Texture seam neither stylized nor realistic - critique would be helpful

Moriss5742

Hey Polycount!

I would need help with a problem that bugs me from a long time - textures. I use substance painter for creating them, and would like my 3d models to look realistic, yet I cannot find a good way to make them look good in the end.  Like it always look borring...



...or too noisy.


Any feedback would be highly appreciated

icegodofhungary

For the light: Actually doesn't look too bad. Try looking up photoref of old lights or tools from the era (I'm assuming WWII type stuff here) and study how the rust and wear sits on the object. It's okay for a prop such as this to be a little boring considering it's an unimportant object. It's something that would be in a small part of the scene and the player would rush past. The roughness could use a little more contrast. The glass lens does seem a bit flat and the texture isn't very apparent. Work on the normal maps for the lens and consider using a separate material for the glass that includes refraction.

The mech: Too much noise all over. If you're trying to emulate car paint, it's not apparent. Also the edge wear is too consistent all over. Don't be a slave to smart materials. This also has a problem with the roughness map. The emissive isn't noticeable enough. Again, it will help to gather photo references of real metals, painted metal, plastics, rubber, etc and try to replicate them from scratch.

JamesBrisnehan

I think one of the biggest thing missing from the model of the military light is contrast. More contrast in the materials on the model and the lighting in the scene would help add a lot more drama and make it all more interesting. Right now your textures and lighting are both pretty flat and even. The same semi-rough military green paint covers 90% of the model. Using different materials, different color values, and different roughness values would add a lot of interest. The same with lighting. Having a wider range of bright values and dark values would help a lot. This is a good example of what you could do (but less blurry): The metal, wood, and rust all have different values, and the light contrasts nicely with the dark background and shadows.


For the robot, you could remove all of the noise from the color channel, but keep that noise in the roughness channel. Then adjust the roughness levels to make the red parts way glossier like car paint, and the white parts a bit more rough like plastic. I think that would look cool, but it depends on what style you are trying to achieve for the robot. Do you have reference for the robot or for the materials?

Moriss5742

@icegodofhungary  @JamesBrisnehan Thank you for your responses Adding glass refraction shader, and using more materials and playing with values definitely made it look better.

As for robot, I did use a reference. Mech is based on drawing of Thiago Almeida http://www.artstation.com/artwork/PmX9e3 Because the artwork itself don't have materials well defined I wanted to do plastic and metal on it, buuuut I did ended looking like this. When I will have little more time I will surley try the look you are suggesting, gather some references, and study them better.