Oh man, theese threads blow out of proportion so fast. Cant wait for what you make of this project Im really envious of your texturework. Its soo good!
Wow, also really excited. Love your work, really inspiring. Now show us some of your more rubbish work, I'm getting rather jealous,my work is nowhere near as good as this. How long have you been doing 3d/texturing for? Keep up the good work!
no modelling vids? i can only see your texturing (which is lovely, but your blockout technique is what i am most impressed by, you seem to pump out meshes with a surgeon's precision.
The gold trim design looks a little squashed. Will it also be squashed on the model, or will it be stretched so the swirls are more circular? If it DOES get stretched into a more circular pattern then how did you go about planning that?
Basically, could you talk a little bit about non-uniformly scaled UVs? I've seen it done from time to time and I'm never sure how making the texture is handled.
Gannon - That means a lot to me! I've been working hardest to improve in the area of color since I felt that was one of my shortcomings in my last project. Hopefully my values are working well too - that is another thing.
EiGHT - Haha, yes, must keep it below 5 months this time
Visceral - Aw, thanks :]
leaf3D - Some of the props I textured this week are actually really rubbish, so I won't post them until I work on them a little more LOL xD I've been doing 3D/texturing for 2 years.
Chimp - Thanks! No modeling vids, because my pc doesn't have internet connection to work with Livestream. It's all a trick though, I certainly don't pump pieces out so precisely hehe. Esp. with modular things, getting all the measurements right and working with snaps is sometimes a pain! Fun to see it all come together though
Tigerfeet - Hmm, I didn't realize it looked squashed hahaha. I wasn't thinking about stretching uv's or anything like that for that piece, although I am having to do uv stretching on everything no matter what in order for my tileables to work with my modular pieces - if that makes sense.
I have never worked with non-uniformly scaled UV's. I think I could explain the basic technical process because I have talked about it with my friends many times, but there are still some things I don't understand. Like why would you want to non-uniformly scale anything in the first place? Do you have to use a precise ratio for the scaling (like do you have to scale it by exactly half, or do you eyeball it?) And, like you, I don't know how to deal with the actual texture painting. Like do you have to keep in mind stretching or what? Not really sure... haha...
I think your texturing in general is great. I have to say though, I'm not a huge fan of the incense pillar. It seems like you matched the concept fairly well, however I think something may have been lost in translation. As an object by itself, I don't think it reads very well. This may be because it doesn't have smoke coming out or the rotating drums as noted in the concept, but the colour choices and materials may also be a part of that. I'm sorry that I can't exactly put my finger on what it is that I don't like about it, and I wish I could offer some sort of advice. Just didn't think it was up to the quality of the other stuff.
ooo.. see u figured it out. did you just end up using that one texture and match up the seams manually?
I also agree with whoever wanted to see your blockout process.. you smash them out so fast. maybe just do a recording and then put it up on the youtubes or something. also, really enjoyed ur livestream, apologies for probably completlely distracting you but i enjoy discussing this kind of stuff and i want to learn as much as i can. neways.. looks good cant wait to see more!
SgtNasty - Hmm, ok. Hopefully it will look better when it is in the scene around everything else that is textured too - if not, I will try to figure out what is wrong with it! Thank you.
Alberto Rdrgz - Hehe, I appreciate the suggestion (and it is not dumb!) Like the pillar though, I would like to see how it looks in scene before I make any changes. The reason I planned the wall to be a consistent color altogether is that everything else is so bright and colorful that I don't want too much going on. But I shall see once everything is together.
Thanks dissonance
hathol - No, you were not bothering me at all, I also enjoy discussing my process. Talking with you and Chris about my UV's really helped me to figure it all out. The floorpiece UV's almost reach the halfway point in the texture, so I'm just going to stretch it and snap it to the halfway point (the stretching is hardly noticeable, actually). Then I could make the edges of that UV shell seamless, or export another floorpiece but with UV's that are stretched to fit on the second half of the texture. The latter option would allow me to use the variation that the tileable texture gives me, so I am going to go with that. Here's a picture in case what I just wrote makes no sense at all xD:
Someone tell me if any of this info. I've discovered is wrong, or if there are even better ways to do it!
Yes, for this particular piece I could (and now that you mention it, I think I will >_> so thanks haha), but this is basically how I was planning to do it for all of the pieces since some definitely won't be able to stretch across the whole texture.
also, think about adding some additional geometry to some of these, after you layout the texture. example, the side rocks of the pathway, adding some edges and popping them up will enhance the silhouette.
ok si if i'm understanding, you are making 2 modular pieces of floor that are just the 2 halves of your texture that you already made. you have to line those up though 12121212 or it wouldn't work though right?
also, yea.. i mean i think this got all confusing when you decided to do the texture as tiling and then changed ur mind and split it into pieces that didn't fit the texture sheet that you already made. I think you should just make a piece thats the whole thing, seems like less of a headache.
Haha Nat xD, sorry I'm kindof a slowpoke, I'd only had textures to show at the time!
hathol - Yes, you're right. And yeah, I was certainly confusing myself earlier xD
Anuxinamoon - Thank you ^_^ Your own work is lovely as well :]
So here's an update of my building in UDK. All of my textures are in, except for the underside of the roof which I had completely forgotten about (I think I'm going to make some sort of darker red wood beam texture for it). I'm also currently trying to figure out if I can add edge wear to the red wood trims in such a way that it won't show up in odd places for some of the other pieces. Sorry the light maps are still jacked up, I've been lazy to get around to them
I'm still planning to pull out geo for some areas, so I haven't forgotten that, but for now I am looking for crits on cohesiveness of colors, on lighting, and anything else. Thanks in advance!
Diffuse for unique parts:
Spec for unique parts (looking at my building now, I think it might be too strong):
Now, im no lighter, so take this with a grain of salt. But to me, the lighting feels flat.. I hardly see any shadows or contrast.
The colours. I personally think there is too much green. The green roofing seems odd to me. Ive never seen green shingles like that on asian buildings. They are always a red clay colour, or yellow. Never seen green.
The green of the water blends in too much with the grass. I think you need to add some dirt around the shore line. Maybe make the water either a little muddier / brown, or a little more blue. But, if you like the colour, I think the dirt around the shore line will really help.
I wish there was more color variation in the red-painted wood. I really like the green roof tiles and think you've got some great colors in there. Compared to the roof the red wood looks pretty flat. Especially down near the water the paint would be worn away and the wood would be grey or even might have some algae on it. I guess this is the kind of thing you were talking about adding wear?
Nice update. I agree with the others about the water, it's completely blending in.
The lighting is a bit flat at the moment, but I understand that it's still a WIP. The general colour theory of the scene is still a bit off, it's just not popping yet. The red wood is extremely high contrast against the rest of the scene, maybe not a bad thing, but very noticeable.
The main thing that stood out to me were the tops of the bridge support pillar things. You've matched the concept, but I feel like this is a case where the concept artist made something that works well in 2D but not 3D. What you have at the moment looks very geometric and flat at the top (it looks ok at the base), and it's accentuated by the lack of detail in that region of the texture. When I saw your stone texture, I liked that it had some flat areas and there were just a few stones painted in here and there. It does work well on the sides of the bridge, but I think you may need another solution for the top of the supports.
Oh, one more quick thing: you painted light hitting the roof shingles at an angle. This will probably be ok for your scene, but in WoW the time of day would change, therefore the angle of the key light would change, which would cause a bit of disconnect. For example, at night, your shadows would still be on the shingles even though the light at that time will be blue and soft. Just something to keep in mind.
I had to take a long look at your super awesome update to even think of anything to crit u on, BUT you said you wanted some input on your colours and lighting. SO, after staring at these amazing textures and ur super speedy blockouts... i just think that the darks in the roofing tiles are too dark. it gets a bit better when i blow up the images to get a closer look but from far away it makes the roof look darker than the rest of the pieces. just a suggestion ^_^
can't wait for more, gonna upload something i'm working on soon. hopefully everyone doesn't tear me to shreds.
But i think you're going about the roof tiles wrong.
They should be vertical rows of shape, but you have the shape going horizontally.
I see what you're getting at, trying to add the shape of each tile above each other, but I think for this style of roof you get better visual impact seperating the rows left/right instead. (the edge of the roof will have humps)
slipsius, Sukotto - I will work more on the lighting - I'm not really sure why I have so few shadows on my building right now o.O I've added some dirt to the shoreline, although I think it's a bit red so I will be tweaking the color of that.
Tigerfeet, Blasoid - I agree about the wood, it doesn't read from a distance. I think I need to make the darks and lights a little more pronounced so they show up in the scene. For adding wear I am working on a moss texture right now for vert painting.
SgtNasty - Yes, I agree about the colors too, I don't think they are coming together particularly well just yet. I think it may be because some of my stone is warm color, and another stone is cool, which is clashing. I will do some paintovers. I have fixed the top of the pillars; now they have a cap.
hathol, Baddcog - Thanks for pointing out the roof geometry, I've fixed it now - I think the way I had it before was not helping the silhouette and was also causing some black shadows.
aajohnny - Yes, I think there are some parts that could use some beveling - maybe the stairs, but I think the red wood rails need it too. Thanks for calling it to my attention.
jarrede - Thank you :]
Worked on one of the floor textures, diffuse, spec, normal:
Dirt texture:
Update to second set. Added/optimized geo for some of the modular pieces. Max render:
Update in UDK. Basically just threw the dirt in there so far, meshes have not been re-imported.
I love this so far, although what really stands out at me is the roof... compared to everything else it looks like the shadows go too deep or maybe you're trying to paint too much 3d into it, if that makes any sense. I can't really put my finger on it, but it's like the texture and the flatness of the roof are fighting each other too much, it could just be the angle of the render breaking the illusion a bit making it look super flat.
for udk, loose some of that lighting info in your textures... you have a normal map it's redundant. also, make your diffuses with less contrast, get the contrast from your spec map.
Yes, I made this in ZBRush! haha - I am retopping atm :] The high poly gongs are made in 3Ds Max though, and I will bring them into Zbrush just for scratches and designs and stuff.
Sure! I made the dragon body from a dynamesh sphere, just pulling out most of the curvy shapes. I also use insert sphere to buildup/add geometry sometimes, and if I want to delete geo, I use negative insert sphere.
The pillar is made with insert spheres/cylinders that I kinda just smash around until it looks the right shape. I group each part of the pillar into its own subtool so it's easier to work with.
For brushes, I use Clay Buildup most of the time, hpolish to get the stony surface look, and damstandard/slash3 for cuts and drawing shapes. I also find Snakehook a quick way to pull out shapes like the horns, teeth, and neck/tail spines. Claypolish is also a cool trick hehe.
Hope that explained it :], if you have any other questions about my process feel free to ask.
Sukotto - I made the scales with an alpha using a height map that I drew. I painted them on one by one with the Standard brush, DragRect. I had to make sure to mask off those ridges first though. Height map:
Yeah, I'm using version r2 right now, and the dynamesh/insert mesh stuff makes blocking out much easier than before imo. Also you don't have to worry about messy topology while you work. You should def give it a shot sometime!
When you model something out, can you collide pieces into each other or does the model have to be completely clean? By clean I mean modeling everything off of itself.
Chaserm2, I think what you're talking about is usually called floating geometry. From what I understand that's not a problem as long as the mesh doesn't need to be deformed and animated.
amile, teaandcigarettes, max - Thanks for the kind words and support! I am far from done with this project; will def be coming back to work on it in the summer and polish it up for my port
i really love the colour you choose. So bright and colourful. What i love the most is your textures. Really love your handpainted style. Do you have a tutorial for it?
Replies
This thread is like candy to me!
this is fun. that second scene you did with the same assets kicks arse.
going to watch the livestream now because i am doing a similar scene
Basically, could you talk a little bit about non-uniformly scaled UVs? I've seen it done from time to time and I'm never sure how making the texture is handled.
EiGHT - Haha, yes, must keep it below 5 months this time
Visceral - Aw, thanks :]
leaf3D - Some of the props I textured this week are actually really rubbish, so I won't post them until I work on them a little more LOL xD I've been doing 3D/texturing for 2 years.
Chimp - Thanks! No modeling vids, because my pc doesn't have internet connection to work with Livestream. It's all a trick though, I certainly don't pump pieces out so precisely hehe. Esp. with modular things, getting all the measurements right and working with snaps is sometimes a pain! Fun to see it all come together though
Tigerfeet - Hmm, I didn't realize it looked squashed hahaha. I wasn't thinking about stretching uv's or anything like that for that piece, although I am having to do uv stretching on everything no matter what in order for my tileables to work with my modular pieces - if that makes sense.
I have never worked with non-uniformly scaled UV's. I think I could explain the basic technical process because I have talked about it with my friends many times, but there are still some things I don't understand. Like why would you want to non-uniformly scale anything in the first place? Do you have to use a precise ratio for the scaling (like do you have to scale it by exactly half, or do you eyeball it?) And, like you, I don't know how to deal with the actual texture painting. Like do you have to keep in mind stretching or what? Not really sure... haha...
[disclaimer: just a dumb suggestion]
I also agree with whoever wanted to see your blockout process.. you smash them out so fast. maybe just do a recording and then put it up on the youtubes or something. also, really enjoyed ur livestream, apologies for probably completlely distracting you but i enjoy discussing this kind of stuff and i want to learn as much as i can. neways.. looks good cant wait to see more!
Alberto Rdrgz - Hehe, I appreciate the suggestion (and it is not dumb!) Like the pillar though, I would like to see how it looks in scene before I make any changes. The reason I planned the wall to be a consistent color altogether is that everything else is so bright and colorful that I don't want too much going on. But I shall see once everything is together.
Thanks dissonance
hathol - No, you were not bothering me at all, I also enjoy discussing my process. Talking with you and Chris about my UV's really helped me to figure it all out. The floorpiece UV's almost reach the halfway point in the texture, so I'm just going to stretch it and snap it to the halfway point (the stretching is hardly noticeable, actually). Then I could make the edges of that UV shell seamless, or export another floorpiece but with UV's that are stretched to fit on the second half of the texture. The latter option would allow me to use the variation that the tileable texture gives me, so I am going to go with that. Here's a picture in case what I just wrote makes no sense at all xD:
Someone tell me if any of this info. I've discovered is wrong, or if there are even better ways to do it!
also, yea.. i mean i think this got all confusing when you decided to do the texture as tiling and then changed ur mind and split it into pieces that didn't fit the texture sheet that you already made. I think you should just make a piece thats the whole thing, seems like less of a headache.
Haha Nat xD, sorry I'm kindof a slowpoke, I'd only had textures to show at the time!
hathol - Yes, you're right. And yeah, I was certainly confusing myself earlier xD
Anuxinamoon - Thank you ^_^ Your own work is lovely as well :]
So here's an update of my building in UDK. All of my textures are in, except for the underside of the roof which I had completely forgotten about (I think I'm going to make some sort of darker red wood beam texture for it). I'm also currently trying to figure out if I can add edge wear to the red wood trims in such a way that it won't show up in odd places for some of the other pieces. Sorry the light maps are still jacked up, I've been lazy to get around to them
I'm still planning to pull out geo for some areas, so I haven't forgotten that, but for now I am looking for crits on cohesiveness of colors, on lighting, and anything else. Thanks in advance!
Diffuse for unique parts:
Spec for unique parts (looking at my building now, I think it might be too strong):
Now, im no lighter, so take this with a grain of salt. But to me, the lighting feels flat.. I hardly see any shadows or contrast.
The colours. I personally think there is too much green. The green roofing seems odd to me. Ive never seen green shingles like that on asian buildings. They are always a red clay colour, or yellow. Never seen green.
The green of the water blends in too much with the grass. I think you need to add some dirt around the shore line. Maybe make the water either a little muddier / brown, or a little more blue. But, if you like the colour, I think the dirt around the shore line will really help.
Good start though!
I agree about changing the water color, right now there's a bit too much green. I really do like the color scheme you have right now.
slipsius - green tiles are actually pretty common with Japanese tiled roofs
The lighting is a bit flat at the moment, but I understand that it's still a WIP. The general colour theory of the scene is still a bit off, it's just not popping yet. The red wood is extremely high contrast against the rest of the scene, maybe not a bad thing, but very noticeable.
The main thing that stood out to me were the tops of the bridge support pillar things. You've matched the concept, but I feel like this is a case where the concept artist made something that works well in 2D but not 3D. What you have at the moment looks very geometric and flat at the top (it looks ok at the base), and it's accentuated by the lack of detail in that region of the texture. When I saw your stone texture, I liked that it had some flat areas and there were just a few stones painted in here and there. It does work well on the sides of the bridge, but I think you may need another solution for the top of the supports.
Oh, one more quick thing: you painted light hitting the roof shingles at an angle. This will probably be ok for your scene, but in WoW the time of day would change, therefore the angle of the key light would change, which would cause a bit of disconnect. For example, at night, your shadows would still be on the shingles even though the light at that time will be blue and soft. Just something to keep in mind.
Good work in general though, keep at it.
can't wait for more, gonna upload something i'm working on soon. hopefully everyone doesn't tear me to shreds.
But i think you're going about the roof tiles wrong.
They should be vertical rows of shape, but you have the shape going horizontally.
I see what you're getting at, trying to add the shape of each tile above each other, but I think for this style of roof you get better visual impact seperating the rows left/right instead. (the edge of the roof will have humps)
Tigerfeet, Blasoid - I agree about the wood, it doesn't read from a distance. I think I need to make the darks and lights a little more pronounced so they show up in the scene. For adding wear I am working on a moss texture right now for vert painting.
SgtNasty - Yes, I agree about the colors too, I don't think they are coming together particularly well just yet. I think it may be because some of my stone is warm color, and another stone is cool, which is clashing. I will do some paintovers. I have fixed the top of the pillars; now they have a cap.
hathol, Baddcog - Thanks for pointing out the roof geometry, I've fixed it now - I think the way I had it before was not helping the silhouette and was also causing some black shadows.
aajohnny - Yes, I think there are some parts that could use some beveling - maybe the stairs, but I think the red wood rails need it too. Thanks for calling it to my attention.
jarrede - Thank you :]
Worked on one of the floor textures, diffuse, spec, normal:
Dirt texture:
Update to second set. Added/optimized geo for some of the modular pieces. Max render:
Update in UDK. Basically just threw the dirt in there so far, meshes have not been re-imported.
Blockout of Dragon statue high poly:
Critique and comments welcome!
Alberto - Thank you, I will work on the contrast in my spec maps - I feel a have a ton more to learn about those!
Update on the Dragon statue, critique and comments welcome :]
The pillar is made with insert spheres/cylinders that I kinda just smash around until it looks the right shape. I group each part of the pillar into its own subtool so it's easier to work with.
For brushes, I use Clay Buildup most of the time, hpolish to get the stony surface look, and damstandard/slash3 for cuts and drawing shapes. I also find Snakehook a quick way to pull out shapes like the horns, teeth, and neck/tail spines. Claypolish is also a cool trick hehe.
Hope that explained it :], if you have any other questions about my process feel free to ask.