Texturing mushroom/fungi?

Desperad0 · Jun 2013

Hi I'm very new to the whole 3D CGI field, and I'm doing texturing for the first time with limited lessons. What I want to model and texture are giant mushrooms, but their textures don't seem tile-able at all, they all have these grooves and lines that shoots out from the centre forming a circular pattern. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[edit] Sorry another question: I watch tutorials and he seems to start sculpting high LOD straight in Zbrush, then decimate for low LOD in Softimage. But in my Softimage class I was told to best start modelling low res then add hi res detail in Zbrush later. Which should I follow for making game environment?

Thanks for your time!

Torch · Jun 2013

It sounds like you're getting way, way ahead of yourself - especially when speaking about making a whole environment and texturing for the first time. You want to get a firm understanding of the pipeline for creating a model and then think about making several assets after that. For instance, texturing aside, can you model the mushrooms you're talking about and get the shapes looking right without any textures/details?

You can go about creating the models either way, start off with a low poly and make the topology nice, then bring into ZBrush... or go straight into ZB and create it from a base sphere/cube, then retopologize (as in re-create the model so its a suitable mesh to import to a game engine.)

Are you using reference? A lot of artists starting off have the belief that using reference is cheating, when its actually vital to getting it looking right and believable. If you post some of the references you are using in this thread, people might be able to advise you on how to go about creating them.

Desperad0 · Jun 2013

I tried to research what pipeline is like for creating a game environment, but somehow didn't find anything. My team mate assured me to not worry and he'll take care of it, but when he tried to explain it, I still couldn't understand. I still think it'll be good for me to understand this pipeline thing. Since this is an assignment with deadlines, I had to push forward anyway while confused.

I've already done a lot of research and made concept art for the mushrooms. Here are links to 1 of the reference images I've collected for each of the 4 types of shroom I've done (don't want to make long post full of links and text, because people don't seem to like that...?)

Concept art: http://pinterest.com/dbyea/masters_concepts_environment
Aspergillus_niger: http://projectlifecompetition.org/images/uploads/resources_gallery/Aspergillus_niger_heads_lge.jpg
Gomphidius_glutinosus: http://nd03.jxs.cz/256/857/d6283b8b5c_62143572_o2.jpg
Pleurotus_ostreatus: http://pandora.simons-rock.edu/~wburelbach09/theses/images/SeanSwift.jpg
Sarcosphaera_coronaria: http://mushroomhobby.com/Gallery/Ascomycetes/Sarcosphaera%20coronaria/Sarcosphaera%20coronaria%20110_small.jpg

Really appreciate your time and help! I really want to learn to do this!

Snader · Jun 2013

To make a circular tiling texture, make a pizza slice shaped texture <) and then copy that around a few times to make a circle. There will be some obvious repetition at the centerpoint which isn't ideal, so if the object is large enough and you have enough triangles, make that center point unique.

And of course keep in mind that the more 'unique detail' your textures have, the more you will notice repeated details. A new wall of perfect bricks might get away with a 2x2 brick texture, but if you have a cracked brick, you will quickly see it's been copy pasted a billion times.

Pipeline is... a very vague word. It also depends on the type of game you're making, the platform it runs on, the camera angle, and then all the companies have a different workflow. But in super duper simple terms:
1 - super rough lowpoly, something like this (left) would suffice:

2 - subdivide it a bit (the one on the right)
3 - sculpt in detail
4 - repeat 2, 3.
5 - choose whether the original lowpoly is close enough in shape (a) or not (b) and then
6a - bake textures (normalmap, AO) from high to low. Then finish textures (diffuse, specular) and voil

Desperad0 · Jun 2013

Thank you both Torch and Snader! I will start and try to model 1 test unit tomorrow, and read up on texturing guides in the polycount wiki.

Desperad0 · Jun 2013

I'm probably committing suicide here, but this is the mushroom I'm making for this project - one of them anyway. I basically duplicated 1 mesh and now am stuck with trying to weld them together before taking it into Zbrush even...

<--- mesh with concept art.

<--Center trunk hidden.

thepapercut · Jun 2013

I'd say start small; a single mushroom and work your way up. The model you have currently is nice, but ripping the uv's from that may be a little confusing for you if you've never done it before.
Best of luck and can't wait to see what you have in the future.

Steve Schulze · Jun 2013

You'd have a far easier time if you left them as individual mushrooms rather than fusing them all together. You could probably get away with duplicating quite a few of them entirely to save yourself some time and resources.

Desperad0 · Jun 2013

I asked more senior classmates, and they say if I ever want to export this obj to ZBrush and put in details, I'll have to weld them together for smooth transition at the connecting areas. So today I tried to export 1 to ZBrush, sculpt around a bit, then import it back into XSI. I tested connection of a weld, an extrude, and a merge without welding (just sticking 1 mesh into another, then merge). I've UV'ed the main trunk, and then copy and paste and scale them, so all the small branches also have UVs.

<-- what the connecting area of branch to main trunk looks like if the branch mesh was stuck into the trunk with no further treatment, and for branch made with extrude.

<-- what it looks like if they're cut and welded.

Justin Meisse · Jun 2013

How giant are these giant mushrooms? If it's the size of a tree or larger you'll want to approach it like a tree and use tiling textures. I'd say a tiling stalk texture, tiling cap texture and perhaps a horizontally tiling cap transition to underside.

It's actually a bit of a tricky asset you're tackling.

Desperad0 · Jun 2013

This one is the height of an average human character. There is another one that is much bigger like a tree. The rest are smaller.

Am I supposed to make orthographic drawings for these like for a character?

I didn't even realize these fungi units are tricky to model. Ignorance is kind of bliss until it's not, I guess, lol! Can't change idea now, it's pitched!

Texturing mushroom/fungi?

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