Project 1 - Texture Process

Research on texturing.

Project Proposal: For this project I will make 3 different textures, My materials will consist of a hand painted brick texture that I will make through Photoshop and also its subsequent texture maps.
The next material will be a metal grill on the side or back of a computer, I might interpret an animation of some form into this one using an emissive colour map.
Lastly I will make a wooden floorboard material, this might need multiple specular map attempts as the shine of the wood might be difficult to achieve.

I will use Photoshop and unreal engine to achieve my finished materials, as those are the only pieces of software at my disposal. Unreal will be the "turning texture maps into materials" part and ultimately the last part of the creation process,
 Action Plan: (Not including Break/ lunch):

10th: Finish research on software, texture methods and types of material. 9am - 4pm (blog)
17th: Material experiments and working out how unreal's nodes work. 9am - 12am 1pm - 4pm (blog)
24th: Attempt a photorealistic material and further improve my rigging method. 9am - 4 pm (blog)
31st: Start working on my first texture & add to the blog 9am - 4pm (blog)
>   9am - 10:30 complete texture maps
> 11am - 16:15 Unreal rigging
> 13:15 - 16:15 High resolution screenshots & blog
7th: Start working on my second texture & add to the blog 9am - 4pm (blog)
>   9am - 11:30 complete texture maps
> 12pm - 14:15 Unreal rigging
> 14:30 - 16:15 High resolution screenshots & blog
(An extra hour for the emissive colour map added later)
14th: Start work  on my third texture & add to the blog 9am - 4pm (blog)
> 9am - 9:45 Finish emissive colour map
> 10am - 11:30 complete texture maps
> 11:45 - 12:15 Unreal rigging
> 13:15 - 16:15 High resolution screenshots & blog
21st: Evaluation and final touch ups 9am - 4pm



Game textures:
These examples are used by the games industry because without textures, the game would consist of plain grey masses with no lighting information what so ever.
when it comes to making textures/materials, you create them mainly on Photoshop then combine them and make them game ready on Unreal Engine.

Colour maps: These are the base pattern of the texture whether its wood, metal, plastic etc. this is the bare necessity of what you need on a material. though the finished result would look very bland if it lacks the other maps. another version of a colour map would be an albedo map. An albedo map is identical to a colour map except it has no light information what so ever, this means all the light information comes from the specular/ gloss maps. it also helps eradicate any false light and makes the texture look realistic, this kind of texture map is used in PBR rendering,

Specular maps: This is the light information of the texture and tells it how to react when light hits it. The way I usually make them is by decreasing the saturation of the colour map then changing the contrast and brightness to the level of what I'm trying to make e.g. shiny metal will have fairly reflective surfaces while brick will have virtually no light information on it. perhaps a glint on the edges. So the brick texture would be a darker specular map in comparison to a metal specular map. In addition to this map, gloss maps can also be used with them. A gloss map is commonly used for metal textures and gives a material extra light information.

Normal maps: These are responsible for giving the texture a three dimensional appearance by tricking the eye into seeing divots and raises in the mesh, The normal maps appearance is purple with blue and green line determining whether the edge should be higher or lower to the base level. when combined with a colour map and a specular map, it can provide you with a good texture. another form of hight maps come from a disspalacement map. these particular maps physically distort the mesh and make the texture actually raise and lower rather than an illusion.


Link to Source

Game materials: These are the fully rendered, game ready materials that can be placed inside a game scene. every aspect of a game uses materials and textures, from the background buildings to assets and the characters in the game. they can ether be hand painted or photorealistic. except not all game materials are identical. For instance, a wooden bench on borderlands is textured way differently to a bench in GTAV.
The difference in materials for both of these benches are quite noticeable, the left (GTAV) has gone for a very realistic approach to making a wood texture. and the metal supports on each side are notably metal and they have that very subtle shine. while the bench on the right (Borderlands) is very stylised and as for the style of the game itself, its very cel shaded as the edges of the shape are bordered in a thick black outline giving it the façade of a living comic book. in addition, these specific materials are quite matte and have very little light information.

Game materials are used to give and object or model an appearance, like these benches for example. they are also used pretty much everywhere in a game but the quality or resolution diminishes the further away the texture is. Thats why if you go outside the map on a game the textures are really grainy and low resolution or even non existent.



Examples of Materials:

Plastic: Plastic comes in different forms, there are transparent plastics like a water bottle, translucent plastics like acrylic and Tupperware. then there are opaque plastics such as milk bottles.
The specular maps can range from matte to glossy meaning the material will have varying degrees of light information depending on what sort of plastic is in question.
Metal: metal textures would be similar to the plastic except metal has its own special light information map that tells the engine this material is metal. and depending on the type of metal whether its worn or pristine, the other maps may differ. Metal textures can be ether be generated via photorealism or had painted textures.
Wood: This will have a stylised pattern on its texture maps, if it is a wooden floor at scrutiny. I would personally add extra specular maps to the material to make the wooden planks look more worn. Wooden textures can be ether be generated via photorealism or had painted textures.


This is a comparison of a dusty road in Farcry 3(Right) and a real world equivalent (Left). its noticeable that the shadow on the path are considerably more dark and bold in-game. and as for the trunks on the trees, they are lighter in the shade than the real life version, now this could be because its not an identical match of time nor location. another notable difference would be the sky, the clouds are very visible in real life while in the game engine they are not very visible and the sky is pretty clear. From what iv'e seen, games tend to go very overboard with there graphics when the game is supposed to be depicting real life. they look too realistic. heres an example.
As you can see, the sunlight is perhaps too bright, the light bouncing off the road makes the tarmac look shiny, and although the lens flare is a nice touch it just doesn't seem correct. the real life equivalent is very muted.

Photorealistic textures are produced from a viable photographic source, while hand painted textures are entirely built up from scratch by the person making/ using them. A finished photorealistic texture tends to look generally better than a hand painted texture depending on what style you are trying to achieve.



(Physical based rendering) PBR Texturing: Essentially this method of texturing is compiling hyper realistic shading/ lighting models, and changing the values of said models so they resemble real world objects. This is pretty much the future of modelling and texturing. instead of having a colour map, it has an albedo map which is like a colour map exept it has no light information what so ever.

Unreal Material editor (Link to site): this piece of software is useful for turning your textures into game ready materials by using the means of a node based graph. The textures that are made can be refined into stunning materials through this piece of software. It is the engine of choice for this project as it is simple to use. This particular piece of software was made by game developers, specifically for game developers to use. Unreal tournament is on the unreal engine. 


Substance Painter (Link to source): Substance painter is a means of painting and rendering in 3D, its also a means to share your work with friends, colleagues and the public.
The software is easy to use and user friendly, Substance is used in the industry for texturing models and is a superior choice over Quixel which is is merely a plugin to Photoshop rather than its own software like substance, One particular company that use this piece of software is naughty dog, the company that made uncharted. Like unreal it works on a node based graph.


Tiled texturing: Tiled texturing is the process of taking an image and manipulating its edges so it can be easily duplicated, like grass for example. but if the texture is a tiled floor or a chessboard for instance. editing might not even be necessary as it should fit into place pretty well.

 Traditional texturing methods: this process involves the use of three or four textures which are colour, diffuse, specular and diffuse. the last isn't a necessity but gives it a nice finish. the diffuse map raises and lowers parts of the mesh, giving the model a 3D effect.


Material Experiments:These are materials compiled of multiple photorealistic and hand painted textures such as, colour, normal and specular maps.
This is the texture experiment for a cracked paint texture. The Scalar parameters allow me to increase or decrease the scale of the texture and its mask. I could also change the colour of the cracked paint.
Hand painted texture:This is my hand painted brick texture, I also created normal and specular maps for it. I like this material because although it is very simple it works and looks well.
Although I am happy with the final outcome, the normal maps didn't quite work well and botched the textures edges, I later realised that the resolution of the texture was very low and that effected its overall quality. The photoshop process is physically painting the texture.

this is my material web, this was the first time I fully rigged up my own material. One difficulty I came across was the normal map not behaving as it should. it was giving my texture an odd stylised look which was not what I wanted to achieve,





Photorealistic Material: 
This material is a brick flooring texture and I really like how this one turned out, by this time I had figured out that my texture resolution was very low and made this one a suitable resolution.
My creation process was to take a picture of the tiled floor, get it onto Photoshop where I could take a section of it and make it a tillable texture. My thought process was to get some brick on each corner so it will pass easily to the next corner and make a whole brick on the seam. As this was my second attempt at a texture, it wasnt perfect but it worked just fine.

This is essentially a map of the material. all of the blue boxes are the textures used to create the material, the green boxes are used to change the variables of the textures for example, scale of the texture, adding one texture to another or multiple textures.
I found this part quite easy after a couple of times rigging up things




This was a timed texture challenge I completed.

My Photorealistic texture of a metal girder animated.

The platform is my hand painted texture of wooden floor-boards.
I made the specular map in such a way that it is primarily matte but certain areas are somewhat shiny like the floor is quite old and seen a lot of use.


This is my Photorealistic material. the original image is a section of the girder on an old apple mac.
I used emissive colour to get that glow under the metal sections. The colour change is also set on a timer so it looks as if its pulsating. I like how this turned out but I feel as though it isn't loyal to the original image.

different texture maps of my brick texture.
The textures are comprised of colour, normal and specular maps.
for the specular map I merely turned my colour map grey scale.

My final brick texture. I like how my Final brick texture turned out, though the colour map wasn't exactly symmetrical but the faulty brick isn't that noticeable. The bricks were originally a lot brighter and the colour leaned more towards orange than red. but I eventually rehashed the colour to make it stand out a little better

Various texture maps of my metal girder. This is also comprised of a colour map, normal map and a specular map. This material was a little bit more difficult than the last because it was a photorealistic material and that process involved stretching the photo out so it would be tillable. I originally substituted the colour map for an albedo map but changed my decision just before starting on unreal. I wasn't too comfortable in the idea of using something new to make one of my final materials.

My final girder texture. I am very happy with the outcome of this material and I think it is my best attempt at a tillable texture. I like the way the specular map turned out on this one and really fleshed it out, made it look like its metal. I was glad I didn't risk it and make an albedo map as I don't know how that would of turned out.

All of the texture maps used to make my wooden floor texture. I personally think this isn't my best attempt at a texture, but I think it could hypothetically be used in a game. I decided on a very primitive looking wood texture but it backfired slightly as the end result wasn't what i hoped it would be.

My finished wood texture. form this angle, the light hitting the specular looks really ugly and clearly cloned but when laid down on a flat surface, it doesn't look that bad.

Overall, I am happy with my three textures other than perhaps the wood texture. that's probably my weakest one. I perhaps could of spent more time on my wood texture as most of my time was consumed by the metal girder material, trying to get the edges of the holes very shiny and mute it through the plain metal areas.

Finished texture compilation scene.


Evaluation:

For this project, I was tasked with making at least 3 materials and plugging them into Unreal engine so they were game ready. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy texture making process turned out to be. My materials consisted of two hand painted textures and a photorealistic texture.

My first hand painted material was a brick wall texture, I used Photoshop primarily to create a tillable apparel to my wall. the texture maps consisted of: colour, normal and specular. so it gave the illusion of lighting and three dimensional divots. Once imported to unreal it was plain sailing from then on, because once you know how to wire up a texture, repeating that process onto another material is a case of drag and drop. I then decided I wanted a second version of this material, I wanted a painted brick texture for the bisecting wall, I just simply created a mask over the top of the pre-existing brick texture and created a purposefully rushed and rugged painted look. I like how my scene corner turned out as a whole.

my second material was a photorealistic material. the original image is a picture of a metal girder on the back of an old apple mac. I tweaked with the perspective and made the arbitrary pattern look like a tiled texture. I then proceeded to make my other texture maps like before. I also made a second variation of this material. as an experiment I made an "emissive colour" map and put it into my material, the the experiment resulted in the dark dots glowing and pulsating in an ethereal shade of blue. I liked the results of my experiment but I ultimately abandoned it because it didn't adhere to the source image.

My final material was a wooden floor, I used the same process as all the other materials: colour, specualar and normal. but for this one I made an additional two maps that will come into play later. I plugged the maps into unreal and I thought the texture was missing something. so I made two additional specular maps so the wood looked worn and somewhat dulled in the middle but the corners retained their pristine lustre. I was fairly happy with this material as when making it in Photoshop its presentation didn't look all that impressive.

I have learned what all of the individual maps are for in a texture and I have also learned how to create them and attach them to a model in a game engine. Overall I am happy with the materials I produced over the past weeks and now I have the skills to create my own texture maps and ultimately set up a game ready material for use in future projects. 

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