Base metals

DEElekgolo

What is a good way to create a generic base metal texture that can work with just about any color? I've seen them in racer's tutorial but there was never really an explication to how he made them.

LEViATHAN

I made and use this one

It's tilable so I just have it as a pattern in PS.

You could mostly start out with a flat gray as well and add grunge/overlays after defining lighting/details.

Muzzoid

Wow leviathan, that texture is genious! I'll have to use it from now on.

Rick Stirling

The thing about metals is that it's not really the base colour that is the issue, it's to do with shine and reflections.

Mechadus

Im no amazing texture guy, so take it for what its worth, but usually I start out with the clouds filter, levels till its in the range I like, then add monochromatic noise, then I run the artistic-->sponge filter and it gets a sort of galvanized look to it. I agree with Rick tho that its really the spec that seems to make metals look good.

-N!

Nizza_waaarg

racer talked about how he made his in the metal crate tuto i think... basically start with plain grey or whatever, throw some clouds over it and a bunch of white and black layers and then throw in the other details (with either brushes or photos). At least i vaguely remember him going through the base metal setup in that vid...

And cheers for sharing that leviathan, looks cool (gonna have to give it a try)


+1 on the spec and reflections selling metals too, a good base is always nice tho :P

Joao Sapiro

"racer talked about how he made his in the metal crate tuto i think... basically start with plain grey or whatever, throw some clouds over it and a bunch of white and black layers and then throw in the other details (with either brushes or photos). At least i vaguely remember him going through the base metal setup in that vid..."


or you can go to cgtextures.com and choose one of the hundreds of great base metals

oXYnary

Rick Stirling wrote: »

The thing about metals is that it's not really the base colour that is the issue, it's to do with shine and reflections.

Speaking of reflections, are there any good cubic types common to use?

Racer445

Johny wrote: »

or you can go to cgtextures.com and choose one of the hundreds of great base metals

That's great, but it's almost always going to be too grungy and will require a lot of editing to make it look right.

Your base metal should be ultra low contrast and have no color and very minimal grunge. You should be in total control of that and it should be unique to your texture. LEViATHAN's base is a fantastic example of what I'm talking about.

Just remember, metal is not stone! Metal is usually very smooth in appearance, even when beaten up. Usually on the diffuse I don't even use a metal base and just leave it flat gray, then add the base on the spec. I never, ever add any extra bump to the metal on the normal map.

I hope this helps.

Mark Dygert

It really depends on the type of metal, the kind of object, its purpose, how long its been around. Some objects are always coated or painted (cars, industrial machines ect) while some other metal objects are often polished bare metal (medieval weapons copper, brass ect).

Sometimes its not about the metal or its base, but realistically recreating the very thin layer of whatever it is that was slapped on over it all.

Like Rick said most of the work will be done in the spec and reflections. So the question is what kind of metal do you wish to make? Gotta dig in and research the object before really getting started.

c0ldhands

I agree with Vig here, you really have to study the surface of a metal to try to recreate it. Maybe even think about weight, purpose, and human interaction with that metal. Actually I find wood more challenging that metal, but thats just me I guess. Back to your diffuse base there, looks good, but you cant never know for sure. Slap in on a cylinder and throw some lights in a scene maybe?

SHEPEIRO

metal is too diverse to be textured in one way, personally i start with photo refs, but often dim the detail in the diffuse and let the reflection/spec map do the work

Racer445

SHEPEIRO wrote: »

metal is too diverse to be textured in one way, personally i start with photo refs, but often dim the detail in the diffuse and let the reflection/spec map do the work

This.

Ghostscape

SHEPEIRO wrote: »

metal is too diverse to be textured in one way, personally i start with photo refs, but often dim the detail in the diffuse and let the reflection/spec map do the work

I do this a lot. I'll grab a photo off of cgtextures or whatever, paste it into my texture, then duplicate it, run filter->blur->average or just a big gaussian blur (if it it has color change in it that I want to keep) and then set that blurred layer to be 80% opaque or so.

Easy, fast, and doesn't have that photoshop-clouds look to it.