To 'Procede (ure) or not to Porocede (ure) with textures

[geldslaw]

like alot of people starting out as newbies in 3dsmax, there's a lot going on in the application. Its a complete workshop with all the tools you need for CG and many of those tools can be 'clicked and applied'; like colour and materials.

But as time goes on, if you're like me you'll want to start finding better ways of improving models, two ways of doing this;

1. modelling
2. texturing

and of course

3. lighting
4. rendering

but after you've made a couple of dozen models or so and been exposed to the various facets of 3DS max; modifiers, textures maps, there comes a point where you run into a 'no man land'.

If you look at CGsociety and the great works of art modelled and rendered, you'll realise apart from their great models and fantastic lighting. The genius comes into play when you start controlling, manipulating and creating your own texture maps.

Procedures shaders/maps/textures are great solutions for car paint, metallic and glass surfaces. But I was recently reminded about an article written by a CGartist who points out that all objects in reality are exposed to -:

'wear and tear over time' the image of the Lanrover 'back to 1980' in the feature gallery is a fantastic example of this rule. If you had to model a modern bedroom, everything would be nice and clean?

But what if you had to model an old attic or or scene for a game or movie where its a waste disposal tip or derelict site? New textures or procedures are not going to help?

I've got dozen of texure maps of masonery work but we've all seen buildings with black pollution on them, water marks, decrepid and deteriorating stones in old buildings and graveyards? What if it was a pirate ship or an old U-boat at the bottom of the sea?

You get my point? Wear and tear, thats why knowing how to create or modify textures in a paint package, using blend shaders to create layerd materials and being able to USE UVWrap modifiers is an essential part of you great success in modelling and hopefully mine.

There are great video tutorials FREE just to help you up onto the next level to start jossling and being able to stand next to some of the greats.

So should I use blend layer, or create a painted texture layer?

[robinmitra1]

cudnt get your question....you create layers of texture in a texture creation package(any image creation/editing package) and you blend them with each other...and all these layers are painted individually and the final texture is a blend of all these texture layers

[geldslaw]

wasn't so much as giving you instructions, but raising questions about using textures or procedure maps, as opposed to creating your own unique texture for a project.

[CU441ES]

I'd do it in PS, much more control over whats happening. But you could use bland maps. And even if you use blend, its not 100 % procedural because it still has bitmaps involved somewhere. And if it has bitmaps its not procedural.

[robinmitra1]

ok...i got ur question now ..
It all depends on what kind of model you are trying to texture.like some models can be textured easily by just putting on some textures on them and still look realistic and whereas there are some models which require you to unwrap your model and paint you own textures and slap it on..but procedurals are a special kinds,in that they are generated using some mathematical functions.so they are random in nature and can be animated easily.
Now there are somthings that can be done using both procedurals as well as texture images. in that case you should decide upon the quality you require and the nature of the model(i.e humans, trees, cars, etc...). eg. generally you should prefer textures images for humans although you could do away with some procedurals too.So if you require precise control of you textures over your model you should opt for texture images wrapped onto your models and if you require randomness(or even animate that easily),like water surface,that dont require that precise position of texture over you model you should chose procedurals....
hope this was helpful this time...

[geldslaw]

I'm just in the process of reading the posting of the 3DM Interview with Peter Sanitra

Peter Sanitra -

Trough all the years i`ve assembled nice database of textures, but great source for me was environment-textures.com. It`s really cheap and they have all kind of hires textures you need for environments. For bigger scenes like the theatre and bathtub i`ve prepared a set of tileble textures based on real photos and added dirt and stains to them. I`ve also created displacement maps, usually for walls and ground. I`m using procedural as much as i can, it can save a lot of memory and time.

This is the link to the video Peter Sanitra demo reel

[robinmitra1]

ya..thats true..procedurals do save a lot of memory as textured are big in size and procedurals are just mathematical functions that are evaluated at the time they are to be displayed(so hard disk space is also not required)...But sometimes procedurals are not the option if you wanna go for a precise control of your textures over your model..But even i agree that procedurals are great...infact i love them(more than painting texture) and they can be used to create such fantastic effects that are really hard to achieve sometimes with conventional texture painting....

[robinmitra1]

Take for example: you have a human character for which you wanna create material map for diffuse channel,bump channel, specular channel, and so on..if you use procedurals for this, more often than not your gonna end up getting strange effects and probably not get what your looking for(i.e. precise control over the shininess of skin, say at the nose tip and some bumps at the forehead to create creases, etc..)..but if you lay your uv's well and paint the textures using these uv's then you will get the precise control of where each detail will be on your character's face(bumps at the forehead for creases for example)....

[geldslaw]

I agree, I'm gradualling getting to the point where I want to have mroe control over the appearance of the end product. Dictate the balance between, modelling, displacing and texturing.

I'm getting there slowly, I feel my modelling skills are eveloving and each project brings a new challenge even if it is a previous project being retouch because my depth of knowledge has increased enough to understand how to achieve the end goal in mind. Was going to say realism but I should say surrealism because some of the renders and animations that I admire are so beautifully textured and rendered their surreal.

'Go beyond realism' no one would complain if they could equal D'Ali in 3D . you make a lot of sense. thank you