Help Wanted: Taking texture to Next Level

Voodoo

Hey guys,

After about a year away from modeling I decided to fire up the old 3dSM and get back to it. I made a simple torso model and am in the process of texturing it. I'm fairly happy with how it is turning out (much better then my last which doesn't say much) but I'd like to get some tips on adding more color into the texture. Currently I feel like it's too monotone. Any tips or advice you guys have would be greatly appreciate!

Slaught

Needs more contrast.

Voodoo

I guess that's where I'm getting hung up. I know it needs more high/low difference but I'm not sure how to pick appropriate tones. Any advice in that area would be awesome.

Chris

conte

brightness -40%
contrast +20%
painting highlights

Joao Sapiro

use flesh tones , reds, purples, cool colors to shadow warm tones for highlights , maybe shotgun could explain a bit better than me

Voodoo

thanks guys. I've also been playing with color balance. That seems to help too.



still not happy with the fairly monotone palette so I'll probably give it another crack later.

nkoste

Hey Voodoo.

A few pointers. If you want to get better at painting textures in general work with an imaginary lightsource. It might not be that contemporary, but it's good practice.

First of all contrast yes, except on the nipples. If you take it up it much easier to see where there should be darker and lighter areas. Consider baking a lightmap overlay or paint the base as if you were starting out with basic lighting
Some subtle shade in the armpit and other areas for example wouldn't hurt cause having even lighting all over makes it seem flat. Every muscle doesn't need to have a ring around it either. It's good that you have the muscles chisseled out, but now that you've defined them, try and paint over the places where the skin-creases wont be seen. So you keep some and you lose some, it's just too chisseled right now.
Cold and warm tones are really good, you might want to have one for up and down.

That's just a few tips, reference is also good not just for anatomy but also for coloring, but most of all practice

Edit: just saw your update. If you paint highlights and shadows you should be consistant and paint overall light and shading too. You kinda get the feeling the model is glowing because it's so even all over.

But hey keep cracking at it, it's a good start

Voodoo

thanks koste! I'll work on giving him some baby fat

EDIT:

I think I found a site to cure my fear of "color". I think I'll retry this texture tomorrow from scratch using the tips this guy has for setting up a palette.

Skin Tones Tutorial

suffeli

Here is a quick paint over for you. :] I think this texture lacks interesting shapes and forms. Try varying soft edge, hard edge, texture, value etc. Well... koste almost summed up some basic principles very well so I'll avoid repeating everything.

Rens

The color you picked is simular to a shrimp

Voodoo

suffeli: Amazing thanks for the inspiration

Rens: I lol'd... and you're right

Voodoo

Playing around with PS lighting effects, some color overlays and a bit of brush work to break up the skin. Will work on softening some of the anatomy and pushing the texture further. Thanks for the help so far everybody.

Ghostscape

I would suggest you stop working with what you have (save it as a different file or whatever) and try repainting it from the beginning. It seems like right now you're tweaking the initial painting a lot and improving upon it significantly, but I've found when I'm working on something it is sometimes better to start over and take all the lessons I've learned from the first attempt and apply those to the base. Taking the colors and some of the shapes from your most recent first attempt, I think if you redo it entirely you'll find that the second attempt comes out looking much better.

Quickel

voodoo, while ghostscape has a point, your latest attempt is a great step up from where you started! it's inspiring to see you work to your potential.

Michael Knubben

It's extremely dodgy/burny right now though. Try darkening it (preferably with a overlay or hard light layer so you have some control over the colour and such...) and painting over that again. Painting, not brightening or whichever other method of changing the underlaying stuff. I think what you have now is a good base to darken and give a second coating.
You might want to do some selective desaturation after the darkening, though.
I don't have photoshop with me here, so i can't demonstrate what i mean, but i hope you figure it out.

Voodoo

Thanks for all the advice guys! This texture has taught me a lot especially about anatomy (which is far from perfect) and has inspired me to really work on painting so I have more of a clue about color theory, shapes, and forms.

EDIT:
Does anybody know of any frapped texture painting tutorials. I know there were a few floating around awhile ago that showed an artist painting from start to finish and I'd like to get my hands on any to check out various work flows.

pior

Don't bother with that! Pick up a good reference photo or texture, and copy it. It's all in your eye!

Great example Suffeli. It's like, an organic texturing 101!

EricElwell

what pior said is true. There are some things i want to suggest, but that would only show you how *I* approach things. Really what you need to do is be a student of the world around you. Study things a little more in depth. How is light hitting this object? What color is it here, there, and in this little crevice, try to understand why. Light bounces around and color tends to reflect from surface to surface. I could "tell you" how i interpret this, but what will work best and fastest for you is your own understanding. Your mind wants to work on certain things at a time, and you would do well to take advantage of whatever it is you are currently getting a grasp on, whether it's color, light, reflection, or maybe certain surfaces/materials, metal? skin? wood? stone? Whether you want to approach volumes/shadows, material types, or play w/ sub surface color and lighting at this time is really up to you. I would suggest volumes as a base, but if you are really feeling color right now, maybe that's what would sink in the most since your mind is already into it.

Just my thoughts. Really it's all about mileage. Study and observe, but be sure to try to apply it as much as you can. Even if you think you have a grasp on it, it may be 1000 textures until you really have an eye for that particular thing and nail it down. So I would encourage you to keep on keep'n on

moose

an important thing suffeli has going on in his paintover that would help you out greatly are the contrast of shapes, specificly the colors of the edges of shapes - as he mentioned.

Ie, the underside of the pec meets the abdomen with a deeper brown and lighter, saturated yellow. This higher contrast edge gives the illusion of depth. The less contrast you have between shapes and on your edges, the less depth it will have. You can completely control the forms of your image by making sure to keep a lively edge contrast style throughout.

You need to be consistent though, with a lightsource (general). You dont need to be crazy with it, but applying some contrast to your forms will help pop details. Keep in mind surfaces, and their properties. Metal will have higher highlights than skin, compared to rubber, plastic, or stones.

good luck mang, keep the updates comin If you get stuck, remember you can always start over.

Voodoo

Thanks so much for all the great advice, it's exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately my 5 year old computer finally bit the dust so I've lost access to 3dsm until I can get back home in about a week. I am currently downloading the PS CS3 trial so at least I'll get an opportunity to practice in 2D space. Again, thanks so much for the replies.

Voodoo

Okay so I know the anatomy sucks but I did this really quickly after having an epiphany of sorts about what I'm doing wrong. I know it's far from "sweet" but I'm happy with my progress so far.

Michael Knubben

It doesn't look like you've had that 'epiphany' yet, though. it almost seems like you thought what you were doing wrong was a mistake of race
Seriously though, i thought you were getting there, but now this is just full of pillowshading, and there's no strength to it, it's all blurry. I don't like to praise shortcuts over a true understanding of what you're doing, but i think you'll arrive at a much better result if you work with hard-edges brushes and confident strokes. Right now i see you using a palette of 11 colours where you could just as well have used two to block it in. I don't think such tiny variations should be kept in mind this early on. This is where you establish your shapes and lighting, and i think you'll struggle with this as a base.
Then again, if this is what works for you in the end, do pursue it. Just give others' tips a go sometime to see if they don't suit you better.
edit: and i don't mean to say you haven't progressed. This one has more depth than what you first posted

Voodoo

yeah the depth was really all this accomplished which is why I was excited. See I had worked all day on another paint over that just wasn't doing it, and then after about 10 minutes of fooling around before I went to bed I came up with that. I was fairly happy that 10 minutes had trumped a days worth of tooling around and it gives me more confidence going into today's try.

EricElwell

Just have some boldness, lay down colors that have a bit of contrast, instead of "feathering" your way into a shape. Feel free to just do really rough stuff at the start. Sometimes, just laying down colors fast can be enough to let you know whether you are doing something right or wrong. Instead of trying to 'repair' something you have been cradling for hours, you'll feel more free to correct mistakes, redo parts that need to be redone, if you have not invested too much into them. Keep at it!