Trying to learn more about hand painting textures - I picked up Firstkeeper's Ebook (really great tutorial btw) and have been studying stuff like WoW and Allods textures. Has anyone got any other good resources? I guess at the end of the day its more down to practice and experimentation rather than reading tutorials...
'but now with everyone focusing on high poly "next gen"'
Really? There's a ton of social game companies out there, and even the larger ones are trending towards 3D art instead of sprites, with the hand painted treatment.
I don't really have any numbers to back this up, and only speaking on the games industry as a whole, I think low poly, hand-painted texture work is still in high demand, and will only grow.
'but now with everyone focusing on high poly "next gen"'
Really? There's a ton of social game companies out there, and even the larger ones are trending towards 3D art instead of sprites, with the hand painted treatment.
I don't really have any numbers to back this up, and only speaking on the games industry as a whole, I think low poly, hand-painted texture work is still in high demand, and will only grow.
Sorry I didn't clarify, I was referring to people entering the job market focusing completely on high poly. There's still the demand, just less supply.
possibly cos kids going through college were brought up on much more recent games and there are less that have fond memorys of pre 3d gaming... (bad ninja EDIT pre-shader gaming)
...having said that i see alot more girls posting fantastic handpainted work...
I love to paint, always have, stuck with it through the normal mapping and the current-gen and the whatnot and it's been a big thing that's kept me employed.
P.S. Justin - totally loving professor spaceman, wtg.
Trying to learn more about hand painting textures - I picked up Firstkeeper's Ebook (really great tutorial btw) and have been studying stuff like WoW and Allods textures. Has anyone got any other good resources? I guess at the end of the day its more down to practice and experimentation rather than reading tutorials...
What I've been wondering is, can an artist specialise in hand painted/low poly/mobile and expect to find a decent amount of work? I think it could be fun to focus on that market as a freelance hand paintery mobile guy but how viable of a career would that be?
What I've been wondering is, can an artist specialise in hand painted/low poly/mobile and expect to find a decent amount of work? I think it could be fun to focus on that market as a freelance hand paintery mobile guy but how viable of a career would that be?
The skills you learn from painting your textures are universal art principals. What you learn is easily adaptable to other situations.
Well, I'd say with a painterly style you certainly can. I've spent my career working on games for kids. Every game has had a hand painted texture style. There has never been a time that stylized art didn't exist. But low poly/mobile is hard to say. In a few years the console tech of today will be the mobile of tomorrow. But even then the skills will transfer over. When I worked on the toy story 3 game it was all normal mapped and everything. But our textures were still hand painted. (Last console game I worked on.) Same process I use on the web games I work on now.
and what's wrong with that? hard work surely should be appreciated but i can understand if someone's disgusted of all that fantasy exaggeration, weapons and armors made of rainbowy metals and having weird ass shapes, stylized proportions etc.
Is there any techniques to do hand painted from a technical perspective as opposed to more 2d painting side. For example through PS filters and etc after other tricks?
there are some things that can make the process slightly easier, but hand painted by definition means you gotta do lots of manual work.
the most technical thing i've seen anyone do was making a hi poly mesh for the sole purpose of baking the AO from it. not sure how helpful it is since i'll take hand painting over adding edgeloops any day.
i did use low poly AO bakes though and they definitely are useful.
as for filters, i'd stick to basic stuff. sharpen, gaussian blur, offset and maybe few others. but i really don't know of any filters that would help a lot.
also:
-you can import vector shapes or use pen tool instead of painting shapes
-adjustment layers can help you set the contrast and colors, you can also duplicate the finished texture and try out different blending modes
-you can use layer masks, obviously
-you can use all kinds of patterns instead of painting small details
-you can use gradients to improve the shading
naturally, showcasing hand-painted textures in your portfolio should be a good thing, assuming you've done them well.
for the young turk, grown from normal maps and bloom, the challenge, is adhering to old standards from older techniques. luckily this information is still around. i would recommend bouncing your work off of someone most familiar with the technique and how it is usually scrutinized at a professional level.
like with any piece, know your audience, and cater it to them for maximum impact.
chances are, a senior artist is looking at your portfolio and these artists typically will have an old school mindset. senior artists are undoubtedly skilled but realize, they are involved with putting out fires, meetings, consolation, scheduling, crunching, hiring, mentoring, and managing younger artists. these types of things add up and take up a lot of their time and resources. which means they'd have to be extra baus to do all this and keep up with a kid and all their newfangled dubstep polygons.
hopefully the senior artist has a good enough eye to see the true potential in your work. but with enough work, maybe you can help make that potential obvious.
when it comes down to it, my advice is: put awesome artwork in your portfolio, after you've re-defined "awesome".
I've used bevel and emboss on occasion and also outer/inner glows layer styles set to multiply for inset/extruded details but it's best to avoid them when you're starting out because the trick to using them is to make it not look like a filter was used.
all this information is moot though, everyone knows girls are impressed the most by Bo Staff skills.
Replies
Yeah you do.... sinner
From Toxic's thread http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=90948
Amazing, thanks!
Really? There's a ton of social game companies out there, and even the larger ones are trending towards 3D art instead of sprites, with the hand painted treatment.
I don't really have any numbers to back this up, and only speaking on the games industry as a whole, I think low poly, hand-painted texture work is still in high demand, and will only grow.
Sorry I didn't clarify, I was referring to people entering the job market focusing completely on high poly. There's still the demand, just less supply.
...having said that i see alot more girls posting fantastic handpainted work...
P.S. Justin - totally loving professor spaceman, wtg.
Where can I find this E-Book?
Thanks a lot for this!
The skills you learn from painting your textures are universal art principals. What you learn is easily adaptable to other situations.
there are some things that can make the process slightly easier, but hand painted by definition means you gotta do lots of manual work.
the most technical thing i've seen anyone do was making a hi poly mesh for the sole purpose of baking the AO from it. not sure how helpful it is since i'll take hand painting over adding edgeloops any day.
i did use low poly AO bakes though and they definitely are useful.
as for filters, i'd stick to basic stuff. sharpen, gaussian blur, offset and maybe few others. but i really don't know of any filters that would help a lot.
also:
-you can import vector shapes or use pen tool instead of painting shapes
-adjustment layers can help you set the contrast and colors, you can also duplicate the finished texture and try out different blending modes
-you can use layer masks, obviously
-you can use all kinds of patterns instead of painting small details
-you can use gradients to improve the shading
for the young turk, grown from normal maps and bloom, the challenge, is adhering to old standards from older techniques. luckily this information is still around. i would recommend bouncing your work off of someone most familiar with the technique and how it is usually scrutinized at a professional level.
like with any piece, know your audience, and cater it to them for maximum impact.
chances are, a senior artist is looking at your portfolio and these artists typically will have an old school mindset. senior artists are undoubtedly skilled but realize, they are involved with putting out fires, meetings, consolation, scheduling, crunching, hiring, mentoring, and managing younger artists. these types of things add up and take up a lot of their time and resources. which means they'd have to be extra baus to do all this and keep up with a kid and all their newfangled dubstep polygons.
hopefully the senior artist has a good enough eye to see the true potential in your work. but with enough work, maybe you can help make that potential obvious.
when it comes down to it, my advice is: put awesome artwork in your portfolio, after you've re-defined "awesome".
all this information is moot though, everyone knows girls are impressed the most by Bo Staff skills.
Are you implying that my fushigi ball skills don't impress the ladies?
Does it still count as hand painted if you sculpt a normal and hand paint the diffuse?