Top Ten Tips of Texturing [2]

 

With Tip #5 in mind, using photos isn't always bad. Photos are excellent if you want to add small details.
Small anomalies that break the surface, and give your texture the look and feel like it has been used.
The best way to show you the effect is to show you the same piece of texture with and without photo overlays.

The best way to get a good effect is to go through all of Photoshop's blending modes and to see which one is working well for the photo you picked.

Overlay and Vivid Light usually work alright, the rest really depends on the picture but very often give a blown-out effect. One thing to keep in mind when you're doing this is to keep it subtle.

These are small details, things that the viewer should not notice at all. Another thing to keep in mind is the scale of the details. If you want subtle paint damage, like on the second door texture, make sure that the scale of the details is the same as the scale of your object.
If not, it'll look out of place, and the viewer will notice that something is off.

For a better overlay effect you can tweak the "blend if" options on each layer. This is useful if you have bright or dark areas that mess up the effect. You can smooth them out with this option. If you hold Alt while dragging the sliders you'll split the slider up, and create a smooth transition of what is blended, and what is not.

 

 

One way to create dirt has already been covered, and that's photo overlays. Those are great for general wear and tear on your texture.

 

 

If you want small specific details, you'll need to use other techniques. Below are a two techniques I frequently use, one for dust and dirt, and one for rust.

Dust and dirt can be done very quickly with a solid brownish layer and a layer mask. Simply put the dirt layer at the top of your stack, and paint with a low opacity and flow. You can spice things up by changing the blending mode, or to filter your dirt layer. (add noise for example).
This will break the surface somewhat if the dirt becomes too visible. Once again, subtlety is the key to success.

Rust is a bit more tricky. The thing with rust is that it's very random and undefined. Other than the placement and how it leaks, there's hardly any logic to it.

I used to handpaint rust, but it always had a bit of a cartoony look, and I was never able to get crispy rust that looks convincing and real.

That was until DennisPls shared his technique with me, which I've been using ever since. It's basically almost identical to regular photo overlays, only here you only use a small part of the texture.
You clean the edges with a mask so that it blends nicely with your base texture. Matching scale is very important here.

 

 Good damage placement only requires one thing: logical thinking. If an area is likely to be hit by another object (green arrows), or by moving parts, then logically there will be some damage in that area.

That can be chipped paint, scratches, rust, etc. If an area is clear from being hit by an object (yellow arrows), then there will be a lot less damage to that area.

There is a sure chance that you'll find dust and dirt in such an area. Also, areas that are rubbed frequently will show worn off paint, scratches and if they are metal they will shine more.

 

This doesn't only work for small borders. If you go big, the same rules apply.

The front of the forklift (1) is the area that will suffer the most, and will therefore have more damage than other parts.
The lower part of the side will stick out most, so the biggest damage will be done there. The wheels (3) don't need any comments at all...

While the use of AO maps is not always required when using normal maps, and with engines being able to render AO in realtime, the advantage of baked AO maps is sometimes underrated or forgotten.

AO maps are a great way to give your texture that extra bit of depth, and it'll make your model look less like CG, and more like something from real life. (The lack of good GI is in many cases the thing makes something look fake).

Some people use advanced GI settings to bake their AO maps, but in many cases that's not really necessary. Even 'simple' indications of shadow and light will make a huge difference.

 

As hard as texturing can be, it can be even harder if you don't think when you are unwrapping your model.

Nobody will ever split a face UV cluster in half, and place those two halfs in different places on the texture, yet when people work on props the weirdest UV clusters can emerge.

If you think about how you will texture your model while unwrapping, you will most likely avoid "bad" UV clusters, and save yourself a lot of time and frustration.

 

I hope that some of these points can help you with your textures, and that you learned something new.

Don't forget that they are just simple guidelines.
They are not 'stick to' rules or workflows.
I can only encourage you to try as many things out as possible.

Because only by trying things out will you get a better understanding. Which can only lead to better and faster texturing.

 

 

Like many others, I started as a gamer, and soon wanted to build my own maps and levels.

The lack of the right props for my scenes bothered me a lot.
I touched base with Game-Artist.net and after two years we were adopted by CGSociety, and that's where we are right now.

The main purpose for this article is to make a summation of all the comments that are frequently made at Game-Artist.net (and elsewhere, no doubt). It's not the Holy Grail of Texturing, but it can help you out with issues that frequently occur, and are easy to fix.

Related links:
Jeroen Maton
CGPortfolio