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View Full Version : Highly Realistic Brick Texture Help

itsallgoode9
11-23-2004, 04:45 AM
I am wanting to know if anybody has any tips for making a realistic looking brick texture..........now, I have been texturing for about 4 years now and generally like to work in the more realistic range, and feel I am pretty skilled and advanced, but the one problem I have always had is making a really high and realistic brick texture........it's not that hard if you are up close, but once you get very far away from it it loses it's realisticness due to all of the minute details such as grit on the mortar, dust on the bricks, etc............Mainly the bump is what I am having the real problem with as I am using a photo as the color so there's not much more realistic color than I can get than that lol.........anybody's personal experience with working with this stuff is appreciated...oh by the way, i'm in Maya/Photoshop
Crocodilian
11-23-2004, 10:27 AM
Leigh Van Der Byl's Lightwave 8 Texturing book is excellent.

One point that she makes, that a lot of people miss is that a bump map is NOT just a desaturated color image!! Very important for bricks. . .the mortar is "as bumpy" as the brick, but if you just desaturate a color map, you'll end up with something that isn't right. . .the mortar will be smoother than the brick or vice versa; but this reflects the effect of color information embedded in the bump map. Learning how to prepare a bump map that is independant of color is a big step to getting these kind of textures right.

Using a color photo for the color map is OK, so long as local lighting isn't "baked" into it. . .if the image you took of a brick wall already has strong lighting characteristics (shadows, specularity, etc), then lighting it a second time will produce an odd looking result. . .best texture source photos are taken on bright cloudy days
itsallgoode9
11-23-2004, 05:37 PM
I usually don't use the desaturate for the bump map, but I have been trying to work with that so far as it would be an insanly time consuming task to hand make one for a brick wall....looks like I will have to go that route though :(..........would you recomend using a bump and displace or just a bump also? for example using a displace for the difference in height between bricks an mortar, then using the bump just for the texture of the mortar and brick or just using the bump for all of it?

here's a render of what i'm working on thus far, I haven't messed with the textures alot yet, but you can see it so far.

http://img110.exs.cx/img110/8048/Briscktest.jpg
mushroomgod
11-23-2004, 07:48 PM
take lots of photos......atlest thats what i do
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