Black Metal Textures.. is this right?
I have been trying to find some textures for a lamppost that I modeled out for a medieval styled game. I was wondering would black painted metal be the right feel? And if so where do I find some? I have looked everywhere and every time I find the right texture it has all this over paint on it and looks like it is been rotting.
My Game director requested medieval style but new looking for the time not old.
My Game director requested medieval style but new looking for the time not old.
Replies
Lots of lamp posts have a textured paint like this:
Something like an aged bronze would also be cool and might fit better with the them you're going for.
Also you don't want any major details on texture. The simpler, the better.
Just remember to start very simple. I have the same problem with black metal, and I solved it by doing what I have said there
Try more along deep dark greens, gold, yellow and so on as it's been mentioned, unless you're going for a Gothic/Post 70's style, or something more along the lines of The Nightmare before Christmas, in which case extreme black values would work with the style.
With black metal I've found that putting most of the detail into the spec map instead of the diffuse (and using a quite plain diffuse) works well.
Because of these things your diffuse textures will(and should) always look somewhat washed out and light (if you are trying to be accurate). The darkness gets multiplied in by the shader, any cast shadows, and the ambient occlusion (how much of the ambient light each area has access to), so in the end things will look normal and you will have your appropriate range of values. Using correct diffuse values is particularly important in UDK due to lightmass and indirect lighting (if your diffuse textures are too dark you won't get very good radiosity).
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/TexturingGuidelines.html
I figured darkening up some brightly colored metal might help but I think I'm way off?
BTW This is diffuse only, not that I do not apperciate the advice on the other formats like Specular maps n such but if I don't get the Diffuse map correct than I cannot even think of making those yet :poly124:
Edit: a good way to start is to decide on a diffuse/spec ratio first and then plug you diffuse into that and adjust it (the diffuse) until it looks like what you want in direct lighting.
But seriously, you might want to look at wrought iron reference. It was more common then, for things to be made out of this crude sort of refined iron. It tends to be shiny due to the oil on it, usually cracked in many places or sort of warped to get a large amount of highlighting from most directions in addition to surface detail.
Something like this for instance is a wrought iron that isn't so black/dark, but has lots of warping and indents to show surface detail and contour.
And in this case, a darker, "bubblier" look. A lot cruder, almost covered in a sort of tar. It has a low/soft specular and it only brightens where there would be oil buildup (fresh oil).
In either case, they have a lot of surface detail, but it has a nice natural noise, rather than something more consistent and generated.
I used to use photo referenced stuff, then I followed this tutorial by Ben Tate
http://www.bentateonline.com/CG_Education/Tutorial_Old_Lantern.html Really useful , and helped me out a lot.
Keep it up !
I'd say set up the material with the game engine because what you set up in mental ray won't necessarily translate over. You could get the material looking great with mental ray, but then have to redo everything when it gets into the engine.
As far as I'm concerned, I just need enough information to UV unwrap it properly and then do all of the fancy shading in UDK - changing textures in Photoshop and reimporting them as I go along.
Notice how the diffuse is pretty much just dark grey with the odd bit of slight noise? Pretty much all of the detail is derived from noisy Normal and Specular maps.
I could kiss you
Ok so what color? Got any examples? On my screen it is only 5000:1 so it did not burn my eyes.
Also remember, if you surround something with a color, the colors and brightness of the content changes.
A good example is http://www.blacksunsoftware.com/pics/illusion/bedrog43.jpg , the field A and B is actually the same color, but it doesn't seem like it, because of the other colors and brightness that surround them. So if you surround your black with white, your black will always look very black, even if its just dark grey.
grey background