The main goal of this article/tutorial is to give you a few hints and tricks that might help you to make your own textures look better. What you'll read are things other people taught me, or that I had to discover for myself. They are not the only way to handle some of the problems, but over the years I've found that these work best.
Material definition is a term I use quite a lot. Very often someone posts a texture that looks weird on the model, but looks even worse if you look at the texture sheet. In the end it shouldn’t really matter if your texture sheet looks 'good or bad', as long as it looks good on the model.
However, a good way to check your texture is to look at your sheet, and see if you can recognise what material it is (ie metal, rock, rubber, etc), or what part of the model is unwrapped there.
When working on current and NextGen materials (with all the exotic maps and effects) this is not always possible. Nevertheless, if you can recognise the material then there’s a big chance that it’ll look good on the model too. If you can’t, then there’s a very big chance that you see something as metal while in fact it’s nothing more than random colors and pixels.
(Pure photo sourcing is something that can easily cause this, but more on that later.)
However, a good way to check your texture is to look at your sheet, and see if you can recognise what material it is (ie metal, rock, rubber, etc), or what part of the model is unwrapped there.
When working on current and NextGen materials (with all the exotic maps and effects) this is not always possible. Nevertheless, if you can recognise the material then there’s a big chance that it’ll look good on the model too. If you can’t, then there’s a very big chance that you see something as metal while in fact it’s nothing more than random colors and pixels.
(Pure photo sourcing is something that can easily cause this, but more on that later.)
Apart from the a good diffuse map, a proper specular can help a lot as well. There are tools that can generate specular maps for you, but they don't give you enough control, especially when you're working with different material types in one texture, or with bright text.
Nothing beats Photoshop if you want to create specular maps.
This way you can use masks and mask areas that you don't want to affect. If you have white text in your texture for example, the masks will come in very handy if you want to tone down the effect.
The picture above shows you how you can create a specular map for a simple two material texture, with concrete and metal. Both have their own level correction. You can use brightness/contrast instead of Level correction for this too, but adjusting the levels gives you a bit more control.
Nothing beats Photoshop if you want to create specular maps.
This way you can use masks and mask areas that you don't want to affect. If you have white text in your texture for example, the masks will come in very handy if you want to tone down the effect.
The picture above shows you how you can create a specular map for a simple two material texture, with concrete and metal. Both have their own level correction. You can use brightness/contrast instead of Level correction for this too, but adjusting the levels gives you a bit more control.
When working on a texture, it’s a good idea to start with a base material. If you’re working on metal, create a solid metal material. If metal is damaged all over, you can get those in your base.
It can be a good idea to save your base textures. This way, when you need to create a similar texture, you only have to take the base texture you have and build on that.
This can come in handy when you're working on a set of props or buildings that all need a similar look. Starting with a base material for every material type in your texture can help you to make a good material definition. When every part has a proper material, then you can start adding details.
It can be a good idea to save your base textures. This way, when you need to create a similar texture, you only have to take the base texture you have and build on that.
This can come in handy when you're working on a set of props or buildings that all need a similar look. Starting with a base material for every material type in your texture can help you to make a good material definition. When every part has a proper material, then you can start adding details.
Something a lot of people tend to forget in their textures are subtle details. These are things you don't notice at first glance, but make a texture or object interesting to look at.
Depending on the style and theme you can use a minimalist style, or go to extremes with the detail. It is your job to give the viewer something interesting to look at. Subtle details are perfect for this, and they can be everything.
A sticker, some worn paint, rivets, bolts, someone that wrote something with a black marker, mud, oil, anything. But the key is to keep it subtle. If you go overboard with this, it'll lose it's power.
Depending on the style and theme you can use a minimalist style, or go to extremes with the detail. It is your job to give the viewer something interesting to look at. Subtle details are perfect for this, and they can be everything.
A sticker, some worn paint, rivets, bolts, someone that wrote something with a black marker, mud, oil, anything. But the key is to keep it subtle. If you go overboard with this, it'll lose it's power.
Take care. Some people like sharp and crisp textures, others like to leave a little bit of blur in them.
Personally I prefer the sharp and crisp textures, so I always do a sharpen pass on my entire texture.
Personally I prefer the sharp and crisp textures, so I always do a sharpen pass on my entire texture.
Basically I make a copy of your entire texture, paste it at the top of the layer stack, and do an Unsharp mask pass on that layer (despite the oddname it will sharpen your texture).
This way you don't mess up your original texture. I prefer to use the Unsharp mask filter over the normal Sharpen filter. Unsharp mask will give you a control menu that can be very useful to keep the effect under control.
It's very tempting to use sharpen too much, which will cause all kinds of artifacts on your texture.
The first image is the original texture. This is how it looks in Photoshop without any correction.
The second image has a single unsharp mask pass at 70%. The details in the paint and the scratches pop out nicely.
That highlight on the horizontal edge is very noticeable now, but you could tone that down a bit. (Do this in your original texture and redo the unsharp mask proces, this way you'll always end up with a complete sharp texture, and it'll keep your .psd file clean). The second image has a single unsharp mask pass at 70%. The details in the paint and the scratches pop out nicely.
The last one clearly has artifacts that you don't want. The white is too dominant, there are bright orange pixels at the border of the paint, etc. You really want to avoid things like that.
Avoid using photos in your textures, in such a way that they are not properly processed. It's a very rare thing when you can paste a part of a photo, without having to add or remove details, or to let it fit your UV clusters.
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