Texture Feedback
Hey, here's 2 models i've made looking for feedback on the texturing.
First one's an old brokendown pillar, inspired by the the eat3D broken pillar.
and the second one is a old rusteddown fire hydrant.
In generall im unhappy with my specmaps, I dont really have a good workflow for making a spec, its mostly, just desaturate, trick with level to get some contrast, and start adding in highlights myself and a bit of color here and there depending on the material, anyone got any suggestions for a better workflow?
First one's an old brokendown pillar, inspired by the the eat3D broken pillar.
and the second one is a old rusteddown fire hydrant.
In generall im unhappy with my specmaps, I dont really have a good workflow for making a spec, its mostly, just desaturate, trick with level to get some contrast, and start adding in highlights myself and a bit of color here and there depending on the material, anyone got any suggestions for a better workflow?
Replies
With the concrete support the first thing that struck me was you have all these cracks in the object that appear on the difuse and the spec map, but not on the actual normal map? I would really push those on the normal so they show up a lot crisper ingame, because when dlights go off near this thing it will really push the piece that bit further.
Overall they are both awesome, like them. The hydrant is my fave piece.
It's got a lot of vague, soft, cloudy shading (lighting? poorly rendered stains?) over it, and it muddies up and confuses the forms. Maybe poor use of the dodge and burn tool? Either sharpen those transitions up and make it look like water damage or take it out in favor of something more subtle, there's no reason soft shadowy blobs would be all over a stone surface.
As for the fire hydrant, i like the chipped paint in the diffuse. But the red paint and the material are wildly different materials -- why don't i see a radical change in value in the spec? Sell your materials!
The fire hydrant is excellent, nice job.
As for tips with the Specular...
Don't rely on a composite manipulation of the entire diffuse. Instead, make a seperate group of ALL your layers, remove the ones you don't need so you have a nice flag diffuse without the AO. Adjust sections of pieces you want to accentuate the specular on, remember its all based on 0-1 grayscale range but color affects the specular "color". I rely on grayscale specs because it allows me to see the spec much easier and usually allow engine lighting to do the spec color.
For example,
See the edges where the paint has chipped off of the hydrant and is exposing more of the bare material of the hydrant? Those are areas you can pump the spec up on.
you could enhance texture of pillar maby by using diferent texture to inside of holes to make a point that it is the inside, rubbled part, not as soft as outside painted concrete?and you could bring out the cracks that you got on normal map made of hi poly by dodging the borders a bit (hit a concreat with a hammer, the inside part of it most of time is more white then outside part that drian water, is marked by dust etc)
hope itll help a bit, good luck!
I did alot of stupid mistakes with the pillar. I made it awhile back and should of gone over it again and fixed it up a bit, however I was too eager for critique so I just decided to post it as it is now and get tips on how to make it look better. Also thanks for the idea with the cracks, if I decide to fix it up i'll definitely give that a go.
and glad you like them, motivating
SupRore: "Both textures are overall pretty excellent" <--Makes me very happy ^^,
anyway im not 100% what you mean by Soft shadowy blobs, do you mean the highlights? or that the stone surface itself isnt sharp enough its too blobby to be concrete?
Yosh, i'll get to work with the specular. Thanks!
Your hydrant looks great. As far as texture sizes go, I never heard you say what the target platform was or its usage was to be, so the notion that "this prop would NEVER get such a big texture!" is hard to swallow. What if it's for a game where this thing is 100 feet tall? Or if it was part of a cutscene?
Make it look good within reason to start with, then worry about if its too high or not. Most Engines worth their salt can LOD them down anyhow as needed. Just keep it in reason.
Hatred: Your information helps alot actually, I was too half assed when I made the pillar, I didnt take enough time to work on the detail where it had been broken and I know exactly what I must do to fix it up now thanks
Ott: I'll avoid rendering them on black droppoffs in the future.
"so the notion that "this prop would NEVER get such a big texture!" is hard to swallow"
Where did you get that from? I am guessing you're refering to when im agreeing it should of been a 512x512 or a 256x256, and sorry for not stating its purpose it would of had in a game, anyway to clarify things I had in mind it would just be a simple prop along the road in a fps such as Call of duty for example.
Overall, thanks for all you're replies, im finally getting the right mindset on how I should work and that I should spend waaaaaay more time on the specular, and also on the small detail, however im making it sound as if im concluding the thread, if you have any suggestions keep them coming
Most people here would be lying if they said they weren't posting WIPs with texture / triangle counts that would ultimately be LOD'd or changed down for actual ingame usage. One of the wonderful realities of studio production budgets.
and yeah hard to read on a black background
fire hydrant looks cool, as kaburan said, more contrast and different material indication on your spec would be cool. The painted sections on the hydrant might be abit duller (coating) while the bare metal might be shinier. I was gonna suggest maybe adding an extra scratch layer (just a small one) considering the rust buildup, maybe add a little more interest on the main body of the hydrant.
For the pillar, different colour/value on the inside and worn down bits. A lighter colour around the edges where things have been damaged would be cool too. I feel like the metal pipe could use a little more stuff too, considering how dinged up the concrete pillar is (maybe just some scratches/rust or dents or somthing).
Anyways, cool work man. Hope you post some more ^_^
yup i second that!
Nizza_Wargz0r: Pretty much what I said to Shepeiro, and i'll post an update of the fire hydrant as soon as possible. Once I get more time i'll either redo the pillar or do some random weapon to get some heavy specular practice
Hatred: noooooo, I wanted to make this as realistic as possible >.< Im not a big fan of cartoonish styled graphics such as TF2, but aight glad you like it dude I'll get to work on the specular right away post an update asap
Fast1: Thirded
The spec map turned out better, but it still has a way to go, I've added more strength to the highlights on the edges and a bit more noise overall, and also added a new metal for the spec for the main body to make a closer fit to kaburans image, however I just cant seem to get it right, anyway I'll only get frustrated if I keep working on this now, I've decided to start working on a small pistol and see how that comes out, i'll keep you guys posted, thanks for the replies, and as always still looking for crit on this thing dont hesitate to state your opinion
Keep the nice work flowing man
Look at the ref pic that Kaburan gave you and you'll notice a faint edge where the white scratched area is seperated from the red of the hydrant. That little detail will help pop out those scratches more.
Other than that, it's coming together pretty well.
Crits:
- It probably would have been easier to paint details into pieces that where straightened. It would probably also give you greater fidelity when and if the texture had to be downsized/mip-mapped. Because you would be able to paint straight pixels of color you wouldn't have to spend so much time making sure what you paint follows the curve.
- The spec could probably use some more attention, specifically around the scratches and rusty areas. Probably just playing with the levels to get some more contrast would work.
- Is there any dust/rust in the normal map?
- What about adding another layer of paint. Kind of like it had started to peel once, someone came along chipped off the loose paint and painted over the gaps. That difference in paint detail can really punch up the history of the piece and give it some nice age detail.
- Also there is some waviness around the middle, looks like its from baking the normal map? I'm not sure if adjusting the cage would help, might need to paint over the waves. You could grab a single vertical slice of pixels and drag them horizontally across the waves to smooth it out. But it really depends on what the normal map looks like.
Any more detailed explinations to fix the waving in photoshop?
Torontoanimator: I've gotten loads of good tips so i'll be sure to bring it up a notch or two when I get back to work with it, as for now im putting it on hold for a few days. Works piling up at school. Thanks for the encouragement
http://www.chuggnut.com/ just goto Scripts>Unwrap Tools
These are def looking good so far, you just need to push them a bit further and they will be great pieces.
A lot of the waves could be wiped out by dragging a vertical row of pixels, horizontally.
If more of the pieces where straight, it would be pretty easy to eradicate 95% of the waviness that way. I would do the dragging on a separate layer and probably adjust the opacity down a tiny bit or erase parts just to give the edge some roughness in places. Then probably paint some corresponding details into the spec and diffuse.
I would stay away from Chuggnuts tools, its ancient and most everything it does has been rolled into 3dsmax in much more beneficial ways. Chugg had to hack around in maxscript to get those UV tools working, some of it is clever, some of it flat out dodgy. It also overwrites some core 3dsmax files with older versions... ouch.
I've got some UV alignment scripts that come in handy for straightening out UV's. They work on Edges or Verts. I personally like to select one edge, hit loop, and then hit flatten.
http://www.vigville.com/forum_images/3dsmax/Scripts/VigTools_v1.5.ms
To install them, run the script once, and they'll show up in the Customize > Customize UI menu. From there you can add them to the quad menu, bind them to keys or put them in a floating toolbar.
If you hunt around I'm sure there are a bunch other flatten UV scripts around. Renderhjs has some pretty groovy scripts, its kind of a modern day Chuggnuts tools, but he has some redundancy that is already in max too, silly guy =P
Renderhjs and Timwiese: Sorry for the late replies, didnt see your replies till now. Thanks for the tips! I'll definitely check this out! Thanks!
Looking for crit on everything, also there's alot of detail missing such as text, and tagged marks on the top of the gun. Im waiting for my crazybump license, so i'll add those as soon as I get it. Triscount 2294
Here's a few screen
you mention that its rusty, rusty means water mixed with oxygen which also means it has been used, so include more water damage.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/8/6381524_23b8856422.jpg?v=0
http://www.viewsfrommyviewfinder.com/images/2008/08/31/100_0990_edited.jpg
And as for the chipped edges on the gun, they are not working for me. They look like a white photoshop brush, it also gets very blurry on there.
Advice, set the shape dynamics on your wacom tablet and as you skim through the edges, add variation in thicknesses and gradiation.
and the gun, I agree it looks a bit off and blurry, I'll change it and make it work better
"Edit" I forgot to add the Beretta logo on the handle, I'll upload as soon as I've added it, anyway aside from that looking for crit on everything
The fire hydrant white stuff looks more like something else than scratches or damage. maybe wax or something hehe. take a look at Racers tutorial: http://www.vimeo.com/3779494
Another friend Grant got these on hard surface modeling http://www.digitalapprentice.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=67&Itemid=154
recommend it to the others aswell if you like them. :P
Yeh sure i got time for questions, anything to help out.
Other than that, the diffuse is probabbly too bright, and the specular too strong/sharp, making the material read more as a chrome than a gun metal, which tends to be more matte.
I did a similar gun a while back, not perfect at all and less accurate than yours, but maybe it could help...
And obviously my settings were different so the map don't have the same brightness, contrast and so on.
http://pioroberson.com/modelpages/pior_snake_gun_001.png
Good luck!
The Pillar is quite nice too, but I would add some grunge/rust stains around where the rebar goes into the concrete. Also, the concrete behind the rebar is too smooth, the normal should be nice and chipped and bumpy behind there and on the surrounding edges somewhat.
The gun looks very nice. But I would prefer to see it a black color with some scratches, and maybe a little red on it. Like for the saftey. What you have now seems like its untextured.
mLichy: Glad you like the models, and thanks for the overall advice
Pior: Thanks alot for the pic, gave me a few good ideas! I'll see what I can do
EQ: I cant quite read what you mean by no baked AO, http://img39.imageshack.us/my.php?image=27485928.jpg here's my AO, im guessing my AO is too weak and that the small mechanisms all over the gun doesnt give away any shadow which makes it look boring and doesnt give it alot of depht, regarding the diffuse, and spec, thanks alot for the advice.
TWL: Yeah ! PSQ is the shit
Thanks alot for all the great help, and sorry for the late reply, having a small crunch at school now for a game project, so I had to put this gun aside for a bit, I'll post an update as soon as I get time to work on it
Appreciate the help!
Marine : Thanks alot, the AO really did the trick, it looks way better now
MachineMinded: I looked at some ref for the handle and some of them had scratches if im not totally mistaken here :P http://www.pixagogo.com/photos/albums/photo.aspx?type=3&source=photo&id=S4dqlLtaBPOEYVP!3BJi05fxDyCFcYAveD0rwXARN2PnSLFfdufXXDEH0MGwBblZS1&full=start perhaps I overdid it a bit though.
Thanks again for all the advice.
You can see its a pretty dark material:
Ugh, feel supercocky now not giving creds to marmorset, I'll be sure to add the rendered in marmorset stamp on my screengrabs in the future. Thanks for sharing the awsome engine!
Here is the HP modell i've been working on, the base form is based on an insect, and it's suppose to be a hovering folding out turret, (Turret gonna fold out on the side of the head, and out of the "mouth". Below the image is a story about it and it's purpose for those who care =D
Im looking for ideas for basically every part, especially that red marked square, and guns if anyone have any ideas or even ref to share that you think would help me out feel free to share!!
Story time! :
The year is 2553, Man has started to colonize other planets in search for a new home. Earth is overpopulated and lacking resources. Basically its a giant scrapyard, you have to take what you can find and use it in order to survive. It is here we meet our man bob, the creator of this machine. He took what he could find for example the base chassis is built from motorcycle parts. The propellas he found from an old hovership wreck, and so on....... The purpose of this weapon/Veichle is to protect himself from other humans, and help him search for food and water. Basically a post apocalyptic machine.
I hope you could get an idea what im after, if you read the story aswell
Lear: Thanks, I'll keep that in mind when I do some more texturing
About your insect looking machine. I think the overall shape is really nice. Cant really say that I can imagine its size though. I dont think you need to add that much more detail to it though, only like bolts and screws and stuff like that. The front is kind of boring, maybe try some other shape. But I can clearly see that it is some kind of insect.
I would say that you finish the HP in the state you got it now, so you see it all smooth and stuff, and then you may be able to see whats looking funny, where you need more details, change some shapes or whatever. Be careful with this scrap thing though, can be tough to make it look consistent enough.
Hope something was helpful. ciao
@ Eric, thanks got things moving again
It's hard to think of what to tell you other than to look at a lot more refs.
I'll give you a tip that a lot of people screw up though, (including pros and "big names")
People often apply AOs on multiply and just leave it at that. One of the major things AOs are useful for is creating grime or built up dust. What I will often do is use the ao map to create a mask for a dust and grime layer.
This might sound obvious, but the first instinct of most weapon or other hard surface texturers is that the AO should be used only to create shadows - that crevices and concave surfaces should be darker than convex ones, and corners. This - in my humble opinion - is 75% of the time not the case.
What can really add some realism to a piece of "hardware" is to use the AO to mask out a LIGHTER dust colour like that which you can see in this picture
Usually I'll go with a beige-y colour, add some grain to it and smudge it out beyond my AO lighting. You'll still want to have very little, if any at all, specular power in these areas. To make the specular for the grunge area just drag and drop the layer onto your open specular file, turn on preserve transparency and draw an epic black rectangle over the lot of it.
As you seem to have moved on from the beretta this might be useless to you now, but maybe some others will find it interesting if not helpful.