Question? how to texture cobwebs

AlanSMitchell

I have had the question for a little while I'm not sure how one would go about recreating a cobweb. I have had this question for a while I wonder if anyone has any tips.

ajv3d

Good question, I'd recommend using an alpha'ed texture, on a multitude of planes.

AlanSMitchell

thats what I was thinking. but with the stacked alfa's wouldn't that cause rendering problems. A and B I'm still unclear how I might do this aside from making lines inside of photoshop with a super small brush. I also had this sweet Idea about only the spec is visable to the player for a more realistic feel. but I tried making a material inside of UDK and I have to set it to masked if I want a spec to work.

Brendan

Not just planes, they have to be smooth surfaces, gentle curves because they're affected by gravity and wind and what not. And that plant in the bottom right of the top pic.

Also, lines in PS is pretty much your only option. Thankfully they're not all that clear and well-defined and pretty, s with these you can get away with lower res textures, and even just an opaque white noise in the more webby bits.

And if you're tossing this into an engine for real-time use, watch the transparency. It's a lot easier on the framerate to have the alpha cut-off (alpha = 0 or 1) than smooth transparency.

Eric Chadwick

One way for this soft-focus kind of gauze... alpha blend (soft alpha) using additive only (no sorting problems) and use a fresnel shader so it gets more solid as the surfaces get more perpendicular to the view.

Have to be super-dark with the alpha map when using additive, otherwise it blooms out to white very quickly. Also it will never darken.

You could do the opposite with a multiply-only shader (only darkens, but no sorting problems).

AlanSMitchell

@Bredan: thanks very helpful I always like knowing what is cutting the framerate down.
and the idea of making it like cloth a very good idea. if left to my own devices I wouldn't have thought of that.

@Eric: I'm a little confused with the first part. soft-focus. Kinda like when I get done in photoshop throw a gaussian blur on it? but make a Radial mask before I do it. so the corners are sharp? it sounds like a good idea I will have to do it cause I can't visualize it.
but the idea with the Frasnel is really amazing. ZOMG

I'm gonna have to pick this back up and try this now. Thanks, all of the feedback has been very helpful.

Eric Chadwick

By soft-focus I meant it's a very soft-looking kind of web, where you can't see most of the strands, kind of like nylon stockings.

Often spider webs are done with alpha-test (on/off only) since it's cheaper to render and has no sorting problems. But you can't get that soft look in your reference photos.

AlanSMitchell

Test WIP
Texure

UDK Material:

Screen Side:

Screen Front:

I tried the material with just a 0 value in the A slot but it didn't look right so I took the invert of my mask that I made inside of photoshop.

comments critiques welcomed

Zipfinator

Looking okay so far. You should try layering it a bit though to give it some more fullness from the less angled views and to make it not seem as flat.

Eric Chadwick

Looking good! Since you're adding webs to architecture, you should put them where spiders would naturally make webs (corner of a pillar where it meets the wall, etc.). Also try to avoid straight edges like the left side on your last pic, looks unnatural since the internal webbing would pull against that edge, bowing it inwards.

AlanSMitchell

Just a test I will start on making some meshes that conform better with the architecture.

lfargo77

Guys i have been working on this issue as well and have been using a cloth modifier on a garment mesh then after is wraps onto the object i use a multires modifier to take the count down then use a cobweb diffuse and a mask or a 32 bit tga with a alpha channel