Creating Textures in zBrush & Photoshop vs Hand painting them
Hey guys,
My dream is to create my own game with impressing environment which uses stylized/hand painted textures, cool animations and camera movement and a complex combat system.
So I asked myself where should I start and I think the best is to learn modeling/sculpting and texturing first and later I can learn animation and creating the game in the GameEngine.
I love hand painted/stylized textures and I really want to create my own. I´m really impressed by Fanny Vergne´s work (1.) and I would love to create textures with this style. Even though I searched a lot in the Internet Im still a bit helpless about where to start. I think there are two general ways to create these stylized assets:
I would really appreciate your help!
1. http://fafart.blogspot.de/p/wow.html
2. https://de.pinterest.com/pin/314266880221115009/
My dream is to create my own game with impressing environment which uses stylized/hand painted textures, cool animations and camera movement and a complex combat system.
So I asked myself where should I start and I think the best is to learn modeling/sculpting and texturing first and later I can learn animation and creating the game in the GameEngine.
I love hand painted/stylized textures and I really want to create my own. I´m really impressed by Fanny Vergne´s work (1.) and I would love to create textures with this style. Even though I searched a lot in the Internet Im still a bit helpless about where to start. I think there are two general ways to create these stylized assets:
1. Modeling a Low Poly Object and then just paint on it. But when I want to create a whole level, wouldnt it take way too long? I have hand painted a little Pillar and it already took me a while, I can´t even think about painting the texture for example a big cliff. And I think the result wont be as good as with the 2nd way.
2. Sculpt a high Poly Object with many details, bake normal-, ao-, hinghtmaps and then somehow create a diffuse from that in Photoshop which I later put onto the low Poly Object. I think for big objects this will take less time then way 1 and the result will be better. I have read Fanny Vergne´s part in the vertex magazine(2.). She said she composes it in Photoshop to create the base texture to paint over but I dont know what she does exactly in Photoshop to compose it. I would really appreciate if someone could explain the basic thing what she does so I can search for tutorials. Another Problem is, I dont have zBrush, I downloaded the student version of mudbox to try out sculpting. When Im sure that this is the right way, I will buy zBrush later but is mudbox fine when I want to start with basic tiling textures?
Can I create textures like them from Fanny with both ways? I think way 2. Is the better way for me but I would like to hear your Opinion about these 2 ways.2. Sculpt a high Poly Object with many details, bake normal-, ao-, hinghtmaps and then somehow create a diffuse from that in Photoshop which I later put onto the low Poly Object. I think for big objects this will take less time then way 1 and the result will be better. I have read Fanny Vergne´s part in the vertex magazine(2.). She said she composes it in Photoshop to create the base texture to paint over but I dont know what she does exactly in Photoshop to compose it. I would really appreciate if someone could explain the basic thing what she does so I can search for tutorials. Another Problem is, I dont have zBrush, I downloaded the student version of mudbox to try out sculpting. When Im sure that this is the right way, I will buy zBrush later but is mudbox fine when I want to start with basic tiling textures?
I would really appreciate your help!
1. http://fafart.blogspot.de/p/wow.html
2. https://de.pinterest.com/pin/314266880221115009/
Replies
And for big structures like a cliff take tilable textures and vertex painting into consideration.
Beside that... The program doesn't matter much. Sure some have better/simpler ways to do certain things, but in the end it might not a big difference.
For the 2. way PS part, it's just about layer settings and then doing a paintover. (Like chosing a base color, overlaying some of the bakes, and so on and then paint in more light/details/shadows/colorvariaton/whatever)
I decided to start by doing a simple texture with the 2. Way.
I have sculpted some simple Stones with some details on a Plane in Mudbox. After that I have set up a Plane with UVs for the Low Poly Object and baked a normal-, an ambient occlusion- and a heightmap.
But now I need these renders which Fanny Vergne did in zBrush. I don´t know if its possible to do them in mudbox.
Does anyone know advice?
Talking about the ZBrush renders + Photoshop layering you can have a look at the following tutorials to better understand the process:
- Bardford Smith - ZBrush Tiling Textures in 2.5D: Parts 4-6: http://bradfolio.com/tutorials/zbrush-tiling-textures-2d-4-6/
- Tobias Koepp - Stylized Dungeon: Volume 3, chapters 4 / 5 / 6: http://3dmotive.com/series/stylized-dungeon-in-maya.html
- Fanny Vergne - Blizzcon texturing process; https://www.artstation.com/artwork/OOxbg
I hope these helps those that want to understand this process a little bit better.