how do you keep a consistant light source
polycounter lvl 18
ive been racking my brains trying to figure this out?
what order do you paint??
color,lighting dirt and details?
i imagine that this is a big reason for me not landing the kind of job i want and its starting to get frustrating after 6 years of effort
color detail dirt and finally lighting?
howw do you prevent the lighting from mixing with the details and dirt?
how do you paint dirt to be dirt and not be confused with shadows??
what order do you paint??
color,lighting dirt and details?
i imagine that this is a big reason for me not landing the kind of job i want and its starting to get frustrating after 6 years of effort
color detail dirt and finally lighting?
howw do you prevent the lighting from mixing with the details and dirt?
how do you paint dirt to be dirt and not be confused with shadows??
Replies
There is no absolute order or method that everyone must work in to get the best looking textures. Loads of different artists use different techniques and processes, and the end results can always look great by any method.
The way I do it is usually to paint the "biggest" shading in first, the really basic shapes, angles and edges.
Then smaller shapes painted into the big ones, to get more control over the shadows, to show stuff like muscle definition, cracks in armour, big dents, general surface detail at a fairly large scale.
Then I use a mixture of photograph overlays, textures, blending modes and a little more painting to define dirt and give surfaces the finish that suits them.
However I've also done it different ways, like using a black & white vertex bake of lighting as a Soft Light layer on top of all the other stuff for a quick way of faking the largest elements of lighting without having to paint it by hand.
As to the last question ... well, look at real-world examples of what you're trying to paint, see how the light, value and colour works, understand why this happens, and then PRACTISE LIKE HELL.
MoP
typing noob!!!
i thought you were making a smart ass comment on how i wrote the thread,for that i apologize
http://www.answers.com/practise&r=67
Owned!
It's the British spelling, and everyone knows that's the correct one, since it's been around a lot longer than your cheap knock-off mass-market American words!
Wrong, wrong, RAWNG.
(back on topic)
"BIG SHAPE -> LITTLE SHAPE"
-what order do you paint??
Almost always:
Color
Detail pass (broad strokes, shapes, etc - figuring out what's going to be dark and what's going to be light)
Detail pass 2 (more refined shapes - musculature, features, etc)
Detail pass 3 (small details - dirt, cracks, color variation, etc)
Detail pss 3 (fin
it had a tutorial on texture baking light into the texported template.
first time doing it but i like the result
ill try it again next model
-R
I do value before color. but maybe characters are different. Why color firs soul? How's he new place treatiung you btw?
-R
[/ QUOTE ]
just outta curiosity what is value?
Texturing always begins with making a pen path selection of the UV shell in Photoshop, then filling it with a solid color.
Where people's oppinions start to differ is painting value(lightness and darkness) and color. Some people paint them in seperate passes, I however recommend painting in the same pass, let me be more clear. When objects get brighter or darker the brightness value of their color is not simply lightened or darkened, the hue and saturation are also changing. You will probably notice this more in skin shading. It is quickly aparent when someone simply makes a skin color lighter or darker, skin is one material that we probably see the most and it's probably one of the most unique materials we encounter. There all sorts of light scattering, hue changes due to undertones of the flesh and other oddities that it simply doesnt just get lighter or darker.
I also recommend painting simply in color ie: what the final color will be because that's how you would paint if you didnt have a computer. For thousands of years people have been painting simply with color, granted theres a pencil sketch there a lot of times but solid paint goes on top of that.
Anyways that's my oppinion on the matter, I hope i was able to shed some(?) light on this.
Im no pro but ill share my own process of creating textures none the less.
For organic objects.
I try and find a hi res reference picture of the object I want (we shall say Human in this case) with the skin tones im looking for. 3d.sk is a good place to start if you can get registered there (though its not free) I can't recommend it enough and its helped me out this last few weeks no end as ive started to get more into charcter work.
I then block out colours,just zooming in on my hi-res photo and using the picker tool to find all the major facial tones and draft out where they go on my own texture.
I then use the smudge tool,picker tool and hard brushes to add in and merge more general tones and after along few hours of building up it starts to come together.Paitients I belive is a key factor here,this is no 30min job unless its a very small face.
I then add overlays or what have you and skin imperfections.
I then start messing with various photoshop tools to touch it up (levels,colour variations etc) to get what I like.
For Mechanical things I have got into a routine of doing the following,having spent so long on tanks and such, but im also trying to adjust this method to speed things up and gnerally make it more intresting as on some objects it can get very very boring,but for the finish this method works for me.
I do evrything on its own layer,simply because at the end I can switch things round and see if it looks better in a different layer order for example. REMEBER:- if you do this method make sure you learn to use or do use layer sets to leep things tidy.
I first get a base layer going,just flat colour that is representative of the object. I then add a light layer which is where I star to define the edges of the object,always thinking where the light is coming and keeping it consistent.
I then do the same as above with a dark layer.
I then add the hi-light light which is a more exagerated version of the light layer,really thinking about the sharp light on corners and how the light acts along long edges and imperfect edges.
I then build up shadows.
I then add damage and imperfection (you guessed it new layer) depending on the material finish you want,sometimes I use overlays soemtimes I just paint them depends.
and finally the overlay layers which help to define the over all material.
As a good artist will tell you there is a flaw in this method that im trying to find a work around which is the fact it does produce montonic textures at the best of times making your object look kinda boring and flat.Im thinking of maybe trying a knocked down method of painting my mechanical objects but I havent had a chance to try it yet.
Heres afew links that have helped me:-
http://www.poopinmymouth.com/process/tips/greyscale.jpg (this is a paper done by Poop that exsplains the greyscale (or Values first approach that the guys in this topic have mentioned) against the slapping the paint on method.
http://www.poopinmymouth.com/process/false_geometry/false_geometry.htm (another one by Ben,this one has some stuff about lighting taht may go somewhay to helping you out.)
http://www.gfxartist.com/features/tutorials/14033 (A tutorial by a digital artist called Ron Leman,It was his painting method that gave me the idea to exsperiment some with his painting style mixed with my own textures)
Hope this helps some.
john
http://itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm
When painting sometimes I'll switch to grayscale and check my values, and run levels for fun to see what a difference it would make if I need to push lights and darks, then I go back to RGB. In the beginning, when I was have a hard time I stopped painting in color and did just black and white to work on lighting. Color and lighting are different beasts that still have to play nice with each other for something to look good. But basically, it comes down to practice, practice, practice.
http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/tex_theory.htm
Maybe these will help you.
color light and dark in grey to black for cosistancy then color it?
In my experience (and this isn't a knock to those of you that use grayscale), I've found that grayscale is a bit more time consuming and "technical" in a way. I'm more of a "what-you-see-is-what-you-get" type of guy. I don't like having to fumble around with options to get A (grayscale) & B (color) to produce C (final product).
Try it out. You'll eventually figure out what works best for you.
I also recommend painting simply in color ie: what the final color will be because that's how you would paint if you didnt have a computer. For thousands of years people have been painting simply with color, granted theres a pencil sketch there a lot of times but solid paint goes on top of that.
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, that's not true. From the beginings of oil painting, one of the most common techniques was to do an underpainting first... basically paining a rough grayscale version of the painting to establish composition and value, which the artist then proceded to paint on top of with color. Artists such as Rembrandt have painted in this way. But this technique is rarely used in oil painting now... many just rush into color.
How to Paint Like the Old Masters
Personally I use whatever technique works for me at the time. Sometimes I go straight into color and others I'll start off in grayscale to get my values. I actually did the texture for my alien gunslinger head with an underpainting first because at the time it just allowed me to work through it faster. The only problem with painting this way is that you have to be cautious that your texture doesn't end up too monochromatic. Never paint in black or blend in black to do shadows... you have to learn your color (which I'm obviously still doing... I'm no wheres near a pro when it comes to that). And if you do paint in grayscale don't just add a layer and paint on top with color in multiply mode or anything silly like that.
The way I did my alien's head was I started off in greyscale. I knew that I wanted to skin to be basically green, but just green skin wouldn't be right so I knew I wanted yellow and I wanted him to seem alive so I needed red as well. I then copied that greyscale layer three times. For the bottom layer I adjusted its variation a few times to red. The middle one I adjusted to yellow. And the top one I adjusted to green. I then erased through the green layer with a soft edged brush to the areas that I wanted the yellow to seep through a little. And then I erased through the yellow layer to let some red come to the surface of the face. After that I colloapse the layers. Now I had a good started point to continue painting strictly in color (again. NO BLACK for shadows!!!). I addeded some details, sharpened it up, added some more details. I'm actually still working on it and I have lighting to make it pop and do what I want... but I still need to play with it and add a main lightsource.
here's some pics of the process:
As I said, I'm no pro... I just do what works and what I feel like doing at the time. For the body I actually just started laying down base colors right away.
Hope this kinda helps.
I am copying and pasting this response from CGtalk where we were speaking of this same thing.
Painting in greyscale is a valid approach, I just don't like the results it yields. I'm a color fanatic, and I love working with it. Because I always have, and never separated it out of the process, I don't have any problem getting it to do what I want. I think a piece loses some of it's character if you leave any step till the end. We as artists are always using our artistic eye to judge what looks good and what doesn't, and by leaving a step till the end, you are robbing yourself of the chance to really play with that step to be the most effective. Unless of course you are going to totally repaint it with the color at the end, at which point you've wasted a lot of time. Plus if I ever need to greyscale it, it's as easy as ctrl+shift+u.
I'm not trying to say people who paint in greyscale are doing things wrong, I just prefer to paint in color, and for me personally, I think it results in a better texture.
lol lies!! no seriously thats top notch work.
and the detail before color is that using burn or dodge because sometimes i wonder if i use those two a little too much
when going from grayscale to color how do you apply color??
a layer with multiply? color?? some or different method
also thanx for all this help i appreciate it cause i need alot of improvement fast.
ill let you in a little secret,i made a "can pirated apps destroy a company thread" well thats because who i work for does,and they just fired a good artist for no good reason and i think he reported the company and i think its going down hard and in this point of my effort to break i cant do another full year of unemployment(from 3d that is)
and doing my math and comparing to fines companies have recieved about 50k per app it should be a half to 750k fine and thats from the stuff im certain is installed on peoples machines,i imagine that total will go up from stuff i am not aware off, if it makes the papers when it happens ill post newpaper links
like i said after 6 years of heartache and frustration i dont think i could do another long chunk of unemployment
Back to the greyscale first thing, the only reason I'm against this moreso than other techniques is I feel that you can usually tell when this technique is used. Greyscale first images to me dont feel as rich. The difference between the masters doing this and us doing it in photoshop is that we're keeping the values of the greyscale image and just applying color to it, this is a lot different than actually painting on top.
The difference between the masters doing this and us doing it in photoshop is that we're keeping the values of the greyscale image and just applying color to it, this is a lot different than actually painting on top.
[/ QUOTE ] The old masters used layers of translucent glazes on top of the underpainting, so it is similar to coloring a grayscale. Huge difference though, in the way light bounces around through oil glazes, than the flat single set of colors you end up with in a digital texture. And usually the underpainting gets almost completey obscured by the glazes and the more-opaque overpainting. So I guess there's really no comparison to traditional media.
Bah, just use photos.
"As I said, I'm no pro..."
lol lies!! no seriously thats top notch work.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thank you very much *blush* ... but I actually am pretty noobish when it comes to painting... I just know a few tricks to get me by.
[ QUOTE ]
and the detail before color is that using burn or dodge because sometimes i wonder if i use those two a little too much
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually I didn't use dodge and burn at all... just straight up use of the paintbrush for the the greyscale version. And as pointed out above, it gets pretty noticeble... and I seem to get a lot more control when I just use the brush.
[ QUOTE ]
when going from grayscale to color how do you apply color?? a layer with multiply? color?? some or different method
[/ QUOTE ]
For this I copied the greyscale image 3 times. with each copy I changed the colors to green, yellow, and red and erased through them to get a color base. to change the colors I just went to 'image'->'adjust'->'variations...' and converted each greyscale image to the color I wanted. Also, after I had those three colored versions of the greyscale image I wanted, I then DELETED the greyscale image... meaning I didn't have that grey color in the final texture at all, just the color.
If your curious those 3 color images I had were all on a normal layer setting and I just erased through them to have the color punch through from the layer below it. The reason why I do this instead of painting the color at this point is because this will keep the value I established with the greyscale image. Now after that I merge all the color layers and its a good color base for me to continue working on and adding detail and more color because I've already done the hard part of establishing value.
Hope that rambling made sense... I'm not much of an explainer of things, that's why I usually let images do the talking for me
ive been trying a technique to keep color consistant by
1. laying down a color layer
2. then adding a multiply level and using same base color at 100% to add darker color then lower opacity to 10%,flatten and bland and repeat till i get a a nice transition.