My Textures Suck Character Texturing Crits
polycounter lvl 13
Hey everyone, just wanted to make this thread to show you guys the horrors of my awful character texturing. I've tried MoP's goblin about six times, worked for 3 hours and gotten shit results I have three of them that I've done in this post, I just can't friggen get the god damn thing to look right, I know it's the value, but I just don't know how to make it work. Any comments on how I can make these better, any paintovers, really any comment I'll take I just wanna improve.
Thanks
-Will
Thanks
-Will
Replies
Skayne: Yeah, the one with the wierd filter look actually is just i think three overlays. Yeah I spent maybe two hours on that one and a half hour on the rest because I gave up. And yes I don't come from an art background, I've been practicing my drawing lately, I'm still very lost to 2d though.
-will
maybe it would be easier for you to start with a greyscale to get a hang of volume and forms. start sketching in where you want the lines, outline shapes, etc. then paint in the highlights. and then it's all blend blend blend.
start simple and work your way up.
Like a paint a dark color, then go in with a light, brighten up the center, but it looks like poo.... Any tips on that?
I wrote this tutorial a million years ago, but if you knock the dust off it you might find something that helps:
http://www.pig-brain.com/tut01/tut01_01.htm
Grab a hard edge brush and zoom in (no really zoom in)
for this example i'll just fiddle with the belt, its 3:30 AM here so.. well...balls etc.
1) This is where you left off.
2) Roughly draw in hard lines for the shape you want to achieve
3) Add some basic colour distinction, something flat, a base to work on
4) Still using a hard brush, tone down the opacity and switch to darker/lighter shades and gently create some basic gradients for light/dark areas.
5) Continue with 4, eliminate the very dark if not pitch black colours, gently highlight edges and even paint a bit of colour reflected from other surfaces (see the yellow tint at the bottom of the belt)
6) Continue doing the same, scale down the brush, make thinner, finer lines, add to specular hotspots (see the bright white dot on the buckle thing at the top)
7) Polish etc, add more colour, prevent areas from being too dark/light
8 ) If you so desire, boost colours and values by adding blending modes and painting more larger scale light/colour info onto the new overlaying layer.
9) Sharpen, or not, if it needs it.
I'm not a super great artist when it comes to this style of texturing, i do have a lot of fun with it though, so apologies if anything i said sounds a bit dumb. If you want to pick up techniques just look at art styles from games like WoW, Diablo, or that MMO that slipgate worked on...I forgot the name, too tired.
Anyway, i hope that helped in some kind of way.
edit:
oh god, loads of posts went by, damn I'm slow, anyway off to bed.
1 - think in terms of light, not in terms of color. Light dictates shapes. You can describe any shape just by describing its illumination, from spheres to knife-edged creases. The sharper the transition between light and dark, the sharper the edge.
2 - Don't use pure white or pure black except in the tiniest highlights and pinhole crevices (for realistic / semi-realistic texturing, anyway, stylized is a whole different ballgame). Also avoid using completely neutral shades of gray for shading and highlights once you start painting coloration, or your models will take on a painted-paper-card-model look. Shadows and highlights are almost never completely desaturated. When it comes to color shading, darks, lights, highlights and shadows will be partially transparent (so they'll let some of the color underneath come through), and they'll also carry some of the color of their origin (bounced off another surface or the ground, or diffused through the sky). Colors also shift as more or less light is hitting them, but exactly how depends on the material - therefore:
2a - Get good references.
3 - Start with large forms and work smaller. If you're doing cracks and scratches on his sword before you've completely described the overall shapes of the character's physique and other large forms, you're getting WAY ahead of yourself.
...and for God's sake, keep away from the filter menu until you can paint something decent entirely by hand. It will ONLY end badly. I am speaking from hard-earned experience here. Please, learn from my pain.
btw OP, are you using a wacom pen or mouse? If you're using a mouse, i highly encourage you to take a look at getting just a basic tablet. It will help you tons.
http://itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm
EDIT: Nevermind, someone posted before.
Whatever, Jon - you rock like a motherfucker. A rockin' motherfucker commanding an army of undead attack bears armed with surface-to-awesome missile launchers.
Seriously, though, Jon - your work's awesome, as is your willingness to help out. Always a goldmine of info whenever you post in threads like this. Thanks, man.
Lol, thanks.
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so yeah decided to try it again, normally I wouldnt post something this early in, but I'm about to leave for like 2 weeks so I'd might as well leave it here. I think that this is way better than my previous attempts
I've stumbled across a link with Torchlight assets (uploaded from the Runic forums) which may help you in your quest for painting textures. There's a mix of characters and props, which you can use to study how they achieved the desired results.
Here is the thread, the first post gives you the link to the download.
http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5012
@Danielmn - thanks:)
@sketch81 - thanks for that link bro! I'm checkin that out as soon as i get home!!!
@Miller02 - Hey man that actually sounds pretty cool, do you have any pics?
Aight so just updating to show I'm still here and w.e, I actually did the shield, but didn't get a chance to post it