texture art test wip (update: Toilets!!)

Maddness

So I'm working on this 2nd art test (popular guy eh?) that was sent to me by another company. this is a texturing test.


one of the bullets in the directions state:

3. The lighting should be baked using vertex paint

what does this mean? I am more familiar with maya than max, and it's probably something I know, it's just that in this terminology, i've never heard it in that saying.

Would this be considered baking ambient by UV's?


Thanks,
Mike

Maddness

ah! i know what it is now. it's like mesh painting in max.


duh! Google is my friend!

http://www.urgaffel.com/tutorials/vptut/index.html

Mark Dygert

I know when you set the render engine in Max to render with Radiostiy turned on, it saves the lighting info to a vertex paint like channel. You can then go in and actually paint and touch up lighting using the vertex paint tools.

OR they want you to render out shadow maps? Maybe Ambient Occlusion Maps?

OR they want you to bake the lighting into the defuse using Render To Texture...

Honestly it sounds like they had the HR person write the art test and gave him/her a list of buzz words to choose from.

Edit: oh hey lookie there you found something

Maddness

thanks for the help though vig. yea it seemed a bit vague, but i think they just want me to bake out the lights using vertex paint. seems simple enough.

Emil Mujanovic

I would have just read that as a vertex lighting bake onto the model. Which is really sweet when using tiling textures so you don't have to paint in the shadows, let the vertex lighting look after that.
It definitely has its advantages and disadvantages. Good luck with the art test though.

-caseyjones

Steve Schulze

If you're building a fairly low polygon mesh, baked vertex lighting will look like crap. You'll need to go in and paint verts by hand. If you're using Maya you can use the artisan tool to paint directly onto the verts as you would with the 3d paint tool. I think Max has a similar option, although I'm not sure what its called. If you're working really low (DS res characters for instance) selecting and applying colour to individual verts wield often yield better results again.

joe gracey

If you don't mind me asking... the ice cream truck art test didn't work out or you're doing two tests at once right now.

Maddness

i don't mind at all. I sent the art test in for the ice cream truck, and they got back to me yesterday saying thanks for taking the time to do the test, and that over the next couple of weeks they were going to compare the tests from everyone and let me know if i advanced to the next stage. so hopefully it turns out well, because i really wanted to work there and was shooting for that spot.


but I just didn't want to wait around, and another company asked me to do an art test yesterday, so i said "why not?" so i did it. i figure, if i just do them constantly, one of them will pull through. right? Someone out there wants me to go for my dream, i mean i keep getting these chances!


Bring on the art tests!!

Maddness

jackablade - well this particular test is a texturing test. so they provided me with the "environment" to texture. it's actually really simple in theory. all they want is:

TASK- texture this bathroom in a realistic style.

1. unwrap
2. create textures using tiles and symmetry and multi-sub objact where applicable
3. The lighting should be baked using vertex paint
4. The final version should be as optimized as possible, by combining maps and textures.
5. The canvas size for textures should not exceed 512x512.


so it seems like i'm just going to be making tileable textures for the walls, stalls, floor, sink area, and door. then i just make a repeatable texture for the urinals and toilets, and i guess i could make a couple of different "dirt and poo" textures to multi sub onto the toilets and urinals so that they are different.



I'm starting my uv's now. as soon as everything is unwrapped and ready to go i'll start posting my journey.

i'll try to get a shot of the environment pre-textured before i begin showing the changes.

Maddness

as stated, here's a pic of the bathroom project before it's textured. what they sent to me.

Pre Textured Bathroom

Joseph Silverman

Basically that just means you're going to light your scene and then use the vertex paint modifier to bake that into vertex colors, right?

Steve Schulze

So are you allowed to change the geometry at all? The flow of some of those edges are likely to look a bit manky when you vertex light them.

Maddness

i don't know, they didn't tell me either way. actually i found where they had weird geometry in some of the models, like 2 faces really really close together, so close you couldn't tell it was an extra face unless you zoomed in on it. i found it while uving.

so i dunno.

Mark Dygert

You always have to wonder if they put that stuff in there to see if you'll catch it or if you'll be working with a bunch of hacks who don't know a boolean-hole from their bunghole?

I mean what do you say? "I had to fix a bunch of stuff with your art test because it was trash, I hope you don't mind..." or "I found these few polys that where causing problems, so I took them out and used those polys to add in these details".

Make sure those polys where not put there for a reason, such as decals or opacity mapped details like graphitti or stains before you send off any know-it-all emails

Maddness

it was small though, like if i hadn't zoomed in while uving, i wouldn't have noticed.


actually, this reminds me of an art test i did a while back. it was my 2nd art test ever. they sent me this prop to texture. they told me the uvs were already done, so all i had to do was texture the thing. which was cool and i was excited. EXCEPT when i started texturing, my textures were all messed up on the model. after inspecting the uvs, i found out that everything was reversed. the "outside" of the wheel on the prop was actually on the inside in the uv map. it was like everything was pulled inside out.

i thought "wow they did this on purpose as a test. there's no way they could've done this by accident." so i fixed it all, saved out the uv map and sent it in with my art test.


i told them what i did, and they never returned my email or anything after that. it was very weird.

Eric Chadwick

That's politics for you. Your test was probably examined by the artist who set it up in the first place, your fixes probably got his panties in a knot.

Tough call, but probably best to feel them out before changing the structure of the test, see if there's some sensitivity there.

Working with tight egos is a PITA. Especially since you're probably being perceived as the new kid coming in, like "who are you to tell me my mesh is fucked up?" PITA.

Be careful.

Maddness

which really sucks. you don't want to step on any toes, but on the other hand, you know if you don't fix the problems, your textures (in that case) will suffer because of the uv problems.


edit: also, on another note, my f'n middle mouse button stopped working on my mx1000 just now. i can still zoom with it, but i can't rotate the camera or anything. holy shit! that's horrible in max. if it were modo or maya i'd be ok, but man!


anyone know off hand how to switch movement to something other than middle mouse?

Eric Chadwick

Sometimes you have to work with what you're given. Happens all the time in production.

Try projection paint, works decent even if UVs are distorted. Won't solve all ills, but better than failure.

Maddness

also, i have a bit of a question. this is probably noobish, but out of the 3 programs i use, (maya, modo, max) max is the one i have the least experience in. i have this toilet, so i unwrapped it and pieced it out. now i want to put the top half of the toilet and handle on a map, and the bottom half on a map, so i maximize the size of both and get better texturing out of them, since this is a repeatable texture.


i move them around where i want them to go inside the uv box, and then i save out the uvs, one bottom and one top. i would assume that i want to put one set in channel 1 and the other in channel 2, but when i try to switch channels, it erases everything i did in the previous one.

is there a freeze or save channel i'm supposed to hit before i switch over to the next one or what?

Eric Chadwick

If you're using different bitmaps for top vs. bottom, then use the same UV channel, just a different material for each.

Multiple UV channels are needed only if you have multiple bitmaps in the same material, like an untiled lightmap vs. a tiled diffuse.

The more UV channels you use, the higher the vertex count of the model, which ultimately can decrease the framerate.

More info here:
http://www.ericchadwick.com/examples/provost/byf2.html#wts

and even more here
http://www.rsart.co.uk/mediawiki/index.php?title=Links

Maddness

i see. so i can essentially just stack the uvs on top of one another in the same channel. i just thought that stacking uvs over one another was a no no, but i guess it doesn't really matter, since i know what's going on, and it's not like i don't have the polys in selection groups.

Eric Chadwick

Right. The triangles in your toilet top and the triangles in your toilet bottom would each need a different material ID. Sets of triangles in the same entity can be assigned different materials, using material IDs in the faces to break it up, and a Multi/Sub-Object material to link the multiple materials to the single mesh.

Maddness

got it. that works fine. luckily a lot of this stuff is duplicated already by them, so i only have to uv one of these toilets or urnials and stuff.

Mark Dygert

[ QUOTE ]
Sometimes you have to work with what you're given. Happens all the time in production.

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT.

This is the second game I've been animating characters that someone else has built. This person has been asked to create a new style for our charcters and blaze a new path. In my opinion this person isn't always choosing the correct path, females look manish, everyone has duck butts, tunnel crotches and loaves of bread for feet, I won't go into the textures or the construction issues.

When I get a model the only thing I'm allowed to do is critique it, and kick it back for mesh problems that would cause for bad animations. most of the time my crits are met with, "yeah thats a good idea but I'm going with what we have"... It drives me nuts working on a character that I know could be much better, but the only thing I can do is rig and animate the hell out of it after all the actual look and style is out of my control and its not my ass that will get called in when people complain.

Maddness

well i've always heard you can be blinded by your own skills. which is why i always listen to everyones advice and at least try it.

Maddness

so i ran into a situation. the shower section of the environment consists of 2 handles, a soap rack and the shower head. i've uvd them all , but want to put them all in the same map, but for some reason i can't select them all at the same time,and look at the uv editor to set them up in the uv space.

it's just an easy thing in maya or modo as selecting all the objects and opening the uv editor in them to set this up, but i'm having the crappiest time in max.

am i doing something wrong?

aesir

Just attach the two objects together. You can detach them later if you want.

Maddness

it's always the obvious answer. thanks Aesir!

Maddness

I'm back to work on this test, while i chaotically wait for news on my interview and hopefully get the on site (please!!), but I've run into a snag...

ok so, Urinals and Toilets. I'm sure most of you have textured them before. Right now I'm laying down my base for it, hand painting, btw.

But I dunno I'm trying to figure out the best way to tackle it. Is it just me, or is porcelain really fucking hard?

Eric Chadwick

Best way to get ideas is to post your art (and your reference!), let people crit it.

Maybe make a new thread in P&P.

Maddness

Good Idea Eric on restarting the thread fresh.
Also, I'll get some screens together and post them up.


I realise that it would've been easier this whole time to do that in the first place. I haven't been thinking straight.

Eric Chadwick

Totally understandable.

Good luck!