Need help with getting the crisp, rich texture

[leigh]

Hello and welcome to the forum :)

Glad you like my orc, I personally think it still needs a lot of work! :p

Righto, for starters, I do think it would be a good idea for you to post your orc head here so we can see where you are at. It's difficult to give tips when I don't know what your texture is looking like so far! :)

With regards to the painting, instead of using paintbrushes and airbrushes and smearing and all that, I like to use simply the Dodge and Burn tools. When I do paint things like veins and wrinkles and stuff, I always do so on a new layer, and then blur it and use the eraser on a low opacity to get the fading my hand. I NEVER use the smear tool - it slows Photoshop down and often makes a mess that is difficult to fix.

To start off your colour map, I would recommend perhaps playing around with some procedural textures in Max and then bake them to an image to start off with. It saves you the hassle of having to create a patchy colour to begin with ;)

[Uzaree]

Leigh, A.K.A Goddess of Texturing! Thank you for your reply! I will see about getting some snap shots up today so you can take a look at it. Like I said before I'm new to this some I'll have to learn what procedural texutre are so I'll be reading up on that this afternoon. Now that I think about it I think I'll redo the texture before I post in the manner that you suggested so it will be a better start.


I'll Keep you posted =)

Uzaree

[Uzaree]

Leigh, I posted the textures that I have done, redone, and redone again hehe. I worked on them all week end and I still can't see to get the effect that I'm looking for. I also posted the refrence picture with the texture I'm trying to get. Oh yea, pay no attention to the bad model of the half head, I've only been working with 3DS max for a month or so but I'm getting better and that was my first attempt to model any type of humiod figure. I'm not so concerned with getting these maps to work than learning how to get the effect like my reference.

Oh yea this isn't the baked on effect like you suggested because it seems to blend them together too good and didn't make that crip edge that appears on the reference.

If I can think of anything else I'll repost.


Thanks

Uzaree

Dang I forgot the most important thing, the link...

http://uzaree.no-ip.com/textures.htm

[leigh]

Hey there Uzaree :)

Well, firstly, for someone who has only been modelling for a short time, this is a decent start. However, I do think that your model needs a little more work before you begin texturing. The nose and mouth in particular need some tweaks. But I think you know that already!

Looking at your textures, I'd say that your biggest flaw is that you are painting what you think is there, as opposed to painting what actually IS there. This is a natural tendency for all artists, and you need to resist it. Don't look at it, and then say "oh ok, it needs to be red with black stripes". Rather study it, and attempt to recreate the same shapes as you see in the reference.

Another thing, NEVER use black backgrounds when you render! Change to another colour - the black is distracting, and adds nothing to your scene. Also improve your lighting. Do some reading on 3 point lighting, and you'll see how easily you can set up a nice lighting rig.

Back to texturing though...

I *highly* recommend that you check out the following excellent tutorial by the extraordinarily talented Julian J:
Dr Julian's Texturing Tutorial (http://www.cg-art.i12.com/text.htm) :)
It is for Maya, but he details all the steps of the Photoshop texture painting, and I think you could learn a lot from this. His techniques are excellent.

Let me know how you go! I am sure that once you read through that, you'll see exactly how you can create cool textures!

[Uzaree]

Leigh, thanks for your reply once again.

Yea, I know I need to work on the head, heck even finish it and give him a brain cavity haha. I'm mainly trying to learn the process and get things looking somewhat liek they should. When I first got interested in 3D art I figured that I'd just do the model and someone else could texture it. Well I'm quickly finding out that isn't going to be the case, and I prefer to do it myself anyway hehe. Also I just love the way the mesh looks on a new untextured model, thats almost important thing that got me wanting to do this.

Ok back on subject.

All I can say is, WoW, you are right, I was looking at it and saying
"oh ok, it needs to be red with black stripes". I had to think about it and sure enough thats what I was doing. I think I was doing it because I didn't want to copy what was there instead make my own.

Ok I'll not use black as a background anymore, I'll use something like pink, ok just kidding but I'll change the colour.

I'll read up on lighting more so I can't help with the renders.

I read that tutorial last night I was lucky and found it somewhere. I'm going to redo all my textures and then repost them.

Thanks for all your help and hopefully soon you and I will be able to see a visible improvement on my work.

:wavey: :thumbsup:

Uzaree

[Uzaree]

Ok, I made some major changes to the bump map and wanted to get your option before I started on the other maps. Am I going in the correct direction? I think over all the bump map looks much better now that the first few I did. I've learned alot so far and I hope to keep learning =). The link is below and at the bottom you will see the new bump textures. I must say, making wrinkles is a very time consumming project. It took me forever to get that "leather" cross section look that wrinkles make but I think I have it now. I also added warts to the nose area and around the eyes. Once I have a better understanding of the texturing process I'll re-do that model and hopefully make it better with practice.

http://uzaree.no-ip.com/textures.htm

Thanks

Uzaree

[leigh]

Hmmm... to be honest, I'm not quite sure how these are much different from the previous renders :surprised

Aaah wait, I am presuming the ones with the blue background as the newer ones? Yes?

Well the addition of the spots and things is a good start. But try and give a little more thought to their placement, because right now they somehow look... too intentional. Don't try and make everything look nice and pretty and even and perfect - it's unnatural ;)

By the way, remember that a bump map should never try and compensate for a lack of geometry. Things like the gash in his face should really be modelled, in my opinion :) You might also want to add an unevenness to the actual face model too - uruks don't have nice, slender cheekbones and beautiful curves :D

[MooseDog]

the reference link provided by leigh seems broken. here is an alternative, as it really is a fantastic tute!! thank you leigh:thumbsup:

http://www.3dm-mc.com/tutorials/maya/texturing/

[Garma]

Originally posted by MooseDog
http://www.3dm-mc.com/tutorials/maya/texturing/

What an incredibly UGLY and disguisting head! What means, of course, that the textures are so good that they make me sic. Really great tut :thumbsup:

by the way uzaree ur links are broken too.

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