A secret of a photorealistic textures (Making of Bench model).
Hello guys. There are several
photogrammetry artists on
Artstation like https://www.artstation.com/artwork/g2dLa8
and https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lxrkyY
I wanted to make something that looks like photogrammetry. I decided to make a park bench since it has wood and metal – two vastly different materials. I never made wood planks before, so this is a first time.
Result:
Closer:
Process:
Step 1: I made this dummy in 3Ds max. For me it is faster to make this model in Max, then sculpt it in ZBrush.
Step 2:
Pretty basic sculpt in ZBrush.
On metal parts I'm using Trim Dynamic brush to beat edges. And some dents and cracks alpha brushes I found online.
On wood parts I use Trim brushes as well. I also found very good wood alphas on my hard drive. Don't remember where did I get them. Pretty simple process: just drag some alphas on a wood and that's it.
Step 3: Retopo in 3Ds Max.
Mesh:
Step 4:
Unwrap. Nothing interesting here.
Step 5: Texturing. The most important.
This is Diffuse channel:
Roughness:
Metal textures
1. This is a baked mesh with normals.
2. Add some grunge maps on top:
3. Some green thing:
4. Rust (Dirt generator) and Edges (Metal Edge generator)
5. More dirt + some details
Wood:
1. Baked mesh:
2. Slap two textures on a mesh
3. Add third texture on damaged parts (hand painted mask with directional blur on it)
4. Place inverted cavity map on top. (Maybe it is unnecessary. I don't know).
5. Paint:
I've painted this mask using few wood alphas.
+ cracks map on top
And done:
Final result:
Does this model look good? Yes, it does. Is it photorealistic? I don't think so. If you know any secrets how to make photoreal textures and models - feel free to share:)
Replies
The bench is looking good. I have a few suggestions for your work, though.
1. Planks' end looks too similar. For comparison, I took a screenshot of a crate scan from Megascan's site. To give more variation it would be nice to have break ups like cracks, dents, and chips in those areas. I think it would be nice to support this by adding more geometry alongside texture edits.
2. Paint cracks too straight, like its flat metal surface. It would be more organic if you could direct chipping paint along a wood pattern.
3. This rather artistic view but, the color of the planks too similar in terms of value. I think adding more variations to values will make it look more interesting, and not so generic.
4. For metal pieces, worn out edges will make it pop-up a little bit more. It will help to add some depth to whole metal parts I think, but it rather artistic view too.
5. Dust/moss/rust in areas where different parts meet is necessary for believability IMHO.
Hope this make sense. Keep it up
Wow! Thank you, Mikhail. Valuable suggestions! I have another wood prop on a way. I will remember that you said.
I agree that it's a must have.
I would also add variations to the planks ends.
Then you should be much closer to a photorealistic asset.
Personally I would definitely be interested in seeing what it looks like then!
IMHO the metal texture itself looks great the way it is.
Thank you for your feedback. I'm not sure if I will finish this model sometime. Don't have much time these days.