Texturing a plastic pipe - advice please

[soulburn3d]

Could you post a reference pic?

I'd start with a better light source, currently your pipe is looking very flat and so it's tough to tell much about the texture (are you currently using only skylight or something?). Then definately add more specularity, probably not too tall but wide, and add a dirt map to the spec map channel so you don't get an even highlight. Then definately add some dirt, especially in the parts where the pipe meets the washers.

Best of luck.

- Neil

[carlg]

Here's a reference pic of the style of pipe I was going for:

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/4982/pvcblades2smljc1.jpg

Yeah, you hit it on the head there, I am only using skylighthttp://forums.cgsociety.org/images/icons/icon11.gif for now, and I'll add that dirt and stuff you were talking about. Thanks for the advice.

[soulburn3d]

Ya, get a point light in there as well as the skylight to help better match the reference, and maybe consider making the tubve round rather than faceted. And maybe add some of those markings, like random product code numbers, small details like that can really bring something to life.

- Neil

[PenguinVisuals]

do you have bump/normal map on the first shot? This tube looks pretty flat. Probably will look better if you break up the spec maps and don't bump/normal it.

[scrimski]

It's quite easy. Max's standard material always looks a bit like plastic by default, just tone the specular color down to grey and add some dirt, either by using bitmaps in the bump/spec slot or procedural maps(dosn't require any unwrapping) like speckle or a very tiny fractal noise in the specularity.

[carlg]

Added a target spotlight (thanks soulburn3d), grunge, fiddled with the shader (Blinn, spec=22, gloss=34), added a very specular level map instead of a bump (thanks PenguinVisuals), and made the stamped-on text larger and black. It looks somewhat like a pipe now! Did I mention that all you guys are awesome?

http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/1212/pipenonsmoothxh1.jpg

Added a TurboSmooth just for the heck of it. I may even keep it on, it doesn't add too many polys....

http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/1361/pipesmooth2ge1.jpg

http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/6923/pipesmoothde3.jpg

Let me know if this is what you guys had in mind. Thanks again, eh?

PS: scrimski, thanks for your procedural map idea, but I was already sort of halfway through using bitmaps, and I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to change course so wildy, so to speak.http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/icons/icon11.gif

[Stefan-Morrell]

looks better,much better with the larger text..maybe add some grunge & grime in the joins(with a touch of color perhaps?)..& if you can afford it maybe bevel the sharp edges,which would help the model catch the light better

[Marcel]

I'm not sure how much dirt you want on the pipe, but you could still add a lot more without it being unrealistic. A bit of colour would also be nice.

Check out the Category 'Plastic->Other plastic' on my website, there are some pictures of plastic oil drums that might give you an idea how dirty plastic looks.

[itsallgoode9]

all you need to make this work is a better spec. just somthing repeating will work fine if you use the correct one. I recommend one with some random long scrapes and scratches. this is kindof common to see in the real world on plastic such as this.

post your spec map and let's see what you're usin'. a spec being driven by a facing ratio
would probably work very well

[soulburn3d]

And lastly, you may still want to turbosmooth it further, depeding on how close you get to it. If it's far in the back, then maybe yu won't need to. But in geenral you should try and avoid ever slowing the audience an obvious polygonal face.

Glad this is working for ya.

- Neil

[carlg]

So, I went back to this and was adding grunge and dirt, when I discovered something really rather awesome in Photoshop in the brush options, called 'angle jitter'. I had no idea this was there -- now I can put those 20 zillion grunge brushes I downloaded to some usehttp://forums.cgsociety.org/images/icons/icon11.gif. As a result, I may have gone a bit nuts with the grunge, so tell me if this is too much:

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/4074/newpipe11op6.jpg

soulburn3d: Yeah I did end up turbosmoothing by 1, collapsing it and deleting a few unnecessary lines. It's probably not necessary, since it'll be pretty tiny in the scene, but you you know what? It's pretty. So there.:D

itsallgoode9: Here's my new spec map. Psst -- what's a facing ratio?

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/3310/83759133th3.jpg

Marcel: Thanks for the link to your site. It did help some, but the pics there had more dramatic gouges rather than the little day-to-day scrapes piled on top of each other that I was thinking of. But I do appreciate it :)

PS: Stefan-Morrell ? As in the same Stefan Morell who created the tutorial I follow to texture almost ANYTHING ??? :bowdown: You are literally a lifesaver, Sir.

[Youpi]

Hello !

It starts to look good, even if the black background doesn't help to know how it will be in final picture with final lighting.

Just one little thing : when PVC (such kind of plastic) is old, it turns whiter, and specular disappears. It is also more rough (a little bit like Oren-Nayar :thumbsup: )

But, while getting older, it is also getting dirtier... So try a mix of white, without spec, and black grunges on it, it would look like a real old tube.

How old is your tube ?

Indeed, nice wrok, I'm waiting final picture impatientely !

[carlg]

Youpi: Thanks for your input. I tried adding some white scratches, not sure if I'll end up keeping them. Tell me what you think. By the way the light was moved around in the scene since last time, so it doesn't look as shiny as the last few pics, but no settings were chaned or anything.

http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/6255/pipe31ep3.jpg

PS: You want to see how it looks finally?! How do you think I feel! :)

[Marcel]

It still looks a bit formless, you should try to work on defining the shape a bit more.

Every object in real life has tiny rounded corners which catch the light and show you the shape of the object. You've probably backed the occlusion map (using a skylight in Max), but this won't give you those details. The specular highlight won't show those detail either because the polygons are simply not there to create that small rounded corner. So it's all up to the texture, here is an quick overpaint to show you what I mean:

http://www.cgtextures.com/.Temp/pipe.JPG

Working on your edges is one of the most important things when you are texturing a mechanical object.

[carlg]

Ahhh, I see -- so to re-create the edges that get you the highlights you need, either you have to add a stupid amount of polys for the corners of a tiny little object like this, or you have to fake it in your texture...:wise: Give me a few minutes...

[carlg]

Ok, Ok, it was more than a few minutes ;)


I think this is a bit more defined-looking, eh? (Oren-Nayer-Blinn, Glossiness 45):



http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/4735/pipe32it1.jpg

Much thanks, Marcel.

[soulburn3d]

Oren Nayar should really only be used for really rough surfaces, like rubber. To make something look at all metallic, I'd personally suggest not using it.

- Neil

[Youpi]

SoulBurn : Yes I totally agree. Oren Nayar should be use just on white and very old part of the tube. Standard phong is well when tube is new, or not so dirty.

[carlg]

I see, but for plastic? Oren-Nayer-Blinn seems to re-create the same style of highlight that you see in the reference pic near the top of the thread, so I don't know...

Of course, I'm always down for suggestions.

[soulburn3d]

I see, but for plastic?

Sorry, I forgot you were going for plastic. I think what threw me was your last image the plastic is kind of grey, rather than white, and so visually at a simple glance, it looks a little metallic, even though the highlights are wrong for a metallic surface. You may want to consider another color to drive home the "plastic" look.

Oren-Nayer-Blinn seems to re-create the same style of highlight that you see in the reference pic near the top of the thread, so I don't know...

It's reasons like this why I hate the naming conventions that max uses for shaders.

Oren-Nayar-Blinn is an Oren Nayar Diffuse Shader added to a Blinn Highlight shader.

The Blinn shader is a Lambert Diffuse Shader added to a Blinn Highlight shader.

So while their names are a bit wonky, the part you should take away from this is the highlight of the blinn shader and the highlight of the oren-nayar-blinn shader are identical.

The Lambert diffuse model is as close as the cg world tends to come to a standard diffuse model. The Oren Nayar model is an extension of lambert that added a roughness amount. Although mathematically I don't think they're identical, visually, an Oren Nayar shader with a roughness of 0 is the same as a lambert diffuse shader. So If you turn the roughness to 0, the Oren-Nayar-Blinn shader will act identically to the Blinn Shader in max.

So feel free to use the Oren Nayar Blinn shader if you'd like, but I'd keep the roughness to a very small amount, otherwise you're going to start getting something that looks like shiny rubber instead of shiny plastic.

- Neil

[carlg]

Thanks, soulburn3d, I'll keep that in mind :)

[dthigpen]

Seeing it from the start to where it is now is an amazing difference. Good job.

[carlg]

Flatterer. :) But thanks.

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