The
thing I get asked most about my map textures is ' How do you do such realistic
rusted metal '.
Rusted
metals are probably the most fun texture to do. You can be messy and you dont
have to worry so much about the repeat or the scale as you can CHEAT :)
Bricks and concrete slabs for instance have to tile horizontally and vertically
with no visable seam or visible repeat.
A
'visible seam' is a misalignment at the areas where the texture repeats
with itself again.
A
'visible repeat' is 2 black bricks together in amoungst 20 grey bricks,
when they are tiled together over a large area you can pick out those 2
same black bricks at a glance and it DESTROYS any sense of realism you are
working toward as its clearly artificial.
With
Metal Panels you dont have these problems as much, they can tile horizontally
or vertially or both... its all up to you. Its only the visible repeat thats
the problem still ( tho less so) , but this is the part you can cheat with.
Get
your ass over to Freetextures
, go to the realism section, then the metals/ machinery sections and download
some cool photo reference.
If you want realism in your work you have to start studying it first. If you
dont, then how can you recreate it?
Done?
Ok.
go into Photoshop and go to the FILES / PREFERENCES / GUIDES AND GRIDS pulldown
menus.
Make sure the the settings for GRID are 'Gridlines every 128 pixels' ' Subdivisions
4'.
Ok,
make a new image 256 by 256.
If you pulldown the VIEW menu and select SHOW GRID you will see you grid on
top of your new image.
Gridlines and using RULER GUIDES will give you more control over your work
and thats what you need.
My
screen atm looks like in the thumbnail
You
can see theres a texture in all ready. This is a 'composite' of about 10 different
metal photos I have. This is why you need to go to Freetextures.
Ok.
Manufacture a metal texture that fits the style your going for. I'm going
for very red/orange rusted metal. So I take photos that are similar or near
that general colour hue.
I say generally because I keep each metal photo on a seperate layer and alter
photo with IMAGE / ADJUST / HUE/SATURATION (caps signify the pulldown menus
or shortcut keys) until it is more similar to the colour I want.
I also use IMAGE / ADJUST / LEVELS to adjust how dark the photo is, try to
equalize the tones from dark to light more by moving the middle slider to
the left or the right as this alters the medium tones.
This
sounds harder than it is. You can make a new layer by pressing 'CREATE NEW
LAYER' button on the layers menu ( on bottom right in my desktop screenshot)
, or you can just left click on one image ( as long as its a 16bit colour
upwards) and drag it across onto your new image as it then becomes a new layer
automatically.
I
tend to think of layers like tracing paper with varying degrees of opacity,
its only a question of finding the right type of tracing paper and opacity.
Find the right combination and you will work miracles very quickly. Sadly
this is a very intricate process and a slow learning curve at first for people
that have worked by hand in the past.
Give
it time and it pays off. Any artist in the Games Industry that knows what
they are doing uses this method to some degree, or in some similar fashion.
The
Layer settings I generally rely on and for what effects are listed below.
Normal
- like it says normal layer, doesnt alter anything, take down the opacity
and parts of it disappear ( darker areas first )
Dissolve - Mostly useless setting for
map textures. Dissolves the layer very roughly as take opacity down.
Multiply - uses whats on the layer like
a multiplier, affects the lighter tones on image beneath more strongly than
other settings.Good for darkening light tones on lower opacity settings
or god to use in combination with a weak dodge layer
Screen - Near globally lightens things
even as take opacity down, good for fog or hazy web art but limited use
for map textures
Overlay - Instant plastic effect, tend
to impact the darker and medium colours beneath but white and light tones
cancel its effect out. Very easy layer setting to use when colour grayscale
work such as how i work when doing skins in greyscale then colour with overlay
layer.
Softlight - Very similar to overlay
but it impacts the darker and medium colours less , alters more of the lighter
colours. Very handy for subtle colouring as its like a subtle version of
the Overlay setting.
Hardlight - Like a stronger version
of overlay, it will blot out everything underneath very harshly even when
lower opacity settings used.
Dodge - Makes things very shiny, unless
use VERY low opacity settings it will whiteout your work buts its great
for makign shiny steel or lights.
Burn - Literally burns your work, blacks
out everything , limited uses on weak opacity
Darken - Handy for just having the darkest
tones of the layer come thru, say you had a cracked rock surface you could
use this setting and only the crack would come thru onto the layer underneath.
Lighten - The opposite of Darken.
Difference - Ignore mostly
Exclusion - Ignore also
Hue - Handy for subtle alteration of
everythings hue
Saturation - mostly ignore
Colour - handy for simply recolouring
Luminosity - Never found a use for this
setting twice.
The
nature of the game is to experiment. There are no hard and fast rules I can
explain to you about photo compositing thru different layer settings and type
of photos, it all comes from experience gained out of experimentation. Dont
always assume that since your making metal only metal photos can be composited,
you could use plastic or concrete or even wood as part of the composite as
long as it has the right texture quality to it...give it a try.
The
Melting Pot
So
you've composited something that looks vaguely like metal, it dont repeat,
its got seams as big as the channel tunnel but it looks very nice despite
being useless atm. No Problem!
It
can now be made into a repeating texture in 1 step.
Drag
a mask (press 'M' or select mask on toolbar, left click drag mouse) around
the whole texture. Hold ALT and left mouse click drag a 1 pixel line off
the top,bottom,left and right of the selection.
Go
to SELECT / MODIFY / CONTRACT and contract the selection by 3 pixels.
Go
to SELECT / INVERSE to invert the selection.
Make
a new layer and select a medium colour of grey, then fill inside the masked
selection with te Paint Bucket (press K or select it from toolbar).
Contract
the selection again, this time by one pixel.
Go
to IMAGE / ADJUST / LEVELS and move the middle slider to the right and darken
the grey tones a bit.
Get
rid of your mask by selecting the mask tool again and single click left
mouse anywhere .
You
should have ended up with something like below left. Set the gray border
layer to OVERLAY and it looks like below right.
All
you've done is create a 4 pixel border with the inner 1pixel being lighter.
This way the darker grey makes your shadow and the lighter tone your highlight
and you've defined a 3d shape in 2d. If you want to get anal retentive you
realise that you should have the top and left side of the grey lighter and
the bottom and right sides a little darker. This is a simple tutorial to
explain the basics of a metal 'panel' tho, and this looks like a panel already.
But
its a boring panel and needs some design to it and also some wear and tear.
Also the repeat is a little too obvious because the orange rust is too concentrated
on the upper right side of the texture. But forget about that for now...
'Patience
is a Virtue,
and Artists are lazy people
