Thompson Gun Texture practice
polycounter lvl 12
I'm working on Thompson gun and I need advice on texturing. I'm trying to match spec and gloss for now. Diffuse is base colours almost (with soooome material definition). Nitrous with 3 photometric lights.
Replies
For now I want to say your wood grain scale is too small and undefined. Scale that up so we can see some nice grain on it even from a distance. Throw an interesting spec on that sucker too, one that highlights the interesting bits of the wood grain so we get more than a flat red on it overall. Every so slight normal mapping might work as well but definitely worry about that after you have your diffuse and spec working together better.
The textures are also flat, darken in some areas on a separate layer of Photoshop using some reference but don't go overboard. See how the edge bits get darker towards the bottom and where they meat with the metal?
If you look at this image you'll notice areas of spec really pop with an almost yellowish sheen, you may want to even get a bit of that in the diffuse for prominent areas of the weapon, get a bit of it in both.
You've got a great start with some extremely clean modeling though, hats off on that! Don't get too caught up in details for now, play with some different sized wood grains, try some layer effects in photoshop to give your spec some pop and play with levels/ curves to boot.
And for the fuck of it, here's a fun little song about a Thompson Gun:
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The reference I'm using for texture is :
I'm trying to work on spec and diff simultaneously. For now I know I have to :
- watch the front of the barrel (easy to create seams)... because I unwraped it like a moron <.<
- work on this colour variation in the metal
- work still on material definition
- make barrel and mag bit more glossy/oily and darker than the rest of the metal
I hope this thread will help me to finish this piece. I still lack a skill in texturing ;/
1 - If you look over the butt of the weapon on your reference, you'll notice a dull but wide spec band. Try and match this if you can.
2 - Notice how the magazine has a higher spec than the body. This is because the body is most likely older, since magazines are replaced often. It's up to you if you want to match this, there are many combinations possible.
3 - Your model is missing some very slight curves that give the model a nice definition. The taper on the wood piece under the barrel, for instance.
4 - Consider using a brighter background. Lots of the detail in your piece gets lost because of the black background. It is also very hard to match a silhouette when you're working with a similarly saturated colors on background and on your model.
5 - It's hard to tell, but the metal texture is looking cloudy. Almost like either zbrush noise or photoshop render>clouds. I'm not sure if this is the case, but it might help you at the start to use a solid diffuse and block out the scratches.
Using 2 omnis without any shadows with a bright plane behind it. Tried to make the scene simpl and not affecting texture... but must improve it. For now Using only ps brushes (except wood). Maybe I should use more textures overlays to make the metal look right because now I think it looks pretty bad. The highlights on the metal look not bad I think but diffuse itself isn't to convincing. Texturing is kinda hard ;p