be used for all other textures in the chapter. If you compare your final result with what is present in the accompanying DVD, you will find that your image has a lot more contrast and does not tile nearly as well. I repeated the tutorial 4 times to double check myself but still ended up with a noticeably different texture. My brother, who is familiar with Photoshop, reviewed the steps with me and said that the Spotlight setting of the Lighting Effects filter was the primary culprit of this large amount of contrast. He recommended that I use Directional light instead of Spotlight (though the author specifically indicated Spotlight) and top off the image with a slight Levels adjustment. Lo and behold, my results were much closer to the what the author depicted. Additionally, while the book is geared towards beginners, the last step is this glowing gem:
"Copy the layer and offset it and erase the seams so you end up with a tileable image. Your image should look like Figure 5-2."
He does not explain how to copy and offset the image or erase the seams. Granted copying and possibly offsetting are pretty basic and easy to figure out, but "erasing the seams" is not. Do you use an eraser or a mask? If you use a mask, should you use a large, soft brush or a small, hard brush? What opacity setting should the brush have? In the end, I created a new layer and used a small healing brush that samples all layers to cover the seams. That was a technique I learned from Matt Kloskowski's excellent book "Layers: The complete guide to Photoshop's most powerful feature". That's a real book written by a real professional that doesn't hide anything from you and wont frustrate you with missing information or incorrect steps.
Later on in the same chapter for the Wall Panel tutorial at step 11, he instructs you to apply an Outer Glow to the working layer. He does not, however, tell you to change the default yellow color to black. In the end, his example image looks nice with deep shadows while yours ends up looking shallow and with ugly yellow blotches.
Another example is in chapter 4, Tiling Stones Using Edge Copy. The author asks you to find the source image on the DVD without giving you a name or path (normally this wouldn't matter but the directory structure in the DVD is nonsensical and needlessly convoluted). He then asks you to copy a section of the image to tile, except that the image he shows you is a highly touched up version of the source image in the DVD. Two pages later he writes a small side note that hints at the fact that he touched up the source image before doing the steps he told you to perform but doesn't bother to tell you the details. He explains that he cloned, re-sized and re-shaped several stones to give them a more uniform shape. And while this is vague enough as is to a beginner, he doesn't even mention that he adjusted the colors and tones on the source image to make it more monochromatic and easier to modify hue with overlays. He then has the audacity to claim "This process may take some time so be patient and get those edges clean". It is only a time consuming process if you follow the incomplete steps in this book and then try to fill in the gaps yourself. Anyone that knows the exact steps can wrap this up from source to tileable image in 15 minutes tops.
Ultimately, it is hard to recommend this book to beginners because it is incomplete and misguiding. I also cannot recommend it to Photoshop connoisseurs because they will call it out for what it really is: a lacking book written by someone that had a highly inflated sense of self worth and felt it pertinent to withhold "trade secrets" as many ignorant "professionals" of all careers do. The only reason I gave it 2 stars instead of one is because, at the very least, the book does offer a decent amount of guidance on achieving a uniform and consistent look, which is very crucial to creating believable 3D worlds, stylized or not. Additionally, some steps in the tutorials are fairly thought provoking and help paint a larger, if not vague, picture of the entire texture creation process. The last real value of this book is convenience because it has instructions for several textures of related themes, which is better than finding a mishmash of unrelated tutorials online.
If you do purchase this book, be prepared to fill in the gaps through lots of experimentation or supplementary sources. Do not make this your one-stop-shop for all things textures. You will be disappointed if you do.
You might think the fault is my own and that I am unable to learn from books without a guiding hand. I can assure you that is not the case. I have taught myself several programming languages and technologies from books alone without ever taking a single programming class in my life. I also happen to write code well enough to make a living out of it for the past 5 years. I have read dozens if not hundreds of instructional books on art (3D modeling, Photoshop, design, etc.) and technology. This is a sub-par learning source"
I appreciate the effort of the author but things just feel incomplete. Especially when you're using a different version of Photoshop than the author uses. Filter > Render > Lighting Effects gave me the most fits. There is a lot different from the Lighting Effects used in the book and the Lighting Effects filter in CS6.
I went over the Gamasutra article on the High Pass Filter recommended by the author a number of times, taking extensive notes. Now that was an article filled with great information.
My question is: Has anyone bridged the gap between the discrepancy in the book? Also, I'd like to know of any other instruction out there (books or videos) for creating high quality game textures. I'm mostly concerned with hard surface texturing techniques for props/vehicles/ships/planes etc. of all sorts/and environments.
Thanks for reading!
Replies
Care to elaborate?
props/vehicles/ships/planes/etc and environments is quite a broad category. Maybe you could tell us what you are currently working on? Are you using a tablet? Do you have working knowledge of PS?
Yes, I placed the name of the book in the title of the thread. Sorry if that wasn't clear. To narrow things down a bit I'm looking for hard surface texturing techniques for anything mechanical. For instance, I'm currently working on an R2-D2 model that I would like to texture. I next plan on modeling a Formula 1 race car. This is the main type of texture work that I would like to focus on at this point. It can include anything from robots, sci-fi props/vehicles, or anything mechanical. I'll leave out environments for now to make my question not so broad.
I am using a tablet and have a working knowledge of PS that is still growing...and yes, I would appreciate any recommendations on quality books, video tutorials, or anything else on this subject.
Much appreciated.
As far as your current projects, I would say artoo is going to mostly be good material work, with grunge, grime and dirt for effect. Similarly I would say the F1 car is getting a good car paint material setup and then after a proper UV, just stock logos placed appropriately.
As with any endeavour, for me the key is always reference. Collect and find as much reference as you can. A quick google search of texturing r2d2 will find you some great ref. Modelling a good chunk of the details is what will be key, but I don't know how low or high poly you are taking your models.
Best of luck! Hopefully someone else might chime in, as I am out of my depth as a guide.