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Practice realistic texturing

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Noise polycounter lvl 6
Hi everyone.

I want to pratice my skill on realistic texturing as I always do non realistic stuff. I choose to make some simple props. Probably 2 shields, 1 axe and one gun.
As for the shield this is probably the most know shield concept sheet from Artyom Vlaskin. I will make. As it's for practice more than really make something different.

My focus is to make better basemesh before jumping in Zbrush. Use more polypaint. Learn to use Modo (Axe and maybe gun) and finaly pratice texturing and learn to use Ddo (not to have some obvious stuff from it). Setup marmoset for better render.

Last Update :
BrickWall4.jpg
Highpoly_3.jpg
Lowpoly_6.jpg

Here is the basemesh:

Rond_Basemesh.jpg

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  • Shuaws
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    Shuaws polycounter lvl 5
    I would make those wood planks have a higher polycount and some more vertical lines on that middle section there are only horizontal lines. But the model does look pretty cool
  • BNielsen
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    Adding to Shuaws topology pointers - You may want to quad the center piece - You can reduce poly this way, you will have a MUCH easier time in Zbrush, with texturing, seaming, and lighting it this way. Same thing with the bolts around the shield.
  • Noise
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    Noise polycounter lvl 6
    This is only my basemesh to sculpt in Zbrush. I Feel the geometry is enough with dynamesh.
    As for the lowpoly I'll make it in a one single mesh for all the plank and give more vertical edge to the metal center piece. I keep in mind your word for the lowpoly :)

    I'll post my progress on the sculpt later tonight. For now I need to finish the plank to give something interesting to comments and critics.
  • Kroma!
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    Kroma! polycounter lvl 9
    If you are sculpting then I would recommend you read through this http://wiki.polycount.com/BaseMesh

    Notably
    When using a sculpting app it's usually best to create a cage or basemesh that is as close as possible to 100% quads. Also try to avoid "poles" of 5+ edges running into each other. Triangles and poles can lead to "pinching" in the model when sculpting.
    Keep the quads a fairly uniform density over the model, and be clever about adding more detail where it will be necessary (eyes, ears, nose, etc.), since otherwise you will end up subdividing your mesh far more than necessary just to get enough polygons to sculpt detail into these areas.

    At the moment I can see some tris and long polys that when subdivided for sculpting could cause you some problems.
  • Noise
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    Noise polycounter lvl 6
    Ok I rely a bit too much on the dynamesh to quad my stuff in ZB.
    And I now understand that my basemesh does not only need to be proper for Zbrush but also to make me spare time on the retopo and so the lowpoly.

    Next time the basemesh will be better ! Already thank you to those who give me advices

    As said here is the wip of the shied in Zbrush

    ZB_Render_1.jpg
  • Noise
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    Noise polycounter lvl 6
    Some small progress, get distracted yesterday evening.

    ZB_Render_2.jpg
  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    just wanna pop in an say this looks solid.
    love what you did with the wood, how exactly did you do that?
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Yeah the chipped wood looks great.
  • Kiyamlol
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    Kiyamlol polycounter lvl 12
    Loving the wood! Care to let us know how u did it? What brushes do you use? :)
  • Noise
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    Noise polycounter lvl 6
    Here is the process :
    • Well I mainly use Mallet fast with a low intensity to break all the plank after having cut the border with the planar brush, I used the square alpha ( Alpha 28 ) on the planar to give a felling of real cut.
    • As soon as I'm happy with this. I break a bit more the end of the plank with mallet fast always low intensity. I sometimes use it on the border to break sharp effect
    • I used also Orb crack for the cracks and also in the previous stage to know where I will put cracks. I sometimes used mallet fast in the crack.
    • Then I use a combination of planar with squared alpha and the brush of MaH, Mahpolish1 with a squared alpha too.
    • The end process is applied to all the plank to have it more polish.

    Tell me if i'm clear or not, I can try to make a sort of breakdown/tuto of how I do.On the 2 last plank.
  • Maximiliaan
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    If you're willing to, some in-between screenshots would be great to see! Love the end result of those planks.
  • Noise
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    Noise polycounter lvl 6
    Plank_Tut.jpg

    1. Break shape with planar alpha 28
    2. Make it dirty with mallet fast, put some crack to give you the idea of what you want in the end.
    3. Polish all with Trim dynamic, planar, Hpolish or whatever you use to get something clean.
    As a said I use planar and MaHPolish 1 with the square alpha for this step.

    Add detail, polysh but the idea is to make "hole" with mallet fast. Polish with Mah brush, and then give the high difference and sharp cut using planar
  • mrturtlepaste
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    I agree the wood really is looking great, nice sculpt. I'm especially responding to the ends of the wood and the way you captured the slight splintering. Awesome.

    My one critique with what you have right now is the band-aid like pieces holding some of the wood together. What are you shooting for with those? I feel like, if they are metal, they could afford to be a bit thinner.
  • Rhoutermans
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    Rhoutermans polycounter lvl 12
    Some nice sculpting here, thanks for the explanation, gonna try it out :) Keep it coming~~
  • Chase
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    Chase polycounter lvl 9
    Thanks for the behind the scenes!
  • David-J
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    David-J polycounter lvl 11
  • Noise
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    Noise polycounter lvl 6
    Finished the highpoly
    ZB_Render_3.jpg

    Now polypaint and retopo. Yeah !
  • Boozebeard
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    Boozebeard polycounter lvl 11
    I think the wood looks really cool but I'm not sure if it really looks realistic. Seems quite stylized to me.
  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    thanks for the breakdown of the wood.
    it looks super cool, cant wait to see how it all bakes down to the Lowpoly :)
  • MeshModeler
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    MeshModeler polycounter lvl 11
  • Eliteabix
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    Eliteabix polycounter lvl 5
    I love this - as previous people have said Im not sure its necessarily realistic but Im definitely partial to some stylization.

    Something that has worked for me in the past when sculpting wood is
    Trim Dynamic with "Alpha 58" - if you run that across the ends of the wood it creates a nice split/grain effect

    Would LOVE to see this baked and textures tho.
  • Noise
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    Noise polycounter lvl 6
    @Eliteabix :
    Work fine with the trim dynamic brush with the alpha, need to get used to it, but I think you can get some pretty nice detail, fast. Thank you
    @Boozebeard : I think one more time I'm not going to make something 100% realistic. Next time will try to avoid stylization.

    If the "tuto" is too short you can ask me.
    Thank you to all of you for your interest and advice.
  • ikblue
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    ikblue polycounter lvl 8
  • netghost03
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    yeah looking good! keep it up!
  • Mr Significant
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    Mr Significant polycounter lvl 11
    This is crazy awesome! subbed. Want to see more! And thanks for breakdowns of the sculpt.
  • robert.nally
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    robert.nally polycounter lvl 12
    I agree, this is quite awesome. I love the sculpting style. You should forget about realistic, :)

    One question, and thanks for the tutorial, where do you find the brush MaH, Mahpolish1? I'm familiar with Orb's brush, but not that one. Maybe it's a default one in Zbrush that I'm not aware of.

    Looking forward to the polypaint.
  • Noise
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    Noise polycounter lvl 6
    Here you go for MaH brush, It's the nickname of a guy on Zbrush central who made some really nice brush for hardsurface.

    Mah Brushes
  • Noise
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    Noise polycounter lvl 6
    Here is the lowpoly first draft bake.
    Lowpoly_1.jpg

    Only the normal map and a cavity map made with the Xnormal plugin into photoshop.
    I'll have to tweak it a bit when I get all the map bake. I'm planning to make it in 3times. To have a clean result. As I'm planning to use Ddo and Ndo I think I'll not have to make a baking with my 3 part. I split it this ways, plank, middle metal thing and small detail.

    I'm trying a different pipeline than just throw the lowpoly and bake it in one time. As the baking goes. I'll make another project a small iso house again. When I have all the maps baked, will make the texture.
  • Goldo_O
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    Goldo_O greentooth
    Loving it! Wow :) Can't wait to see it textured, keep it up!
  • Noise
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    Noise polycounter lvl 6
    Guys ! Here is the Lowpoly with a more proper AO, not the final version. I need to add an occlusion with all the 3 highpoly bake onto the main lowpoly. And tweak it at some point where I'm not 100% with the result.

    But I think I can tell that's a pretty sweet bake
    Lowpoly_2.jpg

    More to come tomorrow, I'm on a 13" screen laptop computer and it's not really confortable to work with and tweak things.
    Polypaint will come monday and texturing too.

    Baking goes faster as soon as I remove the baking of the curvature and the cavity map from my pipeline. And use the prtP to make them.

    I can share my process for the AO if some of you are willing too. But you will have to wait monday for this.
  • Noise
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    Noise polycounter lvl 6
    First pass for the wood texture. I need to define more the shape with some highlights and make some part more bright

    Lowpoly_3.jpg
  • JoshVanZuylen
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    JoshVanZuylen polycounter lvl 5
    The cavity is making it look stylized. But nice haha
  • Noise
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    Noise polycounter lvl 6
    @Dustbinbrown You're totally right about taking a real reference to help me avoid stylization. My sculpt is not that real so of course all is based on.
    Beside this the wood is from photo and tweak with some color variations. And the help of Ddo from small details.

    A splendid FN SLP will help me to have real reference and go for a realistic style.
  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    I think you have a great styalized shield here, and honestly if you want it to be photo realistic you should probably start form scratch.

    that said, I really like the AO screenshot, and I think you can make a kicksass darksiders/wow like shield from what you got already, so please dont start form scratch until you finished this =P :)
  • Noise
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    Noise polycounter lvl 6
    Yep I'll finish it. It would be a waste of time to put in all this work in the dustbin just because my own taste came interfere with ma main goal to practice realistic texturing.

    The wood is done for now. I'm working on the metal and if you have some advice. Currently I have made the middle part and the small in between plank attach. It's a first draft before getting this in Ddo and tweak all by myself.
    There is not specularity for now and would certainly help define materials.

    Lowpoly_4.jpg
  • Draconius
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    Draconius polycounter lvl 7
    looking great so far!
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    realism is overrated, I'm enjoying what I see so far!
  • Gannon
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    Gannon interpolator
    realism is overrated, I'm enjoying what I see so far!

    I second this, I can't wait to see the final product, solid model and sculpt. I think the texture is hitting too many dark parts in the cracks to be "realistic" but it's still really nice looking none the less.
  • Noise
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    Noise polycounter lvl 6
    Finaly finished the shield !

    Ddo is a cool thing but you really have to tweak a lot to get something different from the first result.
    Next time, better basemesh with all your advice, and trying harder to avoid some stylization.

    Thank to all of you for yours encouragements, advices and sweet replies.

    Lowpoly_6.jpg
  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    looks great! all I have to say :)
  • eldradglam
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    the woods cracks are just awesome !
  • guhhh
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    guhhh polycounter lvl 9
    Great work!!!!
  • theSixtyEight
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    theSixtyEight polycounter lvl 7
  • DougClayton4231
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    DougClayton4231 polycounter lvl 3
    Great work! The only thing I would say is to push the spec map of the metallic parts to emphasize that they are actually metals. Right now, to me they seem more like some sort of stone.
  • bobmartien
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    bobmartien polycounter lvl 11
    Really cool.
    Thanks for your tips.

    Can you show your textures ?
  • Noise
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    Noise polycounter lvl 6
    Yes I can, I'll probably make a small tuts for the AO during the week end.

    Round_Shield_diffuse.jpg
  • bobmartien
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    bobmartien polycounter lvl 11
    Your wood texture looks great.
    A small tuts will be awesome.

    Good job :)
  • 3mm
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    3mm
    looking very good,thanks for sharing
  • Noise
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    Noise polycounter lvl 6
    Hi guys, totally forgot to make this little tut. But better late thnan never.

    AOmaphowto.jpg

    I'll start explain from bottom to top.
    •For the cavity, use the prtP with a hue saturation at 0 in saturation
    Normal mode 100%
    •For the curvature, use the blue chan of the prtP, invert it
    SoftLight mode 100%
    •Duplicate the group and merge it, use the glowing edge filter on it to get the best edge as possible, sharpen it after, use dust and scrath and finaly reduce noise.
    SoftLight at 10% add a solid color on color with the opacity you find the best
    •AO from Xnormal, here is an AO I made in 3 times, 3 baking, put all the map in one
    Multiply mode 70% add a solid color on color with the opacity you find the best
    •Green or Red chan from the prtP, use the one who suit best. The one with the more details and the less light shade in it
    SoftLight mode 60%
    •Green or Red chan from the BentNormal, use the one who suit best. The one with the more details and the less light shade in it
    SoftLight mode 60%
    •Diffuse from Ndo2, use you normal and convert it to diffuse, tweak it to have something with the more highlight on the edge and not t o much Ao in it.
    SoftLight mode 30% or try in Screen mode

    And then again I have an AO from xnormal and a cavity folder with a prtP in it for a general baking.

    The tweaking thing is to tweak a bit the light you get from the BentNormal and the blue, green or red chan of the prtP. It's a layer with a #808080 grey in Overlay mode. You only need to paint on it with grey value.

    Well, here is an easy way to understand:
    Psd File
  • KyleReeceHall
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    KyleReeceHall polycounter lvl 11
    Absolutely amazing man, i wish i was that good.
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