tips for furry animals?

NAIMA · Oct 2012

Hi are there any tut or tips for texturing a furry animal? I am trying to make a wolly rhino but I have a mesh loaded in mudbox and I am using one musked ox texture to paint over but whenever I paint is hard to have all straight , crisp and well oriented , most parts that are not very visible gett overpainted or stretched ...

...

NAIMA · Oct 2012

No uvs are fine , they do not get distorted when I paint straight over the area but onthe edges , the item is an all curvy piece so painting on a surface makes the surrounding areas stretched . but if I use a smaller brush then the look don't appear consistant .

disanski · Oct 2012

sounds like a great time to post some images

NAIMA · Oct 2012

Ok I find the system of Mudbox more intuitive for texturing with images rather than the one of Zbrush but I know mudbox a lot less than Zbrush ... anyway ...

Here is the model

here is the mudbox wip texturing

but I am confused on how to texture inside parts without the stretching ,
get higher resolution detail on face
how to texture the bottom legs and nails
how to texture the tail etc

what I want to do is this

and for reference texture I am using this ....

NAIMA · Oct 2012

btw I started uvmapping and texturing the LP befoure zbrushing fur , because I tought to instead of zbrushing fur out to use a real skin texturing of a furry animal then use a displacement extrusion and some brushing in zbrush ... nevertired that so is just an idea ...

David Wakelin · Oct 2012

Can you post a picture of the UVs? I'll have a look

NAIMA · Oct 2012

NAIMA · Oct 2012

so no tips?

I have searched all around but I couln't find any tutorial , not paid not free that explains or gives advices on how tomake a nice fur texturing ....

the only things I found are monsters of all tipe with scales , leather skin or the like but nothing that tells how to make a furry creature , I do not mean to use the new zbrush feature like the hair feature because I want to make a creature for game .
any ideas?

Froyok · Oct 2012

Maybe this can help ?
http://www.froyok.fr/documents/fur_sheppard.pdf
http://www.froyok.fr/blog/2012-10-breakdown-shadow-of-the-colossus-pal-ps2
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=85471
http://wiki.polycount.com/HairTechnique

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?971881&p=971881&viewfull=1#post971881
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?168180-UDK-Realtime-Davyjones-and-other-characters&p=972125&viewfull=1#post972125
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?168180-UDK-Realtime-Davyjones-and-other-characters&p=972537&viewfull=1#post972537

NAIMA · Oct 2012

Mmmm not really tutorials , on sculpt fur texturing ...

I have remade the uvmap and this is sculpted but ...

still not sure how to texture it ... especially the transition between skin and fur ... also using the photosource , however big results always in a texture that lacks depth resolution ... I mean looks all blurred not much but still does when close ingame ...

NAIMA · Oct 2012

Thats the crap I coudl do ,

how can I do to make a better merging passaging from the fur to the skin? I just used the zbrush lightbox tool .., and two source pictures .

McGreed · Oct 2012

I think the problem with this is that you are trying to everything within one solid model, instead of making use of some planes to make hair. Might want to have some planes with hair by the transite, this way you can texture the area underneath the hair and get a more smooth transit.

NAIMA · Oct 2012

u meanalpha planes? If so yes but first I wanted to make the base belieavable ... hen add later the alpha fur planes ...

NAIMA · Oct 2012

also my problem is that the texture resolution using the picture and the lightbox of zbrush resssults in a vcolor exported texture in xnormal that has not really sharp definition , I mean I used a 2048 x 2048 texture but looks like an enlarged and smoothed 1024 x 1204 texture , I used the brush with a bit of falloff to blend better between parts but is not so crisp in the end results .. any idea why?

McGreed · Oct 2012

Hmm, as far I can tell, the problem is the transition between hair and no hair. Other animals has very short hair on most of the 'face', while yours is rhino without any hair at all. You need a transition between the long hair to short hair on the face to just skin.

cryrid · Oct 2012

You could probably get more out of the uvs / texture resolution by mirroring them instead of giving each side unique realestate. People won't see both sides of the thing at once, and with the addition of alpha planes you still would get variation and hidden seams so I don't think it would be noticeable. If its just a base, does it really need to be so sharp if its just going to be covered up with planes?

And yeah, aside from the resolution thing you seem to be giving the rhino's face and feet standard dry rhino skin, while the concept has brown fur all over. To have a realistic rhino texture for a creature that looks to be living in a snowy climate is just strange. Its either going to freeze to death in the snow, or die of heat in Africa. Think woolly mammoth vs standard elephants.

Ashaman73 · Oct 2012

Have you tried multitexturing ? Use three layers (skin, brown hair, top hair) and paint in some shadows/AO to the lower layers, then bake it to a single texture.

NAIMA · Oct 2012

multitexturing in zbrush? How? I just learned the exhistence of this lightbox since a couple weeks , and I find it pretty ankward , I don't know well how to texture in zbrush and those where my first results ... a friend picked up the model and reworked a bit in zbrush and did a way better looking work and I would like to be able to do the same , perhaps I need some texturing tuts on that ... any ideas of some that include possible also some fur techs?

About the uvmapping yes I probably do better in mirroring and using just one side as anyway I noticed I tended topaint in mirror style that way I can double the resolution tough , since I want to make a mount of this creature I was fearing that the top of the beast woudl look too blatantly mirrored ingame .

tips for furry animals?

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