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Painting cartoony like tf2 textures?

polycounter lvl 11
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MainManiac polycounter lvl 11
I've googled a bit and cant find any tutorials at all and i dont even know where to start. Im looking to create textures like in TF2 or Battlefield heroes in photoshop
02.jpg
You guys had to have started somewhere, could ya help me out :P ?

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  • MainManiac
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    MainManiac polycounter lvl 11
    Uhhhh.... what?
  • [Deleted User]
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    [Deleted User] polycounter lvl 18
    Textures for what exactly? Is there a model you're trying to texture?

    Generally, what those games did differently is painted their textures with a more painterly than illustrative style. So instead of painting details hyper-realistically or photo-sourcing, you'd want to think more about areas of color and value that suggest the important features of a surface. That red building in the screenshot is a good example.

    More technically, they used half-Lambert and/or ramp shaders to render everything so that the lighting would complement that style of texturing better. If you're using 3ds Max, check out Xoliul's shader and Rollin's toon shader to get that effect in the viewport. There are tutorials around for setting it up in UDK as well, or you could import them into TF2 itself, I presume.

    Aside from that, there's not really anything to it. It's just a style thing. If you're working on a texture and having trouble getting it to match that style, post it up so people can critique it.
  • LoTekK
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    LoTekK polycounter lvl 17
    DKK, that's going in my sig. I have no clue what you just said, but it's awesome. :D

    frell, are you looking for techniques, shortcuts? Valve has entire whitepapers and presentations available online that cover their art direction and reasoning behind their art style, as well as explanations on how they went about implementing them. If you're looking for painting tutorials, there's a bunch of threads right here on polycount with excellent info and discussion (as well as wips) on handpainted textures.

    RPG House - Hand painted textures
    WIP - Hand Painted Texturing
    WoW Cataclysm: Gilneas Building

    There's tons more, too.
  • MainManiac
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    MainManiac polycounter lvl 11
    Thanks guys.

    Fly, i was going towards more simple wood or brick like textures, and maybe some toony grass.

    Lotekk, im mainly looking for where to start. For right now i mainly need something to guide me through the workflow for the first time, then i can put my own spins and styles on it.


    EDIT: Just browsed through those links tekk, there was some helpful stuff in there, now i can get the courage to at least TRY to make one :P

    Alright, hopped into photoshop and whipped up my first ever attempt. I was in a hurry because its getting late so i was just trying to see what brushes would help with what.
    firste.png
    Pretty bad im aware, but im sure you guys could help with that :)
  • Master_v12
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    What did you use for reference?

    @DKK. you made my day with your nonsense
  • LoTekK
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    LoTekK polycounter lvl 17
    Spend more than 10 minutes on that, and start a thread in PnP. :)
  • crasong
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    crasong polycounter lvl 13
    ^ What Tekk said. and you might want to consider starting with a more solid brush, things look way blurry at the mo.

    Also, good quote DKK xD i've used it once during a presentation.
    http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Has_anyone_really_been_far_even_as_decided_to_use_even_go_want_to_do_look_more_like%3F
  • ralusek
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    ralusek polycounter lvl 10
    hand painted textures are what you're looking for
  • Swizzle
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    Swizzle polycounter lvl 15
    If you want a look similar to TF2, you'll want to hand-paint all your textures with fairly large, square or flat-shaped brushes. Anything that replicates the look of an actual paintbrush, really.

    The best way to replicate the look of TF2 textures is to look at the textures themselves. This is a texture from the capture point in Nucleus. Notice that it has large areas of flat color, but there are also subtle gradations, rough brush strokes and baked ambient occlusion.

    There's more to it than that, but that's the gist of it. Take a look at the Contribute! site they set up to get more info.
  • Anuxinamoon
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    Anuxinamoon polycounter lvl 14
    Try painting that scene or the scene you want to emulate in phtoshop. It will give you the best understanding.

    Or what I would do is grab a picture of a building, then do a de saturate and see where your values are coming from. You would then see the textures are quite flat in terms of value with saturation and hue giving most of the texture definition between materials, the areas where you see a change in value are the areas which are effected by the AO bake.
    Good SHARP AO, crisp textures and brighter global lighting is what you would use to enhance it.
  • serialkiler
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    DKK wrote: »
    Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?


    sry guys just had to ROFLOL :poly142:
  • aphexx
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    aphexx polycounter lvl 12
    thx crasong for clarification. my brain yet started to bleed out 'cause of this sentence.

    @topic:
    i never created this kind of textures, but i'd start analyzing the TF textures itself.
    do it by using their modkit or using the 3dripper
    perhaps you would notice, that their textures are like pastel colored and also lack of high detail.

    so as already mentioned, using handpainting could do the trick.
    on the other hand i wont totally exclude phototextures. perhaps photos can be somehow used as a "backplate" or template for your handpainted textures.
    then again it could be helpful to use "painter" or "artrage" for the textures and then only use photoshop for image processing. since a real painting programm might better catch the "handbrushed" effect.
  • LoTekK
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    LoTekK polycounter lvl 17
    One thing interesting thing of note is that the workflow for the TF2 textures actually combines phototextures and filters with loose painting (from one of their whitepapers or presentations, though I can't recall which).
  • Anuxinamoon
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    Anuxinamoon polycounter lvl 14
    LoTekK wrote: »
    One thing interesting thing of note is that the workflow for the TF2 textures actually combines phototextures and filters with loose painting (from one of their whitepapers or presentations, though I can't recall which).

    Oh I'd love to see/read that if you can recall where it is!

    crasong: LOL thanks for the clarification. Made me laugh hahah
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Yup, before going into texture painting and technical solutions, do exactly what Anux suggested. Take a cool screenshot of TF2 or BF heroes, and make it a painting in photoshop. There is a lot more than texture style going on in these games - the lighting quality is very specific and that's in my opinion the most important/tricky thing to get right (in other words : throwing a tf2 texture in a default Unreal3 level would look like poo)
  • Eric Chadwick
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    Here's one I did recently, I used the regular round brushes in Photoshop. Not quite the same style as above, but might give you some ideas.

    ericchadwick_wood_timelapse.gif

    And here's a wood-painting tut from TmHunt:
    wood_tute.jpg
  • LoTekK
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    LoTekK polycounter lvl 17
    anuxinamoon: Woot, managed to find it: Illustrative Rendering in Team Fortress 2
    As we refined the art style of the game, texture artists shifted to using photorealistic reference images with a series of filters and digital brushstrokes applied to achieve the desired look of a physically painted texture.

    An important thing for frell to note is the reason for the style. Aside from being pretty, it serves an important purpose as well:
    we believe that high frequency geometric and texture detail found in photorealistic games can often overpower the ability of designers to compose game environments and emphasize gameplay features visually using intentional design choices such as changes in color value.
  • aphexx
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    aphexx polycounter lvl 12
    thank you eric and lotekk! very useful!
  • MainManiac
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    MainManiac polycounter lvl 11
    I dont own TF2 so i cannot rip the textures, could someone post up a few wood and misc textures?

    Thanks everyone
  • Progg
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    Progg polycounter lvl 11
    DKK wrote: »
    Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

    HAHAHAH.... oh god this is the best sentence I have ever read.
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    Have you made any attempts at painting any textures? An issue I see alot around here are people get hung up on asking for advice instead of just doing it.

    Tracy & I were going to do a TF2 map a little while back and it seemed like a majority of the detail comes from an AO bake.
  • MainManiac
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    MainManiac polycounter lvl 11
    Eric, what brush did you use exactly? Using the brushes with 100% hardness look way to messed up, so you must have used a near to 100 pressure.
  • [iWi]
  • Eric Chadwick
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    frell wrote: »
    Eric, what brush did you use exactly? Using the brushes with 100% hardness look way to messed up, so you must have used a near to 100 pressure.

    I used these, which are just slightly edited from the default hard round one.
    Basic_Round_Brushes.abr - from Photoshop CS3

    I also put a new page in my portfolio with a couple other textures.


    @ [iWi]: cool idea. But the end result is a bit too bland I think. There's too much directionality in the lighting, you wouldn't be able to flip or rotate it on a model. And there's no woodgrain left, so it kind of looks like that plastic lumber they use for modern decks, the kind that's pressed in a mold.
  • warby
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    warby polycounter lvl 18
    the way i understand it ( there used to be a sort of tutorial from valve) the tf2 guys also filter / paint over phototextures to get the look

    its more time efficient i think is what they stated !
  • Anuxinamoon
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    Anuxinamoon polycounter lvl 14
    [iWi] wrote: »
    What You think guys ?

    I sometimes use a similar method to get a base for tillable textures (wood, bark, brick) lately I've been hand painting most of my stuff anyway. If I can recreate a almost photo real look from painting, no longer do I need to fart around with the warp tool and finding the perfect photo to fart around with!

    LoTekK wrote:
    anuxinamoon: Woot, managed to find it: Illustrative Rendering in Team Fortress 2
    OMG thank you!
  • MainManiac
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    MainManiac polycounter lvl 11
    Alright this is my third try so far, spent a little more time on it. Im getting there.
    wood2.png
  • Eric Chadwick
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    Be the wood grain.

    After I laid down my initial semi-random squiggles, it helped me to focus a bit more and continually think about each stroke, how it adds to the form. It also really helps me to look at a lot of reference before I start painting, to fill my brain, so I really get a good feeling for the structure of the wood grain. Hope that makes sense. :poly124:
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    [iwi] It looks too photoshop filter-ey, especially the bevel & emboss + dropshadowed nails
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    Something I did a little while back, I didn't save my steps so I can't break it all the way down but I started out with photoref wood that was heavily manipulated, I used that to kind of trace grain patterns and do some color sampling.
    woodsteps.jpg

    this is wayyyyy cartoonier than TF2 stuff, btw
  • MainManiac
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    MainManiac polycounter lvl 11
    Hmm, you're right http://mattplays.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/tf2-1.jpg

    I guess its mainly their shader doing the work.
  • Mark Dygert
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    Flat color with some large variation + AO = TF2
    Deliberate visible brush strokes with hard edge brushes = also TF2
    Impressionistic realism (read: not cartoon) = also TF2

    TF2Wood.jpg
    - The brushes used look to be 100% opacity with next to no fuzzy edges. With the exception of certain stains & worn paint.
    - Notice the inconsistencies in the gaps between the boards. Boards are not defined by thick dark perfect 15px boarders.
    - Also notice the color pallet wood in TF2 is used mostly in the red base.
    - See how they layer up the paint and the wood grain is mostly hinted at.
  • [Deleted User]
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    [Deleted User] polycounter lvl 18
    I messed around with filters for a while and recorded an action:
    ekjc3n.jpg
    It's pretty simple, but I think it works as a nice place to start painting over.
  • Synthesizer
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    Synthesizer polycounter lvl 11
    Using a smart blur or surface blur over a photo ref definitely gives you a good start point. Using a square brush helps a lot as well, I actually use the square brush for almost everything I do, not just the painterly stuff. frell, your stuff looks a bit soft, try being bolder with your strokes, and don't be too afraid to go at 100% opacity with a stroke.

    Ambient occlusion is also very useful for the TF2 and BFH styles.
  • PixelGoat
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    PixelGoat polycounter lvl 12
    DKK wrote: »
    Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

    That is an old 4chan quote, give credits where its due ;) I am amazed guys havent seen it before. Its like internet legendary
  • Acumen
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    Acumen polycounter lvl 18
    [iWi] , could you maybe write down a little step by step tutorial about how you made that wooden plank stuff. just out of curiousity.
    basically the precise filter order, so to speak :D
  • [iWi]
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    [iwi] It looks too photoshop filter-ey, especially the bevel & emboss + dropshadowed nails
    *
    yeah I know , You're right. :poly142:
    It was realy speeding exemple.

    Acumen wrote: »
    [iWi] , could you maybe write down a little step by step tutorial about how you made that wooden plank stuff. just out of curiousity.
    basically the precise filter order, so to speak :D

    oups , I didn't take any notes of my wood "making of". There's many way to get some base of toonish texture. I've just played for fun.
    It's in a eye - I mean there's NOT one rule (regulation or order to do). I think that depends also on a photosourcing.
    In a fact - nothing special - just "filtering" & etc.

    Nevertheless (iiiiiiiii I like this word :poly121: )
    I still have the .psd file with all layers so I will look what I did = (approximately ).
  • MainManiac
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    MainManiac polycounter lvl 11
    thanks fly. That will save me loads of time.
  • [iWi]
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    Acumen wrote: »
    [iWi] , could you maybe write down a little step by step tutorial about how you made that wooden plank stuff. just out of curiousity.
    basically the precise filter order, so to speak :D

    http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=71324
  • willy-wilson
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    willy-wilson polycounter lvl 8
    "In the early stages
    of development, many of these 2D textures were physically painted
    on canvas with watercolors and scanned to make texture maps. As
    we refined the art style of the game, texture artists shifted to using
    photorealistic reference images with a series of filters and digital
    brush strokes applied to achieve the desired look of a physically
    painted texture."

    i wonder if they used any hl2 textures :/
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