Question regarding hand painted pipeline.
Im just wondering what would be the most efficient and best method of producing hand painted textures.
Allow me to elaborate. I have recently painted a wall texture of bricks in photoshop. I am content with it, its not perfect but its really only a test so that I can work out a method that suits me.
My inclination would be to either,
1) Export a map to Zbrush and Sculpt in the details of what I have painted to create a normal map (I am not entirely sure how accurate I could be and I am wondering whether I should have just sculpted a Texture to begin with and then hand paint that but it seems overly time consuming)
2) Hand Paint a Normal map. I am not sure how successful I will be at this as I have never tried it.
3) Use Quixel Suite to Generate a Normal Map and then edit it manually to get the desired effect.
I think 3 is my preferred option purely because it will be the fastest and it doesnt require me to start from scratch. Although Option 1 would yield the best results.
So I guess my question is, what is the method you most prefer (not of the ones I have listed, just what you use)? I'm using my current downtime to experiment with a workflow for when my upcoming project starts so I am open to any and all suggestions.
Allow me to elaborate. I have recently painted a wall texture of bricks in photoshop. I am content with it, its not perfect but its really only a test so that I can work out a method that suits me.
My inclination would be to either,
1) Export a map to Zbrush and Sculpt in the details of what I have painted to create a normal map (I am not entirely sure how accurate I could be and I am wondering whether I should have just sculpted a Texture to begin with and then hand paint that but it seems overly time consuming)
2) Hand Paint a Normal map. I am not sure how successful I will be at this as I have never tried it.
3) Use Quixel Suite to Generate a Normal Map and then edit it manually to get the desired effect.
I think 3 is my preferred option purely because it will be the fastest and it doesnt require me to start from scratch. Although Option 1 would yield the best results.
So I guess my question is, what is the method you most prefer (not of the ones I have listed, just what you use)? I'm using my current downtime to experiment with a workflow for when my upcoming project starts so I am open to any and all suggestions.
Replies
No no, just making sure there is not a method I am missing out on, some software I am unaware of that is more suited to what I want while I have the free time to learn it before I am back in College.
Hand painting normals using a tool like nDo is fine for environments, or anything that will uses tiles or trim sheets. For anything else beyond that, while technically possible, I would not recommend it.
Hand painted terminology tends to get people thinking diffuse only (either by painting just the diffuse or baking normals, etc down to a diffuse and painting over).
Also, yeah #2 is a bit old school. It's really cool when you figure it out. But it's super specific and worthless if you're doing any sort of iteration (which might happen with game art assets (that's a joke it totally happens)).
It can look cool in the right type of game if the normal map is kept subtle. But that workflow is a bit fiddly and not something I would do until the textures are finalised (like Jeff Parrott says: iteration iteration iteration)!
I'm looking to try out some Hand painted textures myself. I was wondering uses Mudbox to do this?
I have painted textures in Mudbox most recently on the game I Am Bread. I love the feeling of painting onto a model, especially with a Cintiq! but it doesn't seem to work so great when you put in a Low Poly model as Mudbox automatically softens the edges of the model.
I've also tried out a trial of 3Dcoat and have only checked out the sculpting and Autoping so far. I've seen a lot of great hand painted models being made in 3Dcoat and wondered if it is the most natural and user friendly way to hand paint textures directly on to your mesh.
I have a license for mudbox, and not for 3Dcoat so if there's a way to achieve nice results in Mudbox that would be amazing.
Or is it the case that most Handpainted Textures are done in Photoshop? After texturing a mesh solely in Mudbox before it seems like I'd be going backwards to be hoping back and forth between Maya and Photoshop again.