Hello from /3/, Ive been wanting to do painted textures for 3D in a similar style to this and thought this would be the best place to ask. Ive seen some texturing tutorials but the artists were not really that good. The one thing I really want to know is what process is used here to "light" the subject because it looks almost too smooth to be brush strokes.. would it be clever use of adjustment layers and gradient masks?
To be honest, those textures wouldn't look good on an actual model, that's because the highlights are drawn directly to the textures when they should come from the actual renderer, it's a well known rule that you should not draw lights in your textures, however if you are asking how to paint skin in textures, for that you need to practice a lot, I've been painting textures for buildings for about 2 years and I can tell you that is has been a hell of a fun ride, just keep praticing anon until your uv game and your painting skills are strong as hell and you will see that 3D modeling is a really fucking beautiful thing.
Also you could try with the different layer filters in Photoshop if you still want to do it that way, just study pic related
>>would it be clever use of adjustment layers and gradient masks
yes. many layers handling different aspects of light blending, and probably a normal map baked in manually too (you can do this using Nvidia's plugins).
additionally, the original texture was probably painted at a far larger size, and then scaled down to met the target resolution.
a lot of the art for that game was made to run on very low-spec computers, so it had to look as smooth as possible.
>>2597308
>>those textures wouldn't look good on an actual model
>>they should come from the actual renderer
they look fine. you do realize what game they're from right?
ever bothered to play quake 3, or many of the older games from around that era?
>>it's a well known rule that you should not draw lights in your textures
false. this is entirely situational as to what type of game you're making, and whether it needs to run on the bare minimum specs.
it's a POPULAR theme to not draw lights on textures, but it's not the ONLY way of doing art for a game.
there's an entire generation of games that had lighting painted into the textures. it looks fine IF and only IF that's your intended art direction.
we're talking large quantities of player skins and game levels with very minimal lighting performed by the actual renderer, because artists wanted full control over where pixels were placed in an age where GPU's were still primitive and most environments were entirely static lighting wise.
some games still do this for animated content. league of legends does it. they have quite a bit of lighting painted on the character texture, and then just some very basic normal map and specular light materials. most of their engine-based lighting is spent on visual effects from attacks and weapons.
games that want to successfully run on the shittiest of toasters (or mobiles) will often just avoid proper lighting effects, and paint it all entirely on texture with vibrant, smooth gradients and hard edges.
Those textures were baked, the same way a normal map would be baked. In other words the object is placed into a scene with some lighting or ambient occlusion, and the resulting shadows that are rendered are baked directly into the diffuse map or some dedicated shadow channel. It's very commonly used in video games because they require no additional processing power to display, but the downside is that they will never look completely natural because they don't change when the scene surrounding them changes.
>>2597961
I should add that in this case it looks like the seculars were baked in as well, which gives it an even more stiff and lifeless look. Anyway, anyone in /3/ would have been able to explain all of this.
>>2597195
If you can't see brush strokes, and it were painted (not baked), then you can just an airbrush.
>>2597880
To be fair I don't actually play a lot of video games, I just like 3D modeling a lot, not every 3D artist is a gamer you know?
>>2597961
While you are correct on how a lot of this is done, this example is Q3 we are talking about, before modern sculpting workflows. I do not recall reading anything about highpoly to lowpoly bakes during that time.
>>2597308
Pretty good example, got any others? While I like the technical explanation I don't like his final result, seems way too dark. Multiply pic looks great and close to first pic.
>>2598794
>>not every 3D artist is a gamer you know
I know that not every 3D artist is a gamer yes, because not every 3D artist makes content for games. However, it should be noted that OP's example texture IS from a game...so it would be silly to approach this from a perspective other than making content specifically intended for games.
>>I don't actually play a lot of video games
You don't have to "play a lot of video games" to make that observation, it's not a matter of quantity nor actually spending hours and hours playing them.
You can simply treat a specific selection of games as study material. To learn how their content was made, and to understand why their 3D artists were successful.
If you're a 3D artist wanting to be successful in making content for games....it pays to actually study the content from other games, and also study the techniques of other 3D artists in the game industry.
Even just picking the ones that define each era or genre, you get a small but highly useful list of study material.
I don't play much games either. For example, I haven't played fighting games since the original Mortal Kombat trilogy...but that didn't stop me from learning the how and why of the 3D techniques used in Guilty Gear XRD, because it makes sense to know these kind of things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhGjCzxJV3E
>>2599383
>That part in the video where they showed the simple trick on how to create those sharp black lines while maintaining texture limits using a clever UV layout
Mind blown.
Also this pic is also what kind of painted 3d style I like. I take it its just choosing a light direction and go with it right. I noticed there is a reflection on the Armour from the arms which was a nice detail.
>>2600089
>>Mind blown
It's honestly one of the coolest tricks I've seen in years. Such a clean result.
>>I take it its just choosing a light direction and go with it right
Yup pretty much. That's a really pretty example of it too. The helmet, chest plate, and chin all have just enough light play painted on them to be perfect from multiple angles.
>>2600530
Yeah, there is this specific particular painted style I love with 3D with nice highlights. Take for example this one is pretty good one too.
The best I can gather is starting from generally dark but saturated colors and then ramping up to bright highlights. But thing is its done in such a way that it looks like there is a slight warm light on wing and head. Any tips on painting light in such a convincing manner?
>>2601724
>>Any tips on painting light in such a convincing manner
For the lighter areas, you can just paint on a separate layer and then set the blend mode to Color Dodge (in Photoshop).
For the warm light on the wing, you can simply select an area and then use the "Photo Filter" option to tint it a warmer color.
Hope that helps!
>>2601920
Thanks! Also dumping some more neat painted lowpoly stuff
>>2602927
>lowpoly
>>2597195
Just hopped in to say that Q3 arena texture customizing is what got me into video game art.
Fuck yes op
>>2603192
better?
>>2603195
nice man, Q3 has some wonderful art for it, and so many people still making art for it too.
