Example Next Gen environment art
polycounter lvl 19
So there isnt much environment art that get's posted, and we've all seen a lot of next gen characters and such, but not a lot of environment or texture work. So last night i threw together a little 512px wall texture. It's not the greatest thing in the world but hopefully it can help answer any questions about next gen texturing.
The max files i included require max8. I didnt include the final highpoly max file with all the objects from zbrush because it was around 90 megs, but i did include the Z tools which obviously require zbrush. I also included the .PSD for my diffuse texture. If you dont have max you should be able to plug the 3 .tgas into a .fx shader of your choice and see the same thing.
Any questions about this stuff i'll be happy to answer, i also may be posting more examples if this proves useful to anyone.
The max files i included require max8. I didnt include the final highpoly max file with all the objects from zbrush because it was around 90 megs, but i did include the Z tools which obviously require zbrush. I also included the .PSD for my diffuse texture. If you dont have max you should be able to plug the 3 .tgas into a .fx shader of your choice and see the same thing.
Any questions about this stuff i'll be happy to answer, i also may be posting more examples if this proves useful to anyone.
Replies
Yeah, the environment guys haven't really been representing (me included). Glad to see you step up.
This "open source" art approach is cool, too. Makes me want to do something similar.
Looks nice. Not Roman enough!
One question, I was looking at your difuse, and on the top layer is where you bring out some of the lowlights..I think that is what they are called. This really helps define the texture alot. How did you go about making that layer?
*Edit* Came up with another question.
I noticed in your spec map, it has color in it. I have seen a couple people use color in their spec maps, and I way I always though of it was that it was only supposed to be anywhere between white and black. Why do some people use color?
Striff, drop the spec map into the spec color slot and youl see why people make them. alot of difrent materials need a color spec map because the specular color isnt always white. to make good gold you need yellow spec color and brown diffuse so that when it gets hit it looks like gold and not shit.
Also this texture -doesn't- tile. I didnt really take the time to make sure all the maps line up, this should pretty straight forward and isnt really new to making next gen art.
whats the best way to add scratches to a normal map texture?
And strangefate if you'd download the files or read what i said in the first post you'll notice that everything is modeled, except for the painted stripe and the really fine scratches at the top.
Everything that texture has can be done through the PS filter, saving 80% of the time invested.
Not trying to be an ass or anything, but if you're taking the time to model something, i'd try to come up with shapes and designs that make it worth it.
That texture is all simple bevels which is what the PS filter will ever do, and all you need to create something like that.
Using hipoly models allows you to bring in any angle in the normalmap (PS filter is always a sharp 45degrees for the bevels it does) and any curved or rounded shape and deepness effect you want.
I'm not to sure about the purple square though. It might be the crappy homemade wiskey sour rolling through me but I'm not terribly clear what you've changed because I can't see the opposite (or original) bevel to compare it.
Adam, I agree that the cracks may have gone too black but that's not to say they cant be very dark, if the crack is deep enough there would be no light reaching it, so that doesnt mean that it has to be as light as you made it, plus if the crack IS deep in the normal map but light in every other map it will look strange because it will be recieving lighting and specular in areas it should not. As far as the purple square I cannot tell what you did.
The paint is not gathering occlusion, I added brown stain around it/underneat it because if there were areas that were worn away it would have gathered dust and grime to replace the paint.
I highly recommend other's submit some work to this thread, it would be nice to see work that other people have done as well...like SinisterGFX said... open source art.
It's cool that you are ever-opinionated, Mario. I like that. I understand what you are saying, too. However, in the spirit of the thread, perhaps you could post something to show your thoughts instead of pissing in someone else's cornflakes? Hehe. We are all aware you know what you are talking about, but its coming across as a bit of douchebaggery.
Adam: Please do 3 more paintovers illustrating your high level of expertise on materials involving latex and various lubcricants. I would like to hear more. It's amazing what a few months being paid to make art does to people. *high five*
I dont even wanna read this post anymore.
It's cool that you are ever-opinionated, Mario. I like that. I understand what you are saying, too. However, in the spirit of the thread, perhaps you could post something to show your thoughts instead of pissing in someone else's cornflakes? Hehe. We are all aware you know what you are talking about, but its coming across as a bit of douchebaggery.
Adam: Please do 3 more paintovers illustrating your high level of expertise on materials involving latex and various lubcricants. I would like to hear more. It's amazing what a few months being paid to make art does to people. *high five*
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You're an asshole. You want to comment on Mario's attitude? Check out yours before hand, hypocrit.
Sure I've been in-house for 9 months, but I've also got a couple of years experience as a contractor. HOWEVER, this is completely irrelevant as I was offering a critique. I don't have to be super awesome at what I do to offer a critique - especially in a forum that's all about C&C.
This is the exact reason why I hardly post in P&P anymore because of people like you with the shitty mindset that critism isn't justified if the person giving it isn't "sup0r l33t" in anothers eyes.
Sigh.
cool post tinman.
Ironically, just as you say you dont want to crit this board anymore, maybe tinman doesn't want to provide example work for free anymore? Worth thinking about.
Looks great tinman and thanks for taking the time out. Maybe posting in the 2D/3D section would have been more fitting? shrug.
sorry for the derailment ;-p
I know we are all valiant crusaders of truth and good modeling/texturing techniques, but can we all just give these threads some personal distance? talk about work and not each other. try and refrain from posting witty snipes; it doesn't reeally improve relations with fellow polycounters and it isn't terribly witty. and now to our individual admonishments!
StrangeFate and Brome both have contributed to this thread. SF brings up the very important issue of using Photoshop-generated normals vs. high poly modeling. There are an amazing number of artists right now, but amateur and professional, under the misguided impression that the only "proper" way to generate a normal map is to model it as high-poly first, or do some Z-Brushing. SF is right to bring attention to using the Photoshop normal plugin when only simple normal geometry is required.
Brome was also contributing in the form of bringing up issues related to texturing as relates to normal maps. Brome, I know how it is, but don't let this discourage you from helping out or posting in P&P. while i can see how some members might view his post as distracting from tinman's, he took the time and contributed.
which is more than i can say for stoofoo or poop. shame on both of you!
Here's an idea: if you really believe in not derailing the thread, don't post in it. send a private message and get it sorted out elsewhere. nobody like dirty laundry, especially in a thread ostensibly for helping people.
Tinman, this is an excellent choice for a tutorial thread, and a great way to tie in some of the recent graphic advances together in one place so people can understand it better. hopefully others will follow suit and we'll have some more examples for normal map generation and texturing.
edit: and of course i was on the phone before i could finish writing the rest of this. damn you Daz, you and your conflict resolution before an admin can step in! that's just selfish.
Now my opinion on the whole painted vrs modeling thing, even for simple shapes i still prefer to model, creating bump maps by hand has always been a pain in the ass for me and i'de rather be in modo modeling that stuff any day, its not like its going to take an excessive amout of time to model something like this out. For me personally the quality of generating it from a model would be higher, but that just may be my lack of proper leet bump map making skills. And also the fact that you can render out ambient maps and depth maps and etc make a good case for modeling as well. As long as your renderer isnt ass slow(omg xsi sux hate hate hate) i dont really see much of a time loss, if you're using something with fast ambocc like xnormal you can get the stuff rendered out in a matter of minutes, so its jsut a tradeoff of time spent modeling vrs time spent in photoshop. And what you're faster with, me personally i would be faster modeling it.
I think Gauss summed it all quite neat.
It's just as important that people know which techniques and tools to use WHEN.
I'd rather hire someone who told me he did that texture in PS, than someone who had modeled it in hipoly and did parts of it in ZBrush, which would take about 2-4 times longer.
Next gen texture/prop work is so time intensive that it's very important that people know HOW to work properly, and which is the most efficient way to get things done.
I did download the zip, i couldn't check out the models since i dont use max and didnt have the time at work to play around with anything. I just flew over the maps and the normalmap was PS filterish.
I wasn't trying to make your post look bad or anything, it's perfectly valid for what you're trying to communicate.
However i think people learning the 'how to' of next gen need to learn the 'when to' along with it.
If i came over harsh, i'm sorry, i blame the medium.
I try to tell people at work straight forward what's wrong and needs to change or be redone, and i could swear that i usually feel worse doing my part than they do.
Sometimes you have to make people think. Telling someone to redo something is not gonna improve the quality of their future work nor their workflow.
Most issues happen because people don't think (timeframes, resources) and look (compare with other people's work and overall output and quality).
Asking what the hell they were thinking usually helps figure out where the problem is and put them in the right direction.
Dealing with bad workflows is just as painfull and hurts the output as much as plain bad quality.
If i tried to talk around issues in the most sensible way possible to not hurt anyone's feelings, i'd spend the whole day talking with people rubbing their backs and wouldn't get anything done myself, nor would they probably.
This shouldn't ever be necessary anyway, as we're all grown ups and can deal with input the right way.
*edit: and while i see that all this go way beyond what you had in mind, i think it's one of the strengths of polycount, that you'll always get tips, input and help beyond what most forums can offer.
Any way, Tinman, thanks for the files, its rare to be able to have a propper look at this sort of stuff so kudos to you! Any chance of some more examples......
i personaly prefer the look of modeled normals over photoshop rendered ones.
but when doing photoshop ones, be sure that you think of it as painting a height map, and not a difuse,, i've seen a lot of people take their difuse and just greyscale it and run it thru the normal mapper.. thats one of my biggest normal map pet peeves
i've seen a lot of people take their difuse and just greyscale it and run it thru the normal mapper.. thats one of my biggest normal map pet peeves
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i've seen a lot of people take their difuse and just greyscale it and run it thru the normal mapper.. thats one of my biggest normal map pet peeves
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so i guess thata large majority of all net-gen games. The photoshop filter seems to do a good job of faking the process of normal mapping when it comes to simple objects, like walls and object assets. It looks like terrible when games use it as a substitiute for making a high poly model.
if time wasn't an issue for making next-gen models for normal mapping i think more companies would take the high poly modeling option.
I've tried both modeled and painted local maps and let me tell you, i would rathre model it EVERY time. Painting it just causes waaaaaay to many head aches...
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Well that's the thing, you dont need to paint any heightmap for a texture like this one to get a PS normalmap off it.
All you do is mask the shapes you want beveled and fill them with a solid gray, brighter gray = bevel, darker = inset. THe texture shown is pretty much just simple bevels with some screws or so.
You set the deepness you want in the PS filter, and you get pretty much the same normalmap we have here, takes 15mins if you have a clear idea of what you want, plus you can use the created masks to separate the different areas and materials when painting the colormap.
Normalmaps off hipoly models will always look better, and i prefer to model as much as i can myself, some things tho, are just hard to justify.
But anyway, if you do have 5 years to make 1 game, then you can afford to model everything for sure.
A few things to note, some of the layers in the PS file were collapsed together, specifically the painted ones near the bottom, i had them masked off for easier painting but it just made the file bigger and i wanted to try and make this at least a little smaller file.
The texture was designed to tile in the modeling stage but i didnt take the last step to maatch up all of the final images, i may do it but i wanted to upload this now because i didnt know when i could get back to it.
I included the max file to show how the vines were done, i used a technique rorsarch explain in IRC one night which uses a follow spline modifier...just click on em and check out their stacks i didnt collapse.
Something I tried with this one was to apply some generic bump maps to the models before rendering the normal map to add some grain to them, i think it helped and it was super easy to do, i also gave the meshes REALLY rough coloring in max which you can see in the bottom layer of the PS, it helped i think and was a neat workflow to try.
anyways here's a screengrab and a link!
Alex
now i know wtf to do with emissive maps
/noob