Advanced Photoshop Texturing Progress

[aonikoyi]

So far I am enjoying this dvd very much. even though I would say that Im more than an intermediate user, I never could get the workflow of the textuting right. Ive gone through about half of the dvd so far and you can check my progress. Overall I would grade this training a A-. why?

1. The textures were not included, neither where some of the photoshop files that show the progression of the work. its often good to include this incase I would like to check my work or check the instructors file for missing steps etc.

2. Not really sure who this dvd is geared to? meaning how do I apply this knowledge to say lightwave texturing or maya and what how this workflow would help me.

3. Going back to no.1. the textures where not included so I had to go on the web to find textures. unfortunately most of the textures were not tilable so I had to find out on the web how to make such textures tileable using the offset filter and then using the clone stamp to remove the seams. ( or maybe this was the instructors intention?).

Overall so far Ive learned a lot and its a lot of fun and I look foward to adding the decals etc. I will post my final in a few days.

Overall great job :)

still would like to know how to apply this knowledge in 3d texturing! Mr Britton any comments.

[W. A. Studios]

Aonikoyl,

1) You're not the first person to want the Photoshop files that I created to be included in the DVD. Wes and I are working together to get these files to people. The textures I used were purchased with a licensing agreement and I felt timid about sharing my files originally... I see the major error in this now and this will not be an issue in upcoming DVDs

2) As per it's use in 3D... (I'm not sure the specifics of your question so please take no offense if I offer too many answers, some of which may be already known to you :: I also covered so much information in the DVD that I fear I cannot answer this question fully... without writing another book).

In short... this knowledge is useful for a few reasons: all models need textures, texturing works hand-in-hand with lighting / rendering, texturing works hand-in-hand with modeling, textures tell part of the story, textures describe the surface

All models need textures... Simple enough. If you're going to put a texture on a model, make it beautiful, detailed and intricate.. unless the texture won't be seen close-up.

Texturing and Lighting / Rendering... These concepts both deal with color - the visual drama that ignites our eyes or deadens our senses. Depending on who your renderer is or what kind of limitations are present in the render engine or graphics pipeline - this DVD presents either too much information or just enough.
a) Too much information... Imagine a scene replete with advanced lighting rigs and top-notch shaders, and imagine that this scene was spec'd out to render all the shadows and hi-lights on Every object!!! Well... my DVD may present more information then is necessary to a texture artist working in that pipeline. In fact, it is sometimes counter-productive to put shadows in the texture. Sometimes... When they're in the texture, they can't be taken out through the lighting.
b) Perfect amount of info... Now imagine that you're working on a scene with bare-bones lighting (game artists will be very familiar with this) or, the scene needs to render quicker so the head-honchos optimized by reducing the lighting and putting the information in small, but well made textures (256x256... there is PLENTY of room in that square). Well, the texture artist must add the specific lighting and shading to compensate for bare-bones lighting.
...but those two deal only with lighting and shadows - we haven't even talked about color or environment yet...

All too often, texture are created that are too flat for the scene, like there just isn't enough contrast... or the texture doesn't have enough detail to be a believable part of the scene. I also see some textures that don't have appropriately adjusted black-points... and that's a sure-fire killer for any texture. If the histograms don't match... it's immediately obvious. More about histograms and color shifting... If a lighting scheme is blue-ish but the textures weren't blue corrected and they are warm, or orange-ish well that's some bad news there. These textures will look too dark because blue and orange are color opposites.
... being able to use adjustment layers to quickly correct histogram problems is KEY for any texture artist. Being able to slap down more detail without making the texture gaudy or distracting for the eye is KEY... even knowing what texture to make next.

Textures work hand-in-hand with modeling…
Regardless of how hi-tech our poly-pushing machines become… there is a point where it becomes useless to model Every Single Detail of a surface… at least in many production pipelines (this however would make brilliant pieces of art.. but they’d still be grey. Michelangelo did it but even his surface had a marble texture with different levels of translucency). The bond between modeling and texturing is one that compensates for limitations and diminishing returns. No amount of polygonal mesh can describe color. No amount of pixel density and contrast can describe shape. But more than this… pixels can easily describe surface aberrations – hence the beauty of the ever-popular ‘Dirt Map.’ Modeling the light dusting of dirt on a surface would be.. insane or artistic genius. Creating that same dusting in texture takes mere moments. We even accept this philosophy into the creation of bump-maps, displacement maps and normal maps (and yes I realize that I did not cover those things in my DVD. Both bump and displacement maps can easily be created from the lessons in the DVD, normal maps … that’s a different story)
… hence the texture describes the surface of any polygon or polygonal mesh.

Because of all this… It is best said this way… Your textures tell a story. From any texture we can gleam a piece of evidence, we can evince truth from the suggestion of the texture created through contrast, hi-lights, color, shadows and recognizable objects. Looking at the texture I created we can learn much about the environment in which it sits. All kinds of stories can be created from it. Things I think of when I see my texture are:
1) broken-down palace… a great family once lived here. They have their crest on the stonework.. but that was a long-time ago for the crest itself fades away from the stone. Adding further to this story of time passing, the surface is marred by black-soot and smoke and has not been cleaned off. The door is desaturated, lacking the luster of well cared for wood and ornaments. The castle wall is hollowed out through some damage unknown, but instead of being rebuilt (which would have its own obvious tell-tale signs) the holes have simply been boarded up. The boards themselves are bleached and stained by the weather, rot and sun. From the hi-lights and shadows we see that it is not cloudy outside, in-fact I dare say a strong sun shines approvingly on the castle itself. From the uneven lighting, the strong top-down lighting we are also assured that this wall is not inside.. for inside lighting would be dimmer and more even. However… by the very fact that this is a castle wall with a door in the front… we’re pretty strong in our belief that this wall is already outside and far be it to think that it would rest inside.
2) Also important here is a sense of texture scale. How big is the door in relation to everything else. We only know the scale of the parts of the texture by relating it to the size of ourselves. Do the stones look large enough to make a castle wall? Now imagine if those very stones were MUCH larger!! Why we’d take one look at that texture and say “It’s tiny… meant for a race of small creatures.” (or something like that… depending on your word choice). The size of the door to the rocks to the castle wall to the text itself is ExTRemeLy important. These must all align to create the proper scale. If ALL the models in your scene were properly scaled but the textures gave otherwise… then nothing would look appropriate. You’d be dead in the water… hopefully something far less pleasant like eating broccoli on a stick instead of candy on a stick.
3) In essence… Everything about your animation tells a story. If they all tell the same story then you’ve got a winner… if they all tell different stories then it’s broccoli-on-a-stick for you. Textures are one piece of this gigantic puzzle.

I hope this helps.

Andrew Britton
www.WanderingArtistStudios.com
:rockandro :buttrock: :sing:

[W. A. Studios]

Hey Wes....
I like this reply. I think Aonikoyl got me to express a lot of ideas, beliefs and practices that I'm so used to I forget to explain them to people. Do you think we could include this type of essay in the DVD?

Andrew Britton
www.WanderingArtistStudios.com
New Photoshop DVD on Sale Now: www.WanderingArtistStudios.com/publications

[aonikoyi]

Thank you very much for your reply. I hope you were not offended by the tone or questions about the training. It is indeed great. My initial thougts were that these techniques would be more valuable in a game design pipeline and since game design is not something that I am interested in, at least at the moment I wanted to know how I could make the most use of the knowledge and apply it to say film/fx/tv production.

I wish you were doing one for Lightwave that would be great. Rock on dude, and keep up the good work!

by the way, how does my work look so fart, any comments. And as far as textures go whats a good texture pack to purchase thats not going to cripple my pockets?

[W. A. Studios]

Aonikoyl,

Now worries about your critique. You have every right to your thoughts and I'll not stop you from having them. Besides, had you not asked what you did I doubt I would have written such a response. Given that I'm quite pleased with what I said I'm very happy that you did ask.
I was a little taken off guard though because texuring between movies and games is similar in that all textures need to look good. My DVD was about how to use Photoshop to achieve your desired results. Once you have those results you could then tailor that original texture to a game specific pipeline, or a movie specific pipeline. In the end though, they all need killer textures.
And as per the grading... I was a real slacker in high-school. A teacher once made a deal with me where I'd get a C and not have to take the final or study for it in class. So, to get an A- on my first time out, well I'm plenty pleased with that. Thank You.

As per the state of your texture:
You've got a great start. You're using real-life textures. The beginnings are really coming together.
Looking Good (sections in green)
A) You’ve got a great hi-light going on here. It provides an excellent sense of light and the direction. You’ve taken great care to create a hilight that is not flat white on something, but instead created an effect that brightens those areas proportionately. Well done.

Almost There (sections in red)
A) Shadow under the arch and on the door… Your shadow is very heavy in these areas. Notice also how the shadow goes from very sharp on the side of the arch to a longer shader AND a wider fade. If you’r egoing to keep the shadow this heavy then be sure to reduce the fade and size of the shadow; make it more like the shadow along the side of the arch. IF you want to keep the shadow that size then reduce the weight of that shadow.. lighten it up considerably
B) You have a VERY long shadow. There is a definite sense that the rock on the side is floating (as if a 2D plane) above the wood planks below. It’s fine to have a shadow this long. What’s missing here is seeing the dark side of the side stones… where’s the shadow on those, the self-shading? I think you’ll find this helpful.
C) As mentioned in the ‘Looking Good’ section – part A – you’ve got these great hi-lights on the stone in that section. The resason I circled this area is because I don’t see those same awesome hilights in this section of the stone. Those stones are missing that same attention. It seems that you’ve chosen a texture that requires this kind of attention. You have an excellent opportunity for innovation and problem solving here.
D) The shadow cast FROM the sidestones TO the stone façade below is too soft in it’s fall; it’s a soft gradient. However stone is a very hard surface and the shadows cast (as in circled sections B) are in fact both harder and darker but are traveling farther distances. Be mindful of the falling of your shadows. Tighten this shadow up.. a thin line might work just as well.
E) Wood Boards…These planks are gigantic compared to everything else. The scale of these planks is MUCh larger in comparison to the other objects. I’m assuming the door is approximately 6.5’ tall. Based on that assumption then the planks themselves are about 3’ across. But looking at the texture of the boards I can see small sections of fuzz and little splinters. These are physical phenomena that happen on a much smaller scale then they appear to here. If however I start my measurements by the wood planks then I am to assume that the door itself is AT MOST 3’ tall but again that’s being generous. I’d say that door, compared to the boards, looks about 6” tall. This chasm of scale is one of those things about our art that everyone sees without knowing what they’re looking at.
F) Door and Stone to Arch Lighting… The door and stone-work here are too flat when sitting next to the arch/ You did great by adding a bright and dark section to the arch. That same attention is missing in the door and stone work.
G) Bottom of Door… This is simply a crop, same at the top
H) Shadow Under the Castle… Too dark. For such strong light as you’ve created in this texture, having shadows so dark that it hides all the detail beneath is incongruous. Yes.. these shadows would be dark, but to see not a trace of detail is overdone.
I) You’re missing the great hilights you created earlier – as mentioned in the ‘Looking Good’ section.
J) Even the grate here, as it escapes the shadow could use a touch of a faint hilight. Enough to be seen but not noticed.
K) Crack in Arch… You created a nice crack in the arch but it stands out as drawn in because the crack you drew is MIUCH darker then the crevices and cracks of the arch texture itself
L) The shadow underneath the rock here is dark that it’s very hard to read.. upon cursory inspection it looks like nothing more than blackness… this applies also to Comment H.



Other:
1) Wow!! That’s red!!!
2) Your shadows are VERY dark and heavy. They draw the eyes away from other areas of the texture… be careful of this.
3) Try some color in your shadows… try keeping to your red scheme with dark, law-saturated, red shadows…
4) Try staggering the shadows of the boards!!
5) The sidestones on the right are having the same fate as the stones on the left
6) BE consistent with your black points!!! Your shadows can only be as dark as the darkest sections of your textures. Having large black points creates a black-hole for the eye that it always comes back to.
7) Be consistent in your colors!!! The doorStones, arch, door and stone façade are all different color schemes. Using a unifying color scheme would bring greater cohesion to your texture as a whole.


I hope this helps… I tried to be as thorough as possible.

Andrew Britton
www.WanderingArtistrStudios.com
New Photoshop DVD on Sale Now: www.WanderingArtistStudios.com/publications

ps. I drew circles with letters on your image to show the specific locations. I'm posting this now because even though it is incomplete w/o the image, it is better then nothing and I think you'll be able to get a lot from this.
I'll try posting the image itself in a different post right after.

[W. A. Studios]

Sorry man... the attachment button ain't working right now. When I get this figured out I'll post the image that goes alogn with the notes.

Andrew Britton