Photos in textures?
polycounter lvl 18
Ok me and this guy is having this discussion whether or not you should use real life photos on character and weapons... I say it's a no-no... especially for example to put a photo of a piece of tape on a gun(even if the highlights are editeted out), as it will look completely out of place, while he says that if you can get away with it, you should use photos...
Am I wrong? cause he brought up the example with Max Payne, but wasn't that engine made for that?
Comments? Answers?
Thanks!
Am I wrong? cause he brought up the example with Max Payne, but wasn't that engine made for that?
Comments? Answers?
Thanks!
Replies
The key here is "If you can get away with it", that, and the overall art direction of the game dictate success with photos in game art. Using photo overlays is very common, using photos directly is less so, but still workable if the game calls for it.
It bears mentioning, though, that using a photo is not necessarily a faster route. They will need cleaning, editing, and sometimes even painted additions. It should be a style choice, not a speed choice. (not as much the case with overlays)
When I had to model an area in "T3: Rise of the Machines" that had to look like a destroyed version of downtown Hollywood, I actually drove to Hollywood Blvd. and took tons of digital photos myself and then used them for the building textures.
And I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if artists at Valve drove around downtown Seattle and took a bunch of reference photos to use in Half Life 2.
I don't think photos are a no-no as such, as long as they aren't simply untouched photos that tile (or in some cases DONT TILE, aaaahhhh).
I usually re-paint or re-touch a lot when I work with photo source.
Now games are approaching photo realism and have certainly raised the bar on resolution by miles. Photosourcing is an invaluable tool - but it is still critical when using photosourcing to make sure the items you create - match the realism level of the game.
So for isntancce if you photosource a face - and you dont do it with their clothes- the face may look out of place on the body.
Also the face may look out of place in the game world too if its too low res or not photosourced itself as well.
Its the artists job - when using photo source - to make it match and blend - and look like it belongs.
As long as the artist does that - then photosourcing is completely legitimate and will be used more and more in the future as games approach the realism level of movies and beyond.
get the result you need as fast as possible. Breaking copyright laws, that's the only no-no.
If at all possible, take your own photos. If you can't, then buy copyright-free image CDs. If you google for pics, or grab them off of websites, make sure they have no copyright attachments. At the very least, you have to change them enough to be nonrecognizable to the original image. I forgot what the limit is, but it's something like 80-90% of the image has to be changed, before it's considered to not be infringement.
If you are doing it as a job time requirements may mean that you have to photosource, even if you don't like, it but I belive that if two people produced the same quality texture but one was hand painted while the other was photosourced the person who handpainted it had more skill and could easily recreated the texture photosourced. This is not necessarily true the other way round.
Whenever you are trying to reproduce something that exists in real life, photosourced textures are usually a huge time saver. Trying to re-create the realistic look of this type of object through painting when you have a good photo of it is just a waste of time. The key here is the word "good".
Most often, even when using photos, they are not perfect, and will need a lot of cleanup. To really do it well, it really does take a lot of artistic skill, and a good eye. It's not easy eliminating distortion, lighting irregularity, correcting colors, enhancing details, and making the texture blend in with the other assets in the game. It really isn't as easy as just smacking the photo on the model.
One of of the big issues with using photo-sourced textures is they actually demand that artists have better painting skills. Inevitably over the course of production, there will be some asset for which there is not a good photo available, and artists will be forced to do some creative painting. And the artist's painted texture will need to stand right next to photosourced textures, and not look any different stylistically. This can be very tricky, but can be done. Usually it entails painting, then overlaying photos to provide that real world irregularity, but sometimes a very skilled painter can do it without.
So all that I'm saying is that photosourcing can be the best bet for some types of projects. And just because you are using photosourcing, doesn't mean that it takes no artistic skill to do it well. It can be a big time saver in some cases, but can be a bit more demanding in others.
I also belive that to use a photo 'really does take a lot of artistic skill, and a good eye. It's not easy eliminating distortion, lighting irregularity, correcting colors, enhancing details, and making the texture blend in with the other assets in the game' but I still belive that it would take more skill to hand paint the same texture.
Also 'a good photo will be completely accurate' as it has 'taken an engineer, and architect, a designer, and a whole team of skilled craftsmen to create that real life object' means that apart from the cleanup nothing on the texture is my own as even the light and surface detail is naturally created. Not that I'm trying to be against it as it does have a place, like you said its a huge time saver, I just want to encourage people to do what they like not what other people say (although maybe it was off topic in this thread).
However in a professional environment, this is not the case. You will need to do what your art director says, and if he says to use photos, then you've got to do so. If he leaves it up to you, and it is a realistic game, chances are that you will still use photos if you ever want to go home from work. They can just get you quicker results if you are going for realism, than you could by 100% hand painting everything. Professionally, this is totally acceptable in many cases, and can even be preferred in some situations.
Of course, having said all this, I still prefer to paint stuff. Unfortunately, the games that I am working on just don't allow me to do so all of the time. On the game that I am currently working on, the AD actually said "I don't want ANY hand-painted texture creation!" Of course, immediately after this, I turned in a few hand-painted textures along with a bunch of photo sourced ones, just to see if the painted ones would slip by. In reality, the photos that we were supposed to work from were total crap, and would take far more time to salvage than would painting it from scratch. So, I took a gamble, and it worked. My lead asked "How did you get those photos cleaned up so well? They were a real mess, and now they look so good!" I just chuckled, and told them that they were painted, but not to worry, as I didn't have enough time to do any more painting, and would be moving on to assets for which there actually were good photos.
On the game that I am currently working on, the AD actually said "I don't want ANY hand-painted texture creation!"
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I don't understand ultimatums like that. You do what gets the job done in the least amount of time, but to a certain level of quality. If it's hand painting that gets the job done, then that's what you do. If it's photo reference, then you use photos.
nah jk, my wall is a photo slut.
im all for photos used in textures.
No such thing as "cheating" in art.