Texture painting assistance request

[Dario D.]

Ideally, I think you need to have photos of the textures you are trying to create, and setup materials in your graphics app, or use materials that come with it... It would be very difficult to literally paint rust, and that kind of texture, and would take a long time.

"Painting" in Photoshop is usually only for textures that simply cannot be photo-sourced, or need to be setup by placing multiple real textures into a single image, such as after Unwrapping the UV's on an object.

You would only need to "paint" if you were making that car for a video game, or if you needed to weld some upholstery on seats inside the car by putting a seam in between two photo-sourced textures, to make them look properly connected or something.

For a car like what you're making, you probably should setup some Lightwave materials.

If you still need to learn Photoshop, I recommend paying for Lynda.com's training videos for Photoshop. They are very good for learning every aspect of Photoshop... except for probably the artistic side of actual painting.

[Anti-Distinctlyminty]

Thanks for the reply :)
I must admit that it does seem that using photos would be eaisier. But the problem there is that it ver very difficult to get a picture without any (or very little) lighting information in it. If it does, it's a bitch to try and get out. I also have no idea how to create things like diffuse maps and reflection maps from actual photos.
I'll check out those tutorials when I can. Thanks for the pointers.

[roberte]

Luke,

Try this tutorials for using the high pass filter to take out light info in your image. Also check photoshop info on high pass filter:

www.3dgate.com/techniques/2001/010625/0625hajba.html

Also, if you are interested, on my site there is a huge collection of links for textures, tutorials sites etc.

Robert

www.robertellisonimaging.com

[roberte]

Luke,
I just checked that link and the site is not responding. I'll put the tutorial on my site: you can ftp to get it:


www.robertellisonimaging.com
User: u35650184-2
password:download

Let me know by e mail if you cant get it and I'll e it to you.

Robertellison@robertellisonimaging.com

[Zeicon]

Gnomon Workshop has a texturing DVD called "Weathered Surfaces"

link: http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/pca02.html

[yann22]

One thing I've learned - the hard way, lol - is that it's generally advantageous to think of photos as the raw material for your textures, rather than trying to slap them on your geometry more or less directly. This involves learning how to use channels as selection tools, layer modes and the levels/curves commands.

E.g. if you find a particular pattern in a photo interesting but not the base material you go into the channel with the highest contrast, adjust the levels/curves to get the exact pattern you want and save it as an alpha. You can then copy that alpha over to another image, load it as a selection and extract the pattern from more suitable base material. Then you can overlay the stuff you extracted on a third photo and so on.

The thing to understand is that channels can be used as mattes, i.e. selection masks working on values of grey, which can be saved as alphas, manipulated like any other image with e.g. gaussian blur to soften the selection and transferred to other areas of the image or other images. This also helps with creating bump, specular etc maps in your 3d program.

So I think looking for tutorials on these aspects could be really helpful in the long run.
I also found that it's sometimes just easier and cheaper to take your own photos for texturing.

Cheers

[Anti-Distinctlyminty]

Wow, thanks guys :)

@roberte: I followed the link to your site and viewed the links page, there's some good stuff on there, but I don't know the location of the tutorial (sorry if I'm being dense, but hey...). Could you instruct me on how to get to it?

@Zeicon: That DVD looks pretty useful, I was thinking of getting the 'Texture painting fundamentals' one too if you think that'll be useful. The only potential problem is that I use Lightwave, not Maya, though I'm sure the principles are the same. Lightwave's texturing and shading has just gotten a big boost by the looks of LW version 9, so I'm hoping the differences in these programs wont hinder me too much.
I was also thinking of grabbing the photoshop DVD from lynda.com. It seems quite comprehensive, but it will cost ~$150, but I'm thinking that maybe it's neccessary.

@RabbitRun: It's a weird thing, but I've never actually seen a general concensus about the method(s) for texturing. I wouldn't just slap an image to an object & expect it to look good. From what I've gathered (I know Leigh Van Der Byl's Lightwave 8 Texturing book by heart almost) one seems to gather images and uses portions of them or derivatives of them to create/build textures.
I'll take a look at what you suggested when I'm sitting in front of PS again (I'm away from my computer for a bit) as it's all a bit confusing to me currently.

I'm also thinking that I'll have to invest in a digital camera (I live in the UK and we have plenty of overcast days which is ideal for gathering textures :)). Does anyone have any idea of the kind of quality of camera that would do the job for texturing? The reason I ask is that I'm looking at spending alot of money on tutorials (2 gnomon at $60 each + a $150 PS DVD = $270. Ouch) & I'm not exactly rolling in it.

Again, thanks for the replies guys, if you think of anything else that you think may be of use, please let me know. It's very much appriciated.

[compugeek915]

in order to get to the part of his site that he is talking about you must ftp in. which is like connecting to the file part. do so by opening up internet explorer or mozilla and typing in ftp://www.robertellisonimaging.com/ . then opening up the tutorial. Hope this helps you and thanks alot for posting that tutorial.

[Anti-Distinctlyminty]

Thank's guys. I've got through to the tutorial now. Very useful stuff. I spent ages making a seamless brickwall texture and taking out all the bright and dark spots and I'm only going to be doing more of the same in the future at some point, so this high pass filter technique is great.

Does anyone here know how the photoshop tutorials on gnomon compares to that of lynda.com? The gnomon one is significantly less than half the price, but as I'm a PS novice should I get the lynda.com one as it'll probably be more comprehensive as it's double the length?
Sorry to pester, but it's money y'know.

[mocaw]

I like to build it up like most are saying here. Slap em in or clone them in, use some layer blend modes like mutiply and lighten and then, using a stylus and a more "natural" brush slowly add or remove portions of the texture(s) using their respective layer masks. Also make sure you lay down a nice texture and color for the over all background- like a rug in a room it can tie things together.

I don't know how complex your game engine is too- but you'll probably want to seperate out some of your layers for different uses later- so you might want to be careful about which layers you merge or not.

[yann22]

keep in mind that you can join lynda.com for 25$/month, might be a cheaper option :) and if you're a novice it might be the better option, since they go over the basics in detail. Yet, their more advanced stuff (Monroy etc) is all geared towards 2d, which might limit its usefulness somewhat. The best stuff can be found here though :thumbsup:: www.dvgarage.com (http://www.dvgarage.com)

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