Texturing - Rust Techniques

Saidin311

Trying to gain more insight from the vets around here.

I'm working on some standard props, a gas/water tank, pipes and other metal barriers but I'm having problems re-creating a realistic rust on the texture. I'm trying multiple techniques and I was wondering if anyone has any general tips for creating good rust. (even a brush set or a particular reference photo they might use?).

I've got tons of reference, and I'm always grabbing more. I'm trying overlays and other blending modes and I'm trying to paint it, but I just can't seem to get the random marks and highlights right. It seems some of the techniques I use to texture smaller objects or tile-ables just aren't working on this unwrap.

Essentially I'm looking for a deep dent in the object (via normal map) but obviously that dent over time has rusted. Unfortunately I don't have an example right now because I scrapped what I was working on because it wasn't going anywhere near where I wanted it.

Anyone got any tips or tricks for creating mid-large scale rust texture effects?

edit: Obviously I'm not looking for your secrets! Just some standard things to get a head start. Every time I try to create rust on a small scale it works fine, but it seems to fall apart when I go bigger.

pliang

I always use custom brushes and sometimes color fills to get the usual color palettes in first then I comp it together...

http://www.game-artist.net/forums/vbarticles.php?do=article&articleid=22

Some hard surface texturing ideas...

Saidin311

That link is actually very enlightning! Simple stuff going on there but its thinking on a bit of a different scale than what I was previously working with. This is one of the water tanks I'm working on, the geometry is simple, but the texture just doesnt seem to be going in the direction I want.

I don't mind the clean/painted one but the rust one to me just looks bad. Even the clean one can use more smaller details I think, but I just can't seem to get the scales right with my brushes/textures etc.

Vailias

why is there a keypad on a gas tank??

but that aside. One big thing with the uberrusty one is that the scale of the rust itself is far too large. It looks like a rusty metal texture wrapped around a model.

One thing that link/tutorial was mentioning, is that textures tell a story in their own right.

Things don't just up and rust away for no reason. Rust is a sign of damage and or neglect. So where is this object located? Has it been abandoned? For how long? Is this a fixed piece of equipment or is it regularly transported? and lastly, Where's the dent that you spoke of in your first post?

But really, all these questions play into how the weathering should appear on the object.

pyromania

When something is that rusty it starts to take on a grainy surface. The metal becomes like sandpaper and there is a lot of color and texture variation in the rust. There will be the rusty browns and the oranges but it also gets these flecks of blueish brown in there too.

click me


You are also going to see streaks on the surface where rain water has been pouring off it. The top might be completely rusty but the sides will still have some traces of paint. The water streaks will also make the rust a different color where its been running down. If a surface has lost all its paint to rust there is no way that flammability decal would survive. There would only be traces of paint left.

Saidin311

Thanks guys for the feedback. The scale is also my thoughts. But to specifically answer a couple of things, the dent that I talked about turned out like nothing I wanted so I scraped it for further learning. Something I want to get back to, but once I've learned more.

And there is a keypad because there are other objects that go with the scene. It's being modularly built such that some of the objects will be used in other parts. That keypad is just a way of accessing the valve that attaches to the tank, but that valve system and pipes etc are used elsewhere. And by the same token, I could turn the tank around 180 degrees if it was in a corner and use it as a generic tank. Theres no full reason to it, just to allow it to fit in with a larger scene, but give it flexibility on its own. Keypad might have been a bad choice specifically but you get the idea. (was also an exercise in what I can and can't get away with as far as normal maps go)

But I've definitely learned from that link, and I will post updates as soon as its in the next stage.

pliang

Another thing to watch for when working on this would be adding some contact shadows where the edges meet but only on the color map though...if you normal map from that it will leave bizarre artifacts.