Uniformizing environment textures

o2_is_alright · Dec 2010

Hey!
I've been trying to improve my environment art skills and I've realized that one of the things I really need to work on is to get the different textures to better match up and work together to achieve a consistent style.
Usually I start the texturing process by making placeholder textures with basecolors and maybe an AO bake when available and try to get them to match in a nice way. Then I'd start to work on the textures one by one and they might come out quite alright but when I put them together in the scene they don't really click. Usually it gets better after some tweaking with the levels and curves in photoshop but it's difficult when you're dealing with a large number of textures.

So I thought I'd ask you guys if there are any shortcuts to make your textures work together towards the preferred art style? Do you have any good workflows or Photoshop techniques to share? Any help would be very much appreciated.

Eric Chadwick · Dec 2010

This is also an issue in a studio, getting multiple artists to output a similar style. Concept art helps set the tone, as do style guides, and frequent consistent art direction.

For personal work, I think there's no magic bullet. You just need to keep painting, and use a consistent workflow, don't keep changing your methods (within a single piece). You should keep improving your workflow, but not at the expense of your project. It's a balance.

SanderDL · Dec 2010

I make alot of use of adjustment layers in PS as they can be put over the whole layer stack. It also helps to finish a base diffuse on all involving props and then move on to more details. But from what I understand you already sort of do that.

Jet_Pilot · Dec 2010

I know post-processing in engines like UDK really do a great job to make everything 'click' together. Get everything into your scene and add some lighting and post processing, and then if anything looks out of place, start with that one.
But as people said above it kind of just comes down to tweaking it. good luck

o2_is_alright · Dec 2010

Thanks for your replies. I suspected that there was no magic shortcut on this one, I'll just keep painting and tweaking. I do tend to focus a bit too much on one object, finish that and then move on so maybe it would be a good thing to try and use a more iterative workflow.
Good idea to bring in the lighting and post-processing and merge it with the texturing phase. I'll try that right away on my current udk level.

Jeff Parrott · Dec 2010

I would definitely try to work lighting, post effects, etc in earlier than you currently do. As far as even finishing an object and move on I've done that in the past. It works the best for me when I get all the textures 10% along then 50% along then 80% then put a final polish on all the textures instead of finish each texture on it's own. Things look more cohesive. Maybe try that. Also I work in greyscale with textures (usually using a layer in Phoshop to desaturate things) just to get the values reading correctly across a piece.

gsokol · Dec 2010

Try working off of a specific color pallet. If you have just a few key colors and keep the overall color of your textures within the pallet it will help uniform things.

o2_is_alright · Dec 2010

That's some good advice jeffro, thanks!
About color palettes I know it's really important but I must admit I haven't really found a good way to integrate it with my workflow. The more I work on a project the less I stick to the palette. Could be for different reasons, maybe I add too many swatches or maybe I find that the palette wasn't solid or good enough. Any ideas on how to create a good color palette?

Jeff Parrott · Dec 2010

As far as color palettes go try reading this book as a start [ame]http://www.amazon.com/Itten-Elements-Treatise-System-Johannes/dp/0471289299[/ame]

http://kuler.adobe.com is also a great online reference.

TrevorJ · Dec 2010

Not sure how much this applies to other engines, but when working in unreal i will adjust the brightness of my textures with a multiply node. Iv always thought that the biggest contributer to making textures sit together is just the brightness of them, as well as the saturation, Also looking at your level in unlit mode helps.

What Jefro said is also i really good idea, i kind of do the same thing, maybe not in three levels, but usually just throw in a straight photo source, even if it looks god awful, just to get color values, then go back and make a custom texture, sticking close to the same colors. Starting with any widely used broad tiling textures helps to.

Builder_Anthony · Dec 2010

Try taking a picture of all your props and use them in a layer.Flip the layer on and off when choseing colors.I dont really use photo shop but ive seen it once or twice.Hope thats possible.

o2_is_alright · Dec 2010

Sounds like a good thing to be able to tweak the materials in udk with a multiply node instead of having to change and reimport textures from Photoshop. At least until you've figured out what needs to be done. I suppose I could add desaturate nodes as well to see the scene in greyscale. I'm still learning UDK so these kind of advice is very much appreciated, thanks a lot for your replies.

sprunghunt · Dec 2010

if you want to desaturate the whole scene you could try just modifying the default post process (in worldinfo). There should be a setting in there which will desaturate the scene.

Joshua Stubbles · Dec 2010

If your textures don't look good in fullbright, they won't fit when lit, either. Keep saturation/brightness levels consistent and leave room for lightmaps to multiply against (ie; max value in textures to 215, max saturation to 65%). Often times, lightmaps will be multiplied past a value of 1.0, to blow out lighting and give the effect of a really bright day. If your texture values are too high they will wash out or blow past the 255 color range.

Uniformizing environment textures

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