As a game artist....

Bronco

Hey guys

Just a curious question

im wondering if any of you guys have or know other game artists that use mix medias to create game art?

Im not sure how else to put it,but ill give an example.

say you want a menu background based on some old paper or soemthing similar,rather than trying to paint this would you go into the office kitchen,grab a piece of paper and a tray,scrunch the paper up,make some coffee or tea and then pour the coffee over the paper to get the rightcolor frame and then take a pic with a cam to import into PS for further editing?

Another example I know that some artists use is they will go out with a piece of paper and a crayon and then find the surface texture thay want..bark,ground,wall etc..put the paper over the surface and just rub the crayon over the paper getting the general surface texture,they would then scan in,import into PS change to black and white and use the information gathered as overlays for textures.

Pretty simple stuff,but just curious wether this happens often where you guys work or is it really just a case of exsperimenting and wasting lots of time in PS/max

John

MoP

Sure, use whatever works. There's no point trying to paint a photorealistic texture of a stained piece of paper by hand when you could just scan some in, it'd probably be a lot faster, and definitely look "realistic".
I don't know about crayon rubbings for textures, since you could probably get a decent texture overlay just from a digital photograph of the bark, which would be easier.
That said, you could use black crayon on white paper, do a rubbing of a texture, import that into PS, invert the colours and use it as a bump map, since it's essentially the high-frequency detail height information of the material...

The more you use obscure and innovative sources for texture and reference, the more original and interesting your final product can be, I think... as I say, if it works (and in a production pipeline, if it saves time), then do it!

Asthane

Photosourcing is common enough, though usually your latter example would probably be done by going out with your digicam and photographing it-- no reason to lose detail and color info by doing something so primitive as doing relief impressions with a crayon =P

Edit: I am so slow =P

MoP

Thinking inside the box there, Asthane!
If you use techniques nobody else does, and combine them in an interesting way, you can come up with really original stuff... if everyone used photographs and nothing else, it'd all get a bit boring.
I might give that crayon rubbing idea a try, you never know what will happen!

Asthane

Hey, I reserve the right to be a lousy texture artist

Eric Chadwick

Your post makes me think of David Gurrea.
http://www.davegh.com/blade/davegh.htm

flachdrache

Saw this once in a tutorial about blooddrops etc. - normal paper, black/red ink, and some tools to add the "bodyexplosions" on paper .

I guess its pretty normal in art/filmschools - i got a review of a 3D movie called "hessi james" (not sure). In the artikle the director described how he made the set/object textures (watercolor paint, some dirt, scan, bumpmap).

Sounds pretty cool - i guess ill give it a try (just remembered the blood thing

Bronco

hehe thats some intresting stuff there Eric thansk for the link.

john

doc rob

There was a guy who posted a character here a while back that was a pirate with a wheel for a peg-leg. To texture it he had printed out the unwrapped wireframe on paper, drawn and painted on top of it, then scanned it back in. It gave a really unique, painterly look to the finished character.

MoP

Yep, doc rob, I loved that character. I think he put it in Q3...

I think I'm gonna do the same for my current university project... they like stylised and original stuff here, so I think I'll print out the UV-maps and do a kind of impasto acrylic painting over it, see how it turns out...

Bronco

hey MoP

Im curious what course is it your doing at uni?

Also is there a link to some pics of this charcter,im curious

Thanks guys

john

The3DGuy

here is taht pirate. its skins rock

http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/info/quake3/scurvy/scurvy.shtml

MoP

Bronco: I'm at Abertay in Dundee, 2nd year of BA(Hons) Computer Arts, which is a 4-year course. It has its good points and its bad points. Life drawing was on the syllabus 1st and 2nd year, but they seem to have abandoned it in 3rd and 4th year, which makes me sad, since life drawing is insanely useful for upping your skill level in drawing...