Texturing W3D - Photoshop

[Shnappz]

Hey,

 

So another thread..

 

I dont know if there will be a texturing tutorial in the tutorials section, and if there is it'd be nice if it were made public so i can stop tearing my hair out

 

Basically i've been reading all day about texturing and it's still as clear as mud. I have a few questions and it'd be much appreciated if you guys could help me out a bit. I realise that this stuff probably comes across as absolutely n00bish:

 

Normal Mapping: Is this done in 3ds max or photoshop? I can't really find a consensus on this.

 

Specular mapping - can someone explain this nicely and simply? Is it just something you can do in photoshop and apply to your UVW unwrap?

 

Ambient occlusion - Yeah... this... again, can someone explain it simply? Is this also something that is done in Photoshop?

 

Diffuse mapping - As above? Can someone explain it simply? Is this also done in photoshop?

 

 

 

 

[Synaesthesia]

Normal map: http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Normal_map

 

Specular map: Irrelevant to Renegade

 

Ambient occlusion: http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Ambient_occlusion_map

 

Diffuse map: http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Diffuse_map

 

Please reference Polycount in the future for these questions, or Google. You'll find a wealth of information with the right key words, and it'll help you on your journey toward learning more.

[cfehunter]

Hey,

 

So another thread..

 

I dont know if there will be a texturing tutorial in the tutorials section, and if there is it'd be nice if it were made public so i can stop tearing my hair out

 

Basically i've been reading all day about texturing and it's still as clear as mud. I have a few questions and it'd be much appreciated if you guys could help me out a bit. I realise that this stuff probably comes across as absolutely n00bish:

 

Normal Mapping: Is this done in 3ds max or photoshop? I can't really find a consensus on this.

 

Specular mapping - can someone explain this nicely and simply? Is it just something you can do in photoshop and apply to your UVW unwrap?

 

Ambient occlusion - Yeah... this... again, can someone explain it simply? Is this also something that is done in Photoshop?

 

Diffuse mapping - As above? Can someone explain it simply? Is this also done in photoshop?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Normal Mapping - You can do this in any program you feel like doing it in. It's hard to explain without going into technical detail about how they work. But here goes. I'm going to talk about tangent space normal maps here because world space ones are weird and hardly used any more.

 

The red, green and blue values of each pixel of your texture represent a 3D vector, an arrow in 3D space that points in a direction. Red represents X, Green represents Y and Blue represents Z.

A perfectly flat surface will have a normal pointing directly along the Z axis.

(Put a pencil point down on a desk, that's a flat normal).

This is why normal maps appear to be mostly blue. Relative to the geometry most surfaces are relatively flat.

 

Now there are two major ways of creating a normal map. Using actual 3D information or faking 3D information.

 

The preferred way for most "actor" models (players, vehicles, weapons, etc) is to create a high poly version of your model and then to render the detail of the high poly model onto a lower poly version of the same mesh. Tools such as Z-Brush make this fairly trivial to do and are really worth investing in.

 

If you can't do this, or require a normal map for a general reusable texture, then you can manually paint a normal map and use the knowledge of what the Red Green and Blue channels of the map do to get the effect you want. I recommend using something like the CrazyBump plugin for photoshop to give you a base.

 

Specular Mapping

Paint over your unwrap in grey scale. The closer to white something is the shinier it will appear to be in game.

 

Ambient Occlusion Mapping

Effects how much ambient lighting effects a part of your model. You can use this to create global highlights and lowlights.

 

Diffuse Mapping

Fancy name for colour mapping. In scientific lighting language "Diffuse" means the light that is reflected from a surface. So it's what you actually see when you look at an object.

This is where you actually paint stuff.

[Synaesthesia]

Specular maps should be anything but grayscale unless you're looking for plastic-like reflectivity.

[cfehunter]

You should tell that to the Unity devs.

They use the alpha channel of the normal map for theirs (in the default shaders), it's nothing but 0-255.

 

I've attached two specular maps (downsized for size reasons), one made by Ben and one made by another friend of mine.

 

This is the most common use case. If the shaders you plug your art into use colour spec maps that's great, but it's not the norm

[Synaesthesia]

From Polycount:

 

 

One thing you need to realize is that specular maps shouldn't necessarily always be black and white images. The purpose of a specular map is somewhat in-depth, but one of the key functions of them is to reflect color that gives the surface realism. A green leafy surface like this will most likely not reflect light off that is white or gray, but instead have some of the green surface in it as well.

 

 

If I were doing a specular for a green leaf like this, I would probably have a slightly desaturated green for the diffuse, but a rather vibrant green specular so that when the light hits it, it really pops that green color you are looking for.

 

These leaves tend to have a somewhat "plasticy" look to them as well, and the specular would get more dull where the brown parts are as well.

 

The latest version of UDK has a very heavy foliage map in it for their GDC demo. I would highly suggest you check it out, as they also have several leaves similar to this as well.

Pure grayscale makes plastic-like specularity. If that's what you're going for, then that's what you'll get with a pure grayscale specular map. It obviously comes down to artistic preferences, but if you want realistic specularity you'll need to approximate how the material reflects light - and many materials reflect more than just 0-255 shades of gray.

[Guest rackz]

i would like to see how aircraftkillers texture style looks in renegade. normaly renegade has a cartoonish look, i just cant say wich cartoonish look, there are billions of cartoonish styles atleast the graphics mod i have uploaded removes a little of the cartoon effect.

[cfehunter]

From Polycount:

 

 

One thing you need to realize is that specular maps shouldn't necessarily always be black and white images. The purpose of a specular map is somewhat in-depth, but one of the key functions of them is to reflect color that gives the surface realism. A green leafy surface like this will most likely not reflect light off that is white or gray, but instead have some of the green surface in it as well.

 

 

If I were doing a specular for a green leaf like this, I would probably have a slightly desaturated green for the diffuse, but a rather vibrant green specular so that when the light hits it, it really pops that green color you are looking for.

 

These leaves tend to have a somewhat "plasticy" look to them as well, and the specular would get more dull where the brown parts are as well.

 

The latest version of UDK has a very heavy foliage map in it for their GDC demo. I would highly suggest you check it out, as they also have several leaves similar to this as well.

Pure grayscale makes plastic-like specularity. If that's what you're going for, then that's what you'll get with a pure grayscale specular map. It obviously comes down to artistic preferences, but if you want realistic specularity you'll need to approximate how the material reflects light - and many materials reflect more than just 0-255 shades of gray.

 

 

Yeah granted, that allows you to modify the colour of the specular at the cost of tripling the size of the texture. There are multiple posts even in that thread you linked that say to just use a monochrome texture though.

In any case, Blinn-Phong is plasticy regardless of what you do. Which is why modern games have moved over to PBR now.

 

On that note, this is really worth a read.