Spec Power is Roughness/Gloss values, which dictates how tight and small the highlight is. Spec Power is what defines a material at the end of the day, so make sure you create a proper mask for it (which need to be straight up B&W values without any real details in them).
I'd recommend krita(free), there's a new wrap around feature, you just press "W" and paint http://youtu.be/9ICGks0-InQ link to download http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=281&t=117747&start=45#p296057 edit: just noticed you said automatic solution, well .. :/
if you've got spare time, you can follow streams of someone concepting. here's an example of someone at DE live concepting and explaining his thinking process at the same time. might have to skip to later in the video to skip the beginning stuff. http://youtu.be/xRx6ANi_c9s?list=UUBIdHvSAyoud-CNZOVKW2-w
I had a good friend that used to work at Sucker Punch w/me that got laid off. They were handed boxes and locked out of the system simultaneously, so nobody at the entire studio has anything to show employers for the past 2+ years of work. Fuckin' AAA man. That shit is bonkers.
Hey man thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. Was wondering about the wing topo myself, definitely want to fix it if it's messed up. Edited one of them...is that better or still not quite right? Will mess w/ the ogre's normal maps and may end up dropping the penguin, as I agree it's a weaker piece.
You usually use height maps for the terrain ingame, a heightmap is basically a b/w image that offsets the geometry of a plane. Get world machine to make the heightmaps for you \o/ I don't know about the ps stuff though, you mean the nvidia/xnormal filters dont work for macs?
[ QUOTE ] Slim PS2 is sold w/o harddrive support (and i dunno if it supports the network card) so you cant play FFXI with it... [/ QUOTE ] network card? my ps2 slim has an ethernet port built-in, so i guess the network card has been integrated in that model.
Usually w/e you find an interest in i guess, it could be anything. Either i come up with an original concept, or usually just fanart of something i enjoy(Characters/Creatures mostly). Film/tv(usually a creature or an actor/actress) , animation, games, nature etc and everything else.
A small update! Did some more skin variations and a quick B&W test render. I also did a few more thumbnails, but I've decided to go with my initial sketch. If time permits I may take a crack at one of these as well, we'll see! Now on to the final piece!
the tile generator has options for multiple different inputs, so you can make 2 or 3 variations of a single tile using a shape node and some warping or w/e, plug it into the appropriate inputs (you will need to up the amount of input images the generator takes) and you should be golden.