Every skill has its own skill, and many skills are acquired through years of experience. Today, I’d like to share with you some tips on the next generation of game textures for 3D game modeling friends. If you don’t know, it’s a shame.
Make your images repeatable
What does that mean? Most of the answers were: if the image is duplicated without seams between the two images. That sounds right. But repeatable maps also mean that you don’t need any noticeable blemishes in your textures. This was not a big problem in early 3D games, but it is a big problem in new games, so let’s see how to deal with it. 3D game modeling tutorial please add group
Today we will make a texture of 1024X1024. So look for an image that is at least this resolution. You don’t really need to enlarge your image. I found a Concrete wall and started the tutorial based on this image. Welcome to 252896675
Before proceeding, we want to make sure the image is at a 90 degree Angle. There are a number of tools in Photoshop to correct your image if your image is not 100% correct. But a 45-degree Angle isn’t a bad thing. Also, make sure your images start with this as a good base.
Bad images have yellow stains, which will make them repeatable or even seamless. If you know you’re used to making it in Photoshop, keep in mind that this is just a basic tutorial. Going back to our image, I select a square area (hold down the SHIFT key to select) and this is what I will use.
There are lines on the picture in landscape and portrait, those are the ones I want to use. Create a new file, 1024X1024 size, copy and paste your image into the new file, and enlarge it to its size.
What can we do to make the image repeatable? We split the image into four parts and bring them to its opposite Angle (top left to bottom right) but where to split? Some people just use a small border, I usually divide them into the same four square selection in the center of the image. In this case, I was able to use a specific groove, but I can’t show you how powerful the PS rubber stamp tool is anymore. So I advocate in the middle.
This is what I did, rotate and place guides in the middle of your image. Once selected, cut/paste to make sure each part is in a different layer. Now put them in their new locations. The outer edges of our image are now repeatable. The only thing left for us to deal with is the central part of the picture.
As you can see, some parts are very bright and some are very dark. It’s impossible if you don’t do that. What to do with them? First, we add an adjustment layer on all layers. Then press the Adjustment layer button and select the Brightness/Saturation menu to adjust the saturation to -100.
Now, why are we doing this? Because of this, we get a grayscale texture. Why do we get grayscale textures? Well, it’s easier to see the difference in brightness in grayscale textures. So, we want to check if the four parts of the image we split have the same brightness, we just run the brightness/saturation command on the debug layer. This way you can easily activate/deactivate this particular effect without having to modify your original image/texture. Very useful, don’t you think?
Ok, it’s time to start the real work, let’s do something in the black part of our texture. In tools, find the Dodge tool, which will highlight your images and do some really COOL things with this tool. We want to work with the dark areas, so you should set the range to the Shadowed areas, this way you will affect most of the dark areas in the image. Set the exposure to a smaller number (10 to 20) and you have more control with this method.
Now in other areas we use the Burn tool. This tool will darken your images. In this case, you set it to highlight so it doesn’t affect your dark areas.
Make sure there are no dark/light areas outside the outline of your canvas. Because those are already a perfectly matched texture. The picture below is the one I processed in PHOTOSHOP.
In the lower right corner you see the original image and in the middle is my modified image. It has a uniform grayscale, which IS what I need. There are some seams in the middle, I know, and we’re going to deal with that.
First, I merge all the layers. I still keep my original image in case I want to change something. So I went to deactivate the Hue/Saturation debug layer. If you already don’t have this layer, select All (CTRL+A) and copy the Merge layer (CTRL+ Shift+C). Paste your picture again.
Go back to the tool selection area and find the Clone/Rubber Stamp tool. With this tool, you can copy one part of an image and paste it into another part of the image. How does it work? First, select the clone/stamp tool and press ALT to mark the start point with the mouse. Now you can click and move the mouse around your screen to do magical things. Remember to stay away from the edges of your picture. Remember we told you what two conditions you need to draw a repeatable texture? Well, the Rubber stamp tool is a perfect tool to remove eye-catching details on a texture and make that texture repeatable. This is a great tool, but this tool will blur your image. So if you see where you’ve used this tool it’s more blurry than the rest of it. If you don’t like the result, use the rubber stamp tool and paint something else. Once you’re done, you can use Filter> Delay > Delay. Let’s sharpen your image.
This is what I’ve done so far, I still have a bright part in the middle of my texture, so I can use the Burn tool to do that, just to make it clearer.
Now there’s only one thing to do, test our texture and see how it looks. There are several ways to do this. You can do this in Photoshop (just repeat the image three times) or you can call it into the game engine. I did this by making a plane in MAX and applying it as a texture to the plane. Here is my rendering in MAX.
There are still a few repetitions here and there, but I’m very happy with the result. Remember the vertical lines you see on purpose. I can delete it if I want, but I want to keep something to break the texture. In the game I think it looks better.
We now have a repeatable texture with no seams and almost no repeat blemishes.
2. Lighting Settings
When I make this texture for a game, then I don’t exaggerate the effect and the choices MAX has to provide. In MAX it is very easy to make this texture look very good. But that doesn’t mean it’s OK in the game. So, I chose to use two point lights because of this. Although sky lights produce a good diffuse effect they can also ruin your normal map. So there is no sky light in the scene.
As you can see, I use two planes in my rendering. One for the wall, the other for the ground. First, we set a blue point light source (RGB 49 — 163-228) and place it at the junction of the two planes. This will produce a nice blue glow at the edges. We create our normal map.
The second light is very bright and I will use it as our main light source (RGB 246-243-225) you can give it a color if you like but make sure it is very bright. Because it will affect the color of the texture. If you change it you will not see the true color of the texture. The position where we place the second point stream is shown below.
In the two light parameters, we set the AA filter to Catmull- ROM
This is my render Settings. We can now render our texture in our render parameters window, but it is quite laborious if we want to make a small change in the image. This is a big prison if we see this texture in real life. And believe it or not, you can make this adjustment in MAX.
Before we begin we need to make sure that our display drive supports DirectX. Go to Customize->Preferences in the menu, find the Viewport TAB bar, and select The driver as Direct3D. And select DirectX 9.0 from the list. If you need to restart MAX, you can now use directX materials directly in your Windows. Now the only thing is to use it. Go to your materials explorer and find the DirectX management bar. Activate the DX display for the base material. Let the software process it for a while, and we’ll see the “Show Map in Viewport” button. Press it down to change it from blue to pink. The mystery means it will display the DX material in real time if you allow it to be used. Go back and turn it on.
Create your bump and highlight maps
It’s time to make it look good. Before we can start making bump maps or specular maps, we first need to get something from our color maps. It’s still grayscale at this point, and I really like the perfect concrete. Well, I went to the hue/Saturation layer, and in the Colorization options, set hue to 54, Saturation to 38, and brightness to -30. This parameter works for my texture, but it also doesn’t work for yours. This is something you have to plan, experiment and choose on your own.
Did you notice that there is a layer MASK connected to your debug layer. Many people do not know what a layer MASK is. A layer MASK is an extra layer through which transparency is set. If the part in the layer MASK is black, then the corresponding layer will be completely transparent. If the part in the layer MASK is white, then the part in the layer will be completely visible. This is handy at 256 levels of transparency (layer masks are shown in gray). I told you there was some gray in my texture. I still want to keep the original look. So I painted the whole layer gray (RBG 128-128-128) and used the Burn tool and Dodge tool to add or subtract some color from what I thought was the part. Remember to keep the day away from the edge of the canvas.
Here’s what I did.
I notice there’s still a line. I will modify it on my merge layer. Now I’m going to add another debugging layer. This is a brightness/contrast layer. Add some contrast, because regular images often have less contrast. This is used for diffuse reflection.
Let’s start making a specular map. First, how do we make a specular map? Specular mapping is used to change the amount of light a material reflects. With a specular map you can’t make any surface look like a mirror, but you can change the brightness and color when we place a light on it.
Now, the highlight level. That’s the amount of reflected light you’re going to make. White means having a lot of reflection (like bright metal) and black will be completely dark. This is also a highlight color. You will see the color of the material when the surface reflects light. Very theoretical but not hard to understand, so let me show you an example.
Let’s see what the two images are, the first is the highlight level and the second is the highlight color. The results are very clear. The white part of the highlight level reflects color light. And the color is the same as in the specular color map.
Now that we know this, it’s time to go back to our textures. Let’s make a new layer group, and all the layers of the garden are in the new group. You can call it diffuse, but now let’s create a new group called specular. After making sure your highlights are selected, add a hue/saturation adjustment layer. Desaturate to -100 (to make image grayscale) now add brightness/contrast debug layer to give a high contrast value (65 or higher)
The old way to create a specular map. Today the specular map of this color has been promoted. The colors in the highlights will have a more natural, realistic effect. Each ray is reflected in a different amount and color. Otherwise any surface will appear to be covered in plastic. Increasing the hue by 180 degrees is the quickest way to get the most extreme effect, without ending, beating all surfaces. Although it makes metal more sci-fi.
Human flesh will be a dark purple, gold may seem best a bright green. It’s just trial and test. Certain things are high contrast, low saturation and little hue increase or negative hue. All information about the color is separate. A lot of time is saved by quickly adjusting the diffuse image. But in fact, the best highlights are ones that have more customization or even a completely newly drawn texture.
Now go back to MAX, go to your material editor and add the highlight level to the map list. Now there is one more, and that is our bump map, because we will use NVIDIA normal map tool for this image.
We need a height map if we want to use NVIDIA’s DDS plugin. What is an altitude map? They are just one image (grayscale map) black is low and white is high (you can understand the literal meaning of this when you switch height map to normal map) but now we need to do our height map? Close the highlight layer and create a new group called the bump layer. Select all, and copy the merge layer and paste it into the new layer. Now go to the menu Filter>Noise>Despekle which will delete the Noise in your image, and use Filter>Sharpen>Sharpen to Sharpen the edge of your image.
Add a new hue/saturation adjustment layer and set the saturation to -100. Now add a new brightness/contrast layer and set the value, remember I needed a specific groove? Now it’s time to think about it, I’ll use the Burn tool on the edges of the image, so they go down in my bump map. It’s time to check out nVidia’s plugins window.
First set your compression format. There are several options. But I find CxV8U8 works better on the MAX. Especially if you are using normal maps in game engines like Unreal 2.5. After pressing the next texture Settings button we open another window.
First, you click the button to convert to the tangent space normal map. “This tells the plugin to convert your image to the normal map below where you want to set your zoom. There is no fixed value ready that you can use.. Try some numbers, and wait until it works.
That’s it, you can press the 2D button to see a 2D preview of your normal paste. Press Save to save your file.
There are a few things left before we finish this tutorial. Back in MAX, open your material edit window. Look for a bump on the tile bar, make sure you select normal bump first, and select your DDS file, if you don’t do so, it will show up as an error.
This is the result of my rendering.
