Diablo III house - Handpainting practice

[eric.]

Hi there!

I thought I should give handpainting a try. So its just confirmed that I love this! I can do this all day long every day.

Planning to land on around 3500 tris for this, and Ive set the texture size to about 2x1024 diffuse and alpha. Quite early stage atm, just started today.

Also, most of the stuff is just blocked in and not at all optimized!

Anything you like? Dislike? Just shout!

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/2_1.jpg
http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/2-3.jpg


Concept from blizzard:

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/env-blizzcon09-19.jpg

Ciao!

[eric.]

Almost forgot my flats. Here you go. Size is not final and obviously I got more space left in them for other stuff :)

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/carpets_1copy.jpg
http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/wooden_thing_1copy.jpg

[Unleashed]

looks like lut gholein, coming along nicely

[crazyfingers]

Lets see some spec!

Other than that your 2d texture work is really solid :D, great start.

Some colored lighting, and maybe some champfers here and there might help kick this up a notch too.

[eric.]

Thanks guys! So Diablo 3 is using specular? I cant really tell from the screenshots. If they are I will add spec also.

@crazyfingers: by champfers you mean bevels, right? 3Ds max = champfer, maya = bevel.

[crazyfingers]

I'm almost positive diablo III is using specs with all the crazy lighting effects they have going on in that game.

[AtlusZMH]

Looks great so far :D are you planning on going back to beat up some of your textures at the end?

Looks a little clean for a diablo model imo :)

I am jealous of your modeling haha, im not too amazing at low-poly stuff yet

[Rory_M]

I'm liking this, the carpets look great so far. keep it up. To be nit-picky the wooden planks seem just a hair too wide.

[eric.]

Atlus: Thanks man! Yeah, just scrolled through a bunch of screenshots and noticed that I went way to bright on atleast the wood and its pattern (doesnt know the english name for it :)) and also rough it up a little. And about the modeling; this is almost as simple as it gets imo. If you know the high poly part you should have no trouble at all to create something like this :)

Rory_M: Thanks! I really enjoyed making those carpets, glad you liked them :) And you are absolutly right about the planks. Im gonna take them a little furter tomorrow, maybe seperate some of them a bit or something.

And as I was saying, I was looking at alot of screenshots, I wasnt able to see any specular. If there is specular added to stuff they are sertenly really subtle. I think most of what may look like specular is just shader effects and lightning. Ill wait with the spec anyway :)

Anyone who can confirm if there is spec or not? Would be awesome!

Updates tomorrow!

[skylebones]

I love that wood texture, very nice work.

[Sirdelita]

So far so good! Wood looks great!!! Can't wait to see this finished! Did you follow a tutorial or anything, cause I would love to learn!

[bounchfx]

love it so far, my only crit if you're curious would be that the rings in the rug are too dark I think, they drop off basically all the way to black...

[rooster]

looks like a great start. one or two things feel slightly chunkier in the concept, just something to keep an eye on. look forward to the rest!

[crazyfingers]

Hmm, checked online and couldn't find any specifics if diablo III did or didn't have spec maps. But just gauging from screens online they look like they have spec, or at the very least have spec baked into the diffuse map.

http://www.krunker.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/diablo-iii-1-thumb.jpg

Look how shiny the rock looks in lit areas against unlit areas, you only really get that effect with spec maps. Same goes for the skeletons, so i'm thinking they're in. But again, i'm not 100% sure!

[eric.]

skylebones: Thanks!

Sirdelita: Whoa, thanks man. I dont have any tutorial for the wood, but I can probably make a short movie tutorial when I make the next wood texture if you like :)

bounchfx: Thanks man! Yeah, youre probably right about the carpet, Ill look in to that later!

rooster: Thanks! Yeah, I noticed that and also went through like every single screenshot of the game. Ill keep that in mind for sure :)

crazyfingers: Im still not sure about the spec. I also searched alot but couldnt find anything about it. I think, not sure though, that they use bloom or something similar to brighten up the brightest parts of the texture, like a fake specular. Thanks for taking your time hehe

All these kind words makes me really wanna finish this now :) Hope to get it atleast almost finished this weekend. We'll see!

A really tiny update on the wood. Made it a bit more rough and tried to match the color a bit better. (the color is always easy to change later)

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/3_1.jpg

Hope you like!

[Anuxinamoon]

Ahh its looking very cute! I must chew on those planks. :3

Wow this makes me want to make some environments too :<

Can't wait to see it all finished! :D

[Ben Apuna]

Great job so far, nice carpet textures.

Is this supposed to be a desert scene? If so your wood should look a lot more sun bleached, maybe a bit more splintery too.

I also suggest deviating from the concept a bit by adding some more stuff down by the barrels maybe some sacks of grain or some rolled up carpets standing against the wall.

When you get to the ground and other stuff it might be nice to add a bit of foliage to the scene even though it's not in the concept. A palm tree or dried up dead tree might be cool. Some tufts of grass sticking out of the ground to help conceal the edge of the building.

[rihotzu]

hey you are doing a nice job!, keep going I want to see more updates :D

[JasonLavoie]

Looking very very nice, I can tell this will be a strong piece, and I honestly can't wait :)

[eric.]

Anuxinamoon: Haha thanks man. Go chew those planks!

Ben Apuna: Hey, thanks for the feedback! I was actually planning on adding foliage and maybe some more props or something :) Nice idea with the rolled up carpets, now thats a given!

rihotzu: Thanks man!

JasonLavoie: Thank, Ill do my best to update more :)

So this update was a disappointment atleast for me. I had a really hard time to decide how to texture the building itself. Obviously its not even close to done ^^ I just slapped on some paint (not at all adjusted colorwise). The building will have one 1024 diffuse. And I made the small wooden pieces pointing out of the building. Again I looked at screenshots and apparently they are square shaped in the game, so I went with that :)

Way more updates tomorrow, thats a promise to myself(slacker) atleast :)

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/4_2.jpg
http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/4_1.jpg
http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/4-2.jpg

Hope theres something you enjoy!

[Mark Dygert]

Looking really good you're off to a great start! This is shaping up to be a great piece.

Crits:
- I think the planks are too segregated and by that I mean the lines separating them are too straight and uniform. In the concept the edges are kind of rough and the gaps are uneven and they are worn and warped together in places.

Hope you don't mind but I did a rough paint over, (http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1306131/D3Wood.jpg)
it needs to be refined a lot more and I'm sure someone with more skill could illustrate the point better but you get what ya get =P

I also think emphasizing the gaps with highlights and shadows will help boost their readability from a distance.

[vj_box]

Coming along nicely Eric!

[spahr]

Really cool concept and great start. I'm not an expert on hand painted textures, but i really like the detail/contrast Vig added in that rough paint over. One reason I like it is that its ROUGH. It makes the wood look old/worn and have more character. Your wood and walls look very clean compared to your cool gritty mats. Looking forward to seeing some progress, really inspiring me to try something like this myself.

[Proxzee]

You should switch up your panting brushes if you really want that painted texture look. Use dual brush, combined with something that feels more like paint instead of air brush. Also paint with a slightly wider value range on the textures, so that we can really see the painting.

[Swizzle]

At the end of this trailer (http://www.gametrailers.com/video/debut-gameplay-diablo-iii/35674?type=mov), it looks like the giant monster they fight has some specular on its claws and other metal parts along with painted highlights, but I didn't notice any spec on environment models through the entire thing. If they use spec, it's very subtle.

I agree with Vig about the boards. They may not need as strong of highlights on the edges like he painted, but the general effect is still really good.

[commander_keen]

I would be very surprised if they didnt use both spec and normals.

[Swizzle]

I would be very surprised if they didnt use both spec and normals.

Take a look at some of the high-res gameplay footage or screenshots on the website; it's pretty obvious that the textures are all hand painted with most of the lighting painted in.

[eric.]

Wow, thanks everyone!

Vig: Thanks, I think that paintover was really helpful! Some really helpful feedback :)

vj_box: Thanks man!

spahr: Thanks! Im trying to make it more rough all the time, it might be a bit rougher in the end when I can see the whole thing textured and then Ill go in and change some colors and stuff like that.

Proxzee: Yeah well. Im using quite alot of brushes already. But mostly the round one :)

Swizzle: Thanks man. Yeah, I actually dont believe they use any spec on the environment. Maybe on bigger, more unique stuff.

commander_keen: I really think the effect is really neat when they dont use any normal or spec. Also more computer friendly for those who doesnt have a fast/good cpu. A really smart move imo.


Okay. So I took some time and made a tutorial of my wood texturing and some small tricks I use.

Planky tutorial. Hope its useful for someone :)

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/tutorial.gif

Mini update.

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/5-2.jpg

[AtlusZMH]

I'm diggin that tutorial! Thanks a ton (i just got done painting a few wooden things for the first time a few days ago ;))

Its lookin good still, i am dyin to see you start working on that building more!

And i agree that you should maybe add a few small props along the base of the building to break up the harsh line with the ground. Depending on how it's textured, it could be an eye-sore :x

[ParoXum]

Great workflow, I dig the wood style. Keep it up.

[Zwebbie]

If I were you, I'd play around a bit different hues for different brightnesses. For example, JFletcher always adds a ton of blue to the darker values, to great effect (http://www.artpanda.co.uk/images/gallery/optimuspine.jpg). Don't overdo it, of course, but I think it can add a very nice painterly feel.

[eric.]

Thanks alot guys!

And Zwebbie, you are totally right. I always add some blue hues when I am painting other stuff so why not here :) Thanks.

A small update. Just started on the building itself.

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/5_1.jpg

[Isaiah Sherman]

It's coming along :)! I suggest grunging up the base of the house a bit more. Also, the mats on top of the house are too nicely placed. Make their placement more randomized and it would give a sense of the house being used / inhabited / abandoned.

[eric.]

Thanks man. Yeah, everything is to nicely placed, really easy to adjust later on :)

And heres last update for today, with some grunged up walls. Not even close to finished, but its a start :)

Enjoy!

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/5_2.jpg

[praxedes]

this looks soooo like set of orc houses i built in foamboard for a GW battle table a few years back- loving the look, filled me with nostalgia :)

Look forward to seeing the end result (strangely makes me think of Raiders of the Lost Ark too- where's the date-eating monkey Nazi?)

~P~

[Chclve]

Looks really nice. Keep it up!

[Anuxinamoon]

Ohh its coming along nicely! If you add darker dirt at the bottom of the wall and lighten it up top it could do something, perhaps.

Nice plank tutorial too :D

[eric.]

Thanks alot guys!

I made something that is suppose to look like rocks. Looks like crap imo. Just slapped on some colors and textures, just a base.

As you can see, the stone mesh is not that optimized yes.

Got any suggestions? Should I make every stone into a separate mesh? Skip the alpha?

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/6.jpg

[Stoy]

Looks horrible, man.

Looks great, man. I like the rock addition and the cracks in the wall. Although the rocks in the corner look really flat, but that might be lighting.

[Acumen]

i think what the rocks lack most is the shape. it just don't look like rocks, more like random copied around blobs :)
i think if you redo the modeling part of them and get some nice references it'll look much better automatically.
still, why does it need to be rocks ? if i should build a house there, i shall better get rid of the rocks, as good as possible. the transition should be more vibrant, i guess. you don't build house against flat rocks, i think. i'd much prefer much more tinier "rocks/stone pieces" along the house borders.

apart from these points, i think overall it looks very nice !

[ParoXum]

Rocks are off, for lighting as well as level of detail compared to the rest of the textures (it's still wip tho, gotcha) ;)

On some, you wonder how they stand on the wall not falling. Looks like they are glued.

[eric.]

Thanks guys :)

I threw away those crappy stones. Im gonna give it a new try next time.
Made some adjustments and stuff.

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/6_1.jpg

[JFletcher]

Just found this thread, im loving this so far!

Im a real fan of the diablo 3 / WoW painted art styles, and this is coming out really nicely.

The rocks were nice, but they threw off the colors, maybe they should be more yellow-ish and "part" of the wall instead of up against it :)

the wood looks really nice, although maybe it could use some color differences per plank, for instance, if you dont mind the paintover:

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/8712/woodgif.gif (http://img195.imageshack.us/i/woodgif.gif/)

:)

[mLichy]

Yeah, I agree with the wood variation. Looking great so far though.

[butt_sahib]

As of now, it seems nothing is being mirrored?
Thanks for the mini tutorial <3

[Anuxinamoon]

Just found this thread, im loving this so far!

Im a real fan of the diablo 3 / WoW painted art styles, and this is coming out really nicely.

The rocks were nice, but they threw off the colors, maybe they should be more yellow-ish and "part" of the wall instead of up against it :)

the wood looks really nice, although maybe it could use some color differences per plank, for instance, if you dont mind the paintover:

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/8712/woodgif.gif (http://img195.imageshack.us/i/woodgif.gif/)

:)

Ahh the paintover is really good. Very valuable to see it rather than have it explained :D

Totally agree with Jfletchers comments aswell. The whole things definitely could use some colour variations to help bring out the big shapes easier.

Keep up the good work!

Actually you know what you could do with the rocks? Just paint some rocks onto a plane, then when you are done with the texture, just pump out some of the shapes using some cuts and vert pushing. I find that's much easier for me when making rocky walls. Paint the textures first and build the model off that :)

[eric.]

JFletcher: Thanks alot man! I really like your style and I really appreciate the paintover, it really made a difference! I didnt go as saturated as you though. And the rocks, Im gonna throw them directly on the wall texture instead, if there isnt another way to blend it in.

mLichy: Thanks man :)

butt_sahib: There is some mirroring going on, but Im focusing on making the texture really tight first. After that Im sure Im gonna move around stuff and mirror/tile some.

Anuxinamoon: Thanks alot! Yeah, Im gonna try your rock theory, but I will, as I wrote above, paint the rocks directly on the wall texture :)


Heres the planks. Starting to feel that I can move away from these planks for a while and start with all the other stuff :)

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/7-1.jpg

[Mark Dygert]

Looking a lot better and I agree time to move on to other things. =)

Personally I don't like to get too caught up in putting a lot of polish on things until close to the end. I do this for a few reasons.

1) Speed and ease of detail application.
It's easier to remember brush settings and apply the same refining techniques to a bunch of pieces in passes instead of trying to remember and recreate those methods a few hours or days later. It's good to take notes, save brushes, create pallets but its still easier to give everything the same pass than constantly switching tools.

2) Overall quality.
If you're working in production there's a chance you won't have time to bring the pieces your working on last, up to the level of the pieces you first worked on. With passes you might not get a chance to do one final pass and really sew it all together but at least all parts are at stage 4, instead of some stuck at 1, others at 8 and the majority at 3.

3) Detail what matters.
It's easy to stare at a UV'ed texture and want to detail everything but then when you put it all together you find you detailed a lot of stuff that really didn't need to be.

It's coming along nicely keep pluggin away at it. I'm glad you're sharing methods and techniques and open to ideas, that's a great attitude to have, makes the threads useful to a lot of people too!

I love it when polycount works like it should!

[Marnik]

I'm lovin' your wood...

>_>

<_<

^_~

[mLichy]

LOL

[crazyfingers]

One thing i'd try is an ambient occlusion bake. Load that into photoshop and use it as a layer to produce some nice colored shadows with layering affects. Invert it and do some highlights. Heck you could even take it further and start touching those layers up with smears, brush strokes and stuff. Just a thought...

[eric.]

Vig: Wow, thanks! Yeah, I really need to make that change, to get a overall picture on an earlier stage. But I really like to go into details as soon as I can, which is a problem right now. Really helpful feedback I have to say. Time for some change! :)

Marnik: Thank you!

crazyfingers: Thanks man! I was planning to do that in the end, when I got everything in place and every mesh and texture done. It sure is a really good method!

So, Im pretty done with all the wood, Im just gonna make some more wood-"ends". Still got some space left in my wood UV. I just started with the cloth.

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/7_2.jpg
http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/7_1.jpg

Ciao :)

[JFletcher]

Niiiice.

[crazyfingers]

Really comin' together! I'm gonna stop being an annoying back driver and just sit back and watch cuz it looks like you got everything covered ;)

[nfrrtycmplx]

Nicely done, good job on adjusting the wood. Keep it up mang!

[kodiak]

Great work so far man... gettin me revved up to do some practice of my own.

The only thing I would suggest is think about how this would look from the camera perspective of diablo three. You really shouldn't be shy about exaggerating the details in the texture so it reads really nicely from a far isometric position.

keep up the good work!

[Shogun3d]

Loving it, definitely inspiring me to get in and do some hand painted textures!

[HandSandwich]

Looking good, Eric. Keep it up and this'll be a real nice piece.

[dejawolf]

looks awesome. don't stop now.

[G3L]

hey thanks for that tutorial man! even though i have my own way of doing things, it's always good to be open to other people's workflow, so i appreciate the time you took to do that tutorial. real nice hand-painting thus far, keep at it!

[Raider]

All this fan art makes me wish blizzard would release d3 already, fkn so want to play that game :D

Loving the look so far, especially the new wood.. that was a redic paintover fletch :D

[Jasonin3d]

Really cool piece!! I love it! keep up the good work, I'll be following this one...

[eric.]

Whoa :)

JFletcher: Thanks!

crazyfingers: Thanks! I dont think youre annoying and Im not sure if I got everything covered :)

nfrrtycmplx: Thanks and I will!

kodiak: Thanks man! Yeah, the camera. I think my pictures shows almost the view you could get in diablo 3. If you look at the concept you see a little man at the bottom for measurement, so I think its almost accurate atleast :)

kaburan: Thank you! Glad I can inspire people. Makes me really happy!

AHotHandSandwich: I will try my best, thanks!

dejawolf: Thanks man, I wont :)

G3L: It was a pleasure to make that minitutorial, and perhaps Ill make more and better in the future. And yeah, you should have your own way of doing things, but its awesome to add a few tricks along the way. Thank you :)

Raider: Haha yeah, me too. So badly! Thanks, and yeah, fletcher saved me there hehe.

Jasonin3d: Thanks man! Happy you do :)

Okay, so now I got some stuff done. The cloth is "done" and I added the wood texture where it should be. I also made a really ugly rope texture which I will change soon. The rope texture in screenshots of diablo looks a bit more high res than mine, I just got a tiling 32x32. I also made some minor adjustments. Nothing that really shows though. Im just too picky ^^

Hope you like it!

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/8.jpg
http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/8_1.jpg
http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/eric_eneback/8_2.jpg

Ciao

[Mark Dygert]

That wood is looking great, especially the wood on the lower part. I love the cloth too.

I would be tempted to bevel some of edges of the building to round it out a bit.

[Sirdelita]

More contrast in the rocks maybe? Theres no real weight.

[Jasonin3d]

only crit if I may, more dirt and cracks on the roof would look nice! also, since I'm stuck on this game, I think assassin's creed could be good reference for this scene.. keep up the good work! Now I want to do one too!!