Texturing challenges?

#1

It seems to me that most of the other sub sections on these forums have their own little mini challenges, some even have several different ones.

How about us? Do we need a texturing challenge. Like say replicate a material a week - one week it could be a water damaged concrete floor, the next say a weathered painted wooden door or brand new leather or something else.

I think I asked our moderator Leigh about this before, surely we can appreciate she is insanely busy, but I was thinking that we could all just moderate it together, deciding by votes, or for crying out loud it doesn’t need to even have a winner, we can just do it as a learning experience, where we take turns coming up with new topics/challenges.

What do you think? Any comments or suggestions?

#2

This has been discussed before, and the reason we don’t run one is because in order to make it worthwhile, we’d need a decent model each time.

#3

Anyone interested in this happening chime in here.

I’m working on getting some models set up for us to use.

BONUS- the final product will not be just a nice still but will go into a high quality 3D realtime viewer! :thumbsup:

*the models will be non organic, so intermediate level texture people should be ok too.

#4

I think its a great idea. Even if this forum doesn’t host it we can always start a mini challenge thread in the Shaders/textures forum.

Im looking forward to seeing some hard surface models to texture. sounds like its gonna be a blast if it ends up happening.

#5

not a texture artist myself… But that really sounds like a great idea…
In a perfect world (imo) you can use the models from the lighting/Rigging challanges (with permission of course)… and integrate the three challanges togather to make a more complete product…

but then again… it’s not a perfect world after all

-Mina

#6

So happy to hear some positive responses at last. The other sub forums have their challenges and I love to see how it helps the forum-goers to excell and push each other further as a great collective learning experience. I must say I was a bit disheartened by the response or the lack thereof. Started thinking maybe CG Talk is just not the place for texture artists. By the way, do anybody else know of any dedicated texturing forum? I know of a guy who was planning to do a whole site just for texture artists to learn, share, grow and show. But that didn’t come to anything. Sadly.

I mean, having a great model is nice, but for crying out loud, just simply to put your different maps together in a shader and create a material that accurately reflects its material properties could be enough. So what if it is only mapped to a teapot? Or we could just make simple models, for crying out loud, we all have a few stupid models lying around somewhere. After all a good texture can make a mediocre model look awesome. Sure in the perfect world we would be sitting practising on Pixar’s geometry from the latest blockbuster, but hey I am not too proud to admit I am nowhere near that level anyway, but I want to learn, and I am sure there are others here who are on the same level and who don’t mind learning in a less than perfect way.

#7

http://mxmgallery.maxwellrender.com/

is this the kind of thing you were thinking about?

I love that site…Even though all the materials are made specifically for maxwell renderer its still great for inspiration.

And agreed. I dont care about models. ill texture a teapot.

#8

Good to hear guys…the models will start flowing shortly! :wip: :slight_smile:

#9

Well as texture artists our responsibility is not just texture relating to a certain set of UVWs and a certain piece of geometry. Of course that is a big part of it, but I would say (IMHO) that just as big a part of our work is to get the spec, colour, bump etc. maps to play nicely together to recreate the material properties of the material we are trying to recreate. For that you do not need a specific model.

#10

I disagree, Marque Pierre. A texture artist’s job, primarily, is to create textures that work on a piece of geometry. Ensuring that there are no seams and no stretching is the first step when creating textures, since the bump, spec, etc maps are usually created as derivatives from the colour which is generally created first.

I’d love to see a texture challenge going here, if we can get a good model that will make it a “challenge”. I’m not sure how involved I’ll be able to be, considering my schedule, but we’ll sort that out when the time comes.

#11

I would suggest a collaboration with the Hardcore Modelling challenge. You would get some fairly decent and varied models from that.

#12

I would really love to see the texture challenge open up. I personally am really trying to improve my texturing and would like to get an excuse to do as much texturing as I can :slight_smile:

#13

Hi leigh-
“challenge” -I guess that would be subjective.

I figured a basic model would work for more people with various skill levels and also not eat up tons of our free time. :shrug:

The last challenge I participated in had a very complex model with 100’s of peices that were mostly modeled as one peice (water tight) so just the UV part of the texture work was a big undertaking and very few got past that…only a few made it to texturing.

The models I’m brining are not a challenge from UV aspect, but they could still provide something for newer texture artists to feel able to tackle, and a quick breaktime doodle for the more experienced people or ones with less free time to burn. :slight_smile:

#14

Sounds good to me. Perhaps there might be so much for a seasoned pro to prove themselves on, but for us wannabees, a test piece could be anything really.

#15

I am all excited lets have one

#16

You could start off making some tiling ground based textures if you haven’t got a model. I think that would be good practice initially.

A real way to push yourself and learn is to try and recreate a reference image from scratch by hand, not using any of the photo in the texture. That’ll make you really look at what it is that makes the texture look like what it is. You can check the tiling in photoshop and you don’t even need to go near a 3d program initially.

#17

You read my mind exactly. That’s what I am talking about.

#18

For those waiting to start on a texture challenge, sorry it took a while…I should have the first building linked with texture sources included on Monday.

Do you guys also maybe want some images to use for a tiling challenge?
It may sound too simplistic to some, but you can do a lot right there…full hand paint is already mentioned, but for those otherwise inclined, this tut has already been liked elswhere in this forum> http://www.cgtextures.com/content.php?action=tut_normalmap

…also trying HDR and any other tricks we can think of to see what looks interesting. :smiley:

#19

This simply isn’t a challenge. It’s the kind of thing a beginner would do in their first three hours of learning - what is the point of making a challenge out of it? While hand painting textures is a good way to learn how things work (especially for learning how specular and bump maps work), it shouldn’t be something that beginners dwell on beyond a few experimentations (unless you’re working on textures that are intentionally needing a hand painted look, like some game work, or animated films).

As for tiling textures - where is the challenge in that? You find a picture, use Offset, then clone a bit. It takes about 20 minutes.

I really, really don’t see the point in running a challenge unless it’s actually really going to push people. Look at some of the other mini challenges around the site - they’re actually difficult. And because they’re difficult, people have to push themselves to learn and adapt to create something worthwhile. Now that is the point of a challenge. A challenge shouldn’t be a celebration of mediocrity.

#20

I understand where you are coming from Leigh. But if people are on different levels in these forums, a one-size-fits-all challenge would never be realistic anyway. A person with your level of experience, well I wonder where you go to learn and be challenged. But sadly we are not all that good. Yet!:buttrock:

So perhaps this does serve a purpose for now. For some of us.