I want to know more about creating art for games, so I took my lunchbreak today to texture a planter pot over at Low Poly Coop. It was pretty much the first time I ever opened up a model in Blender, much less the first time I've ever textured anything.

Here's the first WIP version:

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out for a first version, though I'm all-ears for criticism on how to do it better.

Here's the forum post over on lowpolycoop where you can get more info on it:
http://lowpolycoop.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1742

Cheers!

--clint

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quit posting on CCN? nope. I havn't been driven off yet.

Yeah, I had very little idea of how to actually go about doing it before today. But there are some *great* tutorials over there. I found Texturing Basic DTS Files With Blender 2.4 to be very helpful, as well as Getting Textures on to Files Imported into Blender (that second one is what I mainly followed to do the planter pot -- very short, simple, and to the point).

Cheers!

--clint

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"I am very good at hiding, so if you don't see me, that's where I am." Orc Outlaw, TES III Morrowind

It would be a lot easier with a tablet instead of a mouse.

Any other thoughts? I'm thinking of trying to learn how to bake shadows into textures with Blender.

--clint

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"I am very good at hiding, so if you don't see me, that's where I am." Orc Outlaw, TES III Morrowind

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2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

I generated all source images on this version myself (as opposed to the first version with I relied on Google Images for).

I'm totally up for comments/criticisms -- thanks!

--clint

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Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk.
C.S. Lewis

Do you see anything that you think should be improved on it before I release a version as final?

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quit posting on CCN? nope. I havn't been driven off yet.

It's pretty clean, I did add a layer of dirt to the texture -- though it's kindof fuzzy and you might not notice it. Without it, it looks like this:

And if I add a black layer of dirt/dust on top of the already existing layer of brown dirt/dust, then it shows up like this:

Which I think may be a little dark.

What do you think? Is the grime too large? To general? I think it's pretty balanced in the original picture:

but I'm very open to suggestions. Which one do you like best?

--clint

[This message has been edited by HanClinto (edited June 09, 2006).]

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quit posting on CCN? nope. I havn't been driven off yet.

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WARNING:

RADIOACTIVE IE AHEAD!
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#include <spazz.h>

int name()
{
char name['B','u','d','d','B','o''y']

Here's the latest update -- work in progress #3. I tried to make the shadows better (redrew them all by hand), and made it so that there are two intermingling layers of grime -- one brown, and one black. I think it adds another layer of realism so that it's not just monochrome dirt, but blended.

I wasn't sure what to do with the bottom. *shrug*. So it's just slimy concrete.

Cheers!

--clint

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WARNING:

RADIOACTIVE IE AHEAD!
--------------------
#include <spazz.h>

int name()
{
char name['B','u','d','d','B','o''y']

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quit posting on CCN? nope. I havn't been driven off yet.

Now I'm really just wondering what needs to be done before I call this texture "finished".

The pot looks very good now, other then the bottom and the rim at the top, those could do with a bit of work.
The shadows are great.

ok, the top should be slightly darker, abit more brown, and a bit more ruggy, like the outside, but lighter, and not as bumpy.

The bottom I think should also be the same as the rim, but make it less bumpy, and give it a spiralling texture, taking in to consideration the way that the pot would be made on the spinning wheel.

Also a normal mapped full-effect smooth-proxy render of that would look great!

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Kiwee Stuff Website:
http://kiwee.gibbering.net

I think it looks like it sat in the mud during a rainstorm. VERY dirty. Before you say its finished, you should come up with a scene for it. (mentaly) It looks pretty good though.

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if(post = 1)
{
signature = 1;
animated_gif = 0;
}
end()

*sigh* -- just found out that I lost the source to that picture (the layered GIMP file) -- all I have of the latest version is the flattened PNG. uuugh. That's really frustrating and dissapointing. If I want to continue on it, then I need to redo what took me about 3-4 hours to do. Hopefully I can do it again, and we'll see if I can do it faster and better this time I guess.

I'll keep y'all posted. Thanks for all of the feedback and interest -- it's really helped!

Cheers!

--clint

Here's the latest update:

I'm not sure what I did wrong, but I feel like I improved the model in some ways (like with your suggestions about the rim Kiwee -- thanks!), but I feel like I backslid in other ways. Anyone have input on the matter? It was worse last night, but I touched it up some this morning and I think it helped a lot.

Cheers!

--clint

Cheers!

--clint

Edit: tweaked again -- muted the colors, the red was a little much I think.

[This message has been edited by HanClinto (edited June 12, 2006).]

I dunno which one I like more though.. the first one or the second.. Either way, it looks alot better than it used to

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if(post = 1)
{
signature = 1;
animated_gif = 0;
}
end()

I couldn't decide which one I liked better either, so I made one in the middle:

So there's another "release candidate" -- I'm interested in learning what I should change before calling this puppy "done for now" and moving on to something else.

Cheers! Thanks everyone for all of the feedback -- I've been learning a lot!

This whole experience, if nothing else, has been giving me a lot more appreciation for artists and their work. I mean, seriously -- I've honestly probably dumped 10 hours into this project (at *least*), and it's a silly planter pot! Holy cow! There's likely over a *hundred* props like this in most feature-length games (many times much more). Wow.

I think I had a good amount of respect and appreciation for artists before this experience, but I'm pretty sure that it's now a more understood appreciation -- a deeper sort of respect from understanding. Sortof how you appreciate a violinist if you know how to play a little bit yourself.

Take care!

In Christ,
clint

I think if you were to work for a game company you would be a good texturer, because your talent from 2d art (seeing from Bible Dave), is showing through here too.

Keep up the good work!

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[This message has been edited by lava (edited June 13, 2006).]

anyway, goop, even with stone ones, they use potters wheels, and then they spray the pot with stone granules to get the concreat effect.

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Kiwee Stuff Website:
http://kiwee.gibbering.net

[This message has been edited by kiwee (edited June 13, 2006).]

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Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk.
C.S. Lewis

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.
C. S. Lewis

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Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk.
C.S. Lewis

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.
C. S. Lewis

So first some coments, you have a good start on texturing now and it looks good. One thing I'm learning is that in the real world NOTHING is syemtrical or perfect, so its actualy good for when you model, UV and Texture to not worry about things being exact. Taking this into acount, I would add some obvious detail into areas of the pot that are not the same as the rest of it. Add more grunge to what would be the back side of the pot, or maybe some moss and lykin in what would be the north side of the pot. Don't let it all be the same all the way around. With that tip you should be able to take your texturing to the next level.

As for how to create seemless textures from images zack I have a tutorial that a friend and I wrote that explains that very procedure on my Unity Game Engine Comunity Site. So feel free to head over to http://unify.bluegillweb.com and grab it.

Keep up the good work guys. Jeff out...

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Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk.
C.S. Lewis

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.
C. S. Lewis

Btw, one thing I have been thinking about lately, is why aren't all games just textured with pics from real life, then that soldier looks like a real person and etc?

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"Do not condemn others for their ignorance, use it against them."
Scott E. Roeben

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Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk.
C.S. Lewis

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.
C. S. Lewis

Now there are two ways of creating textures. The first way is painting them from scratch, this is usualy done for games with a more stylistic or cartonnie look. Game that are shooting for "as close to photo realistic as posible" will start with real images, but an artist must take the parts of the image that will work best for each part of the model and blend them all together as if it was all one image. This is a very time consuming and tricky process but the resaults are well worth the work. For example I have attached a texture map of a seat I made for a model of mine and a render of it.

Which is off of this model:

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I (usualy) dont particularly like real life graphics. Then agian, some of that style graphics is quite cheap. It should never LOOK like it was pictures. Then agian, that realy depends on the game. Imagine Jak and Daxter with pictures :\

Then imagine painted Men of Honor...

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if(post = 1)
{
signature = 1;
animated_gif = 0;
}
end()

I wasn't going to reply about it until I ran across some tutorials for the matter over at Games Extract -- they have some really nice free game content.

Cheers!

--clint

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1 Corinthians 15:58 So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and steady, always enthusiastic about the Lord’s work, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. (NLT)

Tired of loosing your work for all eternity? Jesus Saves! You should too :P (liek every 1 1/2 seconds) This is a message from teh save the data foundation, and from (CTRL + S): Because da data is y00r future. Maybe.

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WARNING:

RADIOACTIVE IE AHEAD!
--------------------
#include <spazz.h>

int name()
{
char name['B','u','d','d','B','o''y']

Okay Buddboy -- here's a version with a price sticker. I know it's still in too good of shape, but I kindof wanted it to be readable too. Since these models that I'm working on are all models from Low Poly Coop, it's fun to make little references to it in the texturing. For example, the Baseball Bat is entitled the "Lowpoly Slugger" (as opposed to Louisville Slugger), and the Lead Pipe has an engraving on the side that says "Manufactured by the Lowpoly Plumbing Corp". So I wanted to have a little message like that readable on the price tag as well.