[Tutorial] Tileable Textures
polycounter lvl 17
Hey everyone. So this is my first completed tutorial, and I figured I would make a thread for it once it was all finished. Just a note beforehand.. the other tutorial i was working on is on hold, and im not sure if ill get back to it yet. but anyway..
In this tutorial I will show you how to start with an existing concept image, be it a photo or a digital drawing, and take that into 3ds max to build a base model. The tools I use are not complex at all, so the same could easily be done in Maya, Blender, etc. From there I go into zbrush and start sculpting the model, which is where most of the detail for the texture will be created. Afterwards I go over baking in Xnormal, and texturing in Photoshop.
This process was a big learning experience for me, and hopefully it can teach others some new things too. More advanced users of zbrush and 3ds max may not really gain too much new info from these videos except for Video 3.
Hope you enjoy these. Feel free to give me comments and feedback on them.
For those who do not wish to go through part 1.. i fully understand. And I am more than happy to provide .OBJ files for you to start part 2 with. Below, you can download a care package for this tutorial. It includes the .obj of the mesh i created for the tutorial, as well as a different one in case you care to do something slightly different (NOTE! The brick_001_start.obj has less objects within the file, which means less time sculpting individual pieces). Also included is the end result .PSD.
CARE PACKAGE!!!
Here is my final texture from the tutorial.
Part 1: Creating The Base
Notes: The process of using splines is a personal preference. The same result could easily be achieved using planes.
[vv]35545046[/vv] [vv]35545123[/vv]
Part 2: Sculpting First Pass
[vv]36254107[/vv]
Part 3: Creating A Detail Alpha
Notes: To fix zBrushes crashing when importing 16 bit alphas, click on Preferences>Performance>Preload-File-Size and raise that number. For best results, import .PSD in 16bit greyscale mode.
Credit to Computron for that tip.
[vv]33784207[/vv]
Part 4: Sculpting Second Pass
[vv]36462752[/vv]
Part 5: Baking
[vv]36770333[/vv]
Part 6: Texturing
[vv]37489855[/vv]
Part 7: Prepping for Unreal
[vv]39159860[/vv]
Part 8: UDK Material Construction
[vv]39584259[/vv]
In this tutorial I will show you how to start with an existing concept image, be it a photo or a digital drawing, and take that into 3ds max to build a base model. The tools I use are not complex at all, so the same could easily be done in Maya, Blender, etc. From there I go into zbrush and start sculpting the model, which is where most of the detail for the texture will be created. Afterwards I go over baking in Xnormal, and texturing in Photoshop.
This process was a big learning experience for me, and hopefully it can teach others some new things too. More advanced users of zbrush and 3ds max may not really gain too much new info from these videos except for Video 3.
Hope you enjoy these. Feel free to give me comments and feedback on them.
For those who do not wish to go through part 1.. i fully understand. And I am more than happy to provide .OBJ files for you to start part 2 with. Below, you can download a care package for this tutorial. It includes the .obj of the mesh i created for the tutorial, as well as a different one in case you care to do something slightly different (NOTE! The brick_001_start.obj has less objects within the file, which means less time sculpting individual pieces). Also included is the end result .PSD.
CARE PACKAGE!!!
Here is my final texture from the tutorial.
Part 1: Creating The Base
Notes: The process of using splines is a personal preference. The same result could easily be achieved using planes.
[vv]35545046[/vv] [vv]35545123[/vv]
Part 2: Sculpting First Pass
[vv]36254107[/vv]
Part 3: Creating A Detail Alpha
Notes: To fix zBrushes crashing when importing 16 bit alphas, click on Preferences>Performance>Preload-File-Size and raise that number. For best results, import .PSD in 16bit greyscale mode.
Credit to Computron for that tip.
[vv]33784207[/vv]
Part 4: Sculpting Second Pass
[vv]36462752[/vv]
Part 5: Baking
[vv]36770333[/vv]
Part 6: Texturing
[vv]37489855[/vv]
Part 7: Prepping for Unreal
[vv]39159860[/vv]
Part 8: UDK Material Construction
[vv]39584259[/vv]
Replies
I feel that your modelling phase of the rock blockout was inefficient, I sort of cringed watching that. I just felt like there was a whole lot of vert pushing and pulling that could be done on a much more macro scale. What do you think?
One thought I had was when you had to duplicate the hi poly in 3DsMax 8 times, couldn't you polygroup the outer tileable rocks in Zbrush, make them their own subtool then export that hi poly as well and just duplicate that around the full hi poly in 3DsMax and still get the desired AO bake?
Also I'm surprised you during the texturing phase you didn't test the tiling in 3DsMax, won't with your rock texture overlays you'll get seams you have to paint out?
Great tutorial for sure so far. Thank you!
@Quack!: yes i absolutely agree with you. i think i may take that approach a lot more loosely next time as opposed to going in real close and getting it so precise.
@coots: i couldve and shouldve done that, but i guess at the time i was just trying to get it done. lol. i wouldnt have wanted to go back and select all those objects again either. big mistake on my part doing 50+ pieces individually. regarding the tiling and seams..yeah that is true. however i think in between the part that was cut off of the video and the end result, i did fix that. my final tileable is seamless.
Just a note on the unreal video.. i will definitely get around to recording it this week, but i wont be able to upload it until next week when i get more space on vimeo.
Why not just chunk out the pieces in zbrush then use the ~Tild method to place them?
@synergy: thank you. and i cringe at the thought of working in 2.5d (using tilde to place). Ive done it in the past and it does work great, but i just hate working in 2.5d. thats a real easy way to it if you want to bang out a texture real quick, but lately i just tend to prefer making a full tileable model.
whats involved here is creating a mesh from the existing maps. creating a shader in udk using upvector blending and vertex paint. i was just running some tests to see if i could get everything working ok.. and i did. i also experimented with vertex painting tessellation.
this is 2 static meshes. 2000 verts each. material made up of 78 instructions
looks sweet.
issues im having now with vertex painting tessellation is getting it to vary different amounts of tessellation. so for the top of the rocks there, id want almost none, but still offset it from the mesh. i may go with an approach of just blending between the two though, since painting needs to be ultra precise.
but ill be covering 2 different ways of achieving that image above. only 1 will involve tessellation. (the above picture currently does not)
here's a preview of what will be in the 7th video (in the actual video it will be with the texture created during the entire series of course)
link here.. embedded up top.
http://vimeo.com/38198687
usually though it can be solved by setting 1 smoothing group on a model, since that is typically what causes the glitch. and yes, ill absolutely share my shader tree. the full final video will be showing how to construct it from start to finish.
i posted the vid and questions on udk forums so maybe i can get someone to help with it over there. and ill keep experimenting a bit as well
Nice one tho!
damn, i aslo think i read somewhere (may have been the UDN, but i have to check) that it's also due to the UV seams?
But I have adivce if you are using Zbrush 4b (or whatever version with Dynamesh).
You don't have to equalize geometry in max anymore.
Yeah. Just make any shape you want, import into zbrush > Make PolyMesh3D, look into geometry tab, look for Dynamash. Now. Crank up Resolution to max (1024), check Group and Projection (very important!), now click DynaMesh. And Voila. You just saved an 30 mins, of topologizing your geometry
@raul: thank you.
@iniside: ooh very interesting. thanks for the tip. that will definitely help a lot.
quick link here
http://vimeo.com/39159860
I just watched all of them straight through.. learned a lot of new work flow techniques as well as a bunch of new tips and tricks for all of the software used.
Thanks!
Go to: Tool > Surface > Noise > window popup > look for NoisePlug button.
Now enjoy. I won't be spoiling such cool suprise
@brandon. awesome! glad you learned some tricks.
@inside: yea i saw that in the release notes for r3 but ive still been working in 4.0. ill have to dive into the new stuff eventually.
I'm using zBrush 4R3...
Would you recommend, after sculpting the basic shape in zbrush, taking it back to max and deleting one side of outer rocks and re-instancing the outer rocks from the other side to ensure that it tiles or is that just unnecessary? I ask because im currently working on a wall based on this tut
Thanks!