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3 years ago

I've been tinkering around with some game modding lately, specifically Oblivion, and I'm having a bit of trouble getting the textures right. I've textured this simple little structure as I normally would in max with various high res textures and all that stuff and then gone to render it out as one texture which is where the problem starts. To get even a half decent looking texture I have to render it out at 2048*2048 which I'm pretty sure is too high for this particular model. And even then it doesn't look all that flash. I've added a couple of images below showing the problem. The first is the object with the original textures on it. The second is with the 2048*2048 bitmap applied. I'm sure you'll agree that it doesn't look that good. Can anyone point me in the right direction as to what I might do to overcome this problem?

[Link to www.3dprevis.com]
2nd Place: Absurd Plants Challenge

-byder
Member

3 years ago

Woah! I can see your problem, but that's just weird... whats the UV map look like on the baked version?! Did you lay it out or did Max do an Automatic Unwrap?!
You should definitely be getting better definition on the textures than that at a 2k map!

EDIT: I normally never let max bake diffuse textures for me. I lay out the UVs myself and then work at double res in PS to texture the entire model. (Using Occlusions from Max, if needed, or I didn't model an even higher res model)

~C

a 3d artist's journal
[Link to blog.cunnington.co.za]

+Steve Martin
Moderator

3 years ago

I let Max do an automatic unwrap.

I don't quite understand that second bit. Are you saying that you unwrap the model and render out a uvw template and do it from scratch in photoshop? Sounds complicated. I gotta admit I haven't had much experience with unwrapping models. I've always found it a bit scary. Probably something I need to work on.

[Link to www.3dprevis.com]
2nd Place: Absurd Plants Challenge

-Tyson
Senior Member

3 years ago

Yeah I have been doing some of this today trying to learn unrealed 3. I found that the textures looked alot more acceptable in the engine but you could improve the resolution by manually unwrapping the pieces making sure the most obvious panels get the biggest texture area and then create the texture in photoshop.

-byder
Member

3 years ago

UV Unwrapping is critical in GameDev, you wanna get as much information (from all of the model --> to using as much pixel space as possible) out of your Texture Images as possible.

The automatic unwrap never does a good enough job, and you will always create better textures within PS!

My Method:-
- Unwrap
- Render out Ambient Occlusion Pass
- Render out a UV Template (using texporter)
- Create texture in Photoshop (with Ambient Occlusion pass set to Multiply)

Hope this helps

a 3d artist's journal
[Link to blog.cunnington.co.za]

+Steve Martin
Moderator

3 years ago

Thanks. What's the AO pass for?

[Link to www.3dprevis.com]
2nd Place: Absurd Plants Challenge

-Tyson
Senior Member

3 years ago

True, the auto flatten will often give a large chunk of space to the polys you don't even see. I would go into your unrwrap uvw edit window and select each major face of the wood on one side and hit the quick planar button, move that out of the way in the edit window and do each side the same way then move them all back to occupy the same space (each paling can be moved around for variety) so you get different palings side by side but reuse the texture space for each side of your structure. then select all the other faces and do a quick box map from the mapping drop down under normal mapping. you should be able to make the major panels use the whole top half and the rest can be squeezed into the lower part. then its easy enough to copy and paste different wood panels from a high res image of a fence or something in photoshop,

-byder
Member

3 years ago

The AO Map is used to simply add some lighting to the texture. It normally just adds some life to the texture!

a 3d artist's journal
[Link to blog.cunnington.co.za]

+isaac
Moderator

3 years ago

!!
Lots of detail using a low res texture.
[Link to stefan-morrell.com]

Any mesh with the same wood pattern, place in the SAME SPOT in the uv editor.

+Steve Martin
Moderator

3 years ago

That looks awesome. I've been checking a lot of the oblivion models in max and they look freaking insane. It's amazing what a good texture artist can do with a few 256 textures. I'll post an update soon.

[Link to www.3dprevis.com]
2nd Place: Absurd Plants Challenge

+isaac
Moderator

3 years ago

Cool!

+Steve Martin
Moderator

3 years ago

It's looking much better now, and this is only using a 512 map. I took Isaac's advice and placed a lot of the planks in the same spot on in the uv editor ( I also used a different texture). However, the problem I've found with that is it's very hard to bake in lighting information and AO/dirt or anything like that because the uvs are placed on top of each other. Is there a way around this or should I just try and clean up the uvs?

[Link to www.3dprevis.com]
2nd Place: Absurd Plants Challenge

+isaac
Moderator

3 years ago

hmm... you're not going to like this answer but i would paint in shadows the same way i'd paint in dirt detail. As a gradient leading from the edges of the wood...

+Steve Martin
Moderator

3 years ago

Doesn't bother me that much. I may have to redo the uvs a bit as I offset them so that it wouldn't look too repeated. This may make the shadows look a bit odd. I see what happens though.

[Link to www.3dprevis.com]
2nd Place: Absurd Plants Challenge

+Steve Martin
Moderator

3 years ago

Quick question: Will a normal map applied to a plane with 1 face look the same as a normal map applied to a plane with 100 faces? In other wrods, does topology have any influence on normal maps?

[Link to www.3dprevis.com]
2nd Place: Absurd Plants Challenge

+isaac
Moderator

3 years ago

No.

+Steve Martin
Moderator

3 years ago

No it won't look the same or no it doesn't have any influence?

[Link to www.3dprevis.com]
2nd Place: Absurd Plants Challenge

-Tyson
Senior Member

3 years ago

Not in the case of a plane but it does in the sense that the closer the mesh is to the high res the better the effect will look.

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