Looking for help and advice on Hand painted textures and models

FXG

Hi there! nice to meet you all, first post in here, i was looking in some of the amazing artworks in here and there is a lot of amazing artist.

I've been doing 3D for a while now, nothing big at the moment but I'm interested in being an artist for videogames. Now I'm doing hand painted textures for the first time and I'm a bit lost, everything I learned in 3d I learned from youtube, in my first model I wasn't sure what maps to bake because I saw different maps in different videos, I just opened my model with uvs in fbx format in 3dcoat and started to paint.
I wanted to ask for some help and guidance because I really love the hand painted style, and there are some amazing artists here, thank you in advance for your time and help.
The programs I use are, zbrush, blender, subtance painter, 3dcoat and I have marmoset toolbag and maya too.

I leave here the model I'm currently working on.

killnpc

You're doing good. By rendering your forms such that material types are clearly defined and use the same light sources, these aspects can be isolated nondestructively and built upon or refined later. Next, you can introduce full-form highlights and shading to unify materials and small details into a singular form. Done right it should enhance the model's readability and harmonize it with its environment and surroundings.

Here is an example from a spec map:

FXG

killnpc said:

You're doing good. By rendering your forms such that material types are clearly defined and use the same light sources, these aspects can be isolated nondestructively and built upon or refined later. Next, you can introduce full-form highlights and shading to unify materials and small details into a singular form. Done right it should enhance the model's readability and harmonize it with its environment and surroundings.

Here is an example from a spec map:

Thanks a lopt for your answer and time! my model doesn't have any map, can i bake new maps on this model with 3dcoat? if so what maps do i need for a good hand painted texture? sorry for all the questions but i'm kinda lost, thank you a lot!

killnpc

So... "map" is short for "bitmap" or "texture". Your model is using a diffuse texture. There are a number of different texture maps game models can use. What textures are used is entirely dependent on your viewer's or engine's render pipeline or shader network. Like artistic technique, the technical side of game art development is deep. I imagine Polycount's wiki texture page will be as deep as your curiosity.

The example I shared is indeed from a spec map, which control how bright light effects a model's surface, but the purpose of sharing this example is not spec maps. If you're interested in improving your hand-painted texturing, what you should instead focus on is the simple yet effective shading technique, which helps unify smaller forms into one form. Because all forms now share this treatment, they are given a common thread. If all characters in a scene use this same treatment, they are all being connected. You see?

Best of luck in your studies.