A callout sheet is a condept design from the concept designer or art director telling you what kind of look should your final character look like. A more detailed call out sheet can also be done by you to get a buy off from them before proceeding to start the texture painting process. This can then be used too project straight on to the 3d geometry as a base map to start painting on before proceeding to clean up the seams and the stretching from the projection.
Texture painting can be boiled down to 2 basic methodology. Creating a texture map from scratch with nothing but different brushes and then photograph manipulation. These of course are not mutually exclusive to each other.
It is more about choosing which method to use to and how much these 2 methods overlap over the creating of an issue that is the challenge. Predominately, the ability to paint is essential. I have seen many painters that are over-reliant to photo manipulation whereas a few simple brush strokes here and there might just do the job.
A color corrected photograph might be a ideal place to start. And the details can be be added on top.
There is a certain feel of liberation that a brush gives you, the confidence that if the painting is screwed up, u can just paint over it. Again, how this is applied needs to be defined on which layers are to be done.
The transition from one part of the body to another is based on what kind of character it is. Amphibian or mammals etc.. Looking at different references are important to understanding the different types of surface materials and making an informed decision on the what is a suitable and aesthetically pleasing surface material for your asset.
hilscreate.blogspot.com
Showing posts with label photoshop painting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photoshop painting. Show all posts
September 27, 2010
September 15, 2010
Texture Painting Notes Level Up Part II
Just to expend a bit more for creature texture painting Color Maps, which also expends from
Color maps - Do a quick and dirty maps and set the render up b4 tweaking. Just to see how the lights are interacting with the maps. Balance out your shaders, define you color space Then Paint. Do not go back and forth, render, re-render, paint, etc... very time consuming.
1.) Have your approved reference. Remove specular highlights either by Replace Color in photoshop or clone tool or just paint over.
2.) Pick out some color values from the images and build a rough color map. Just the very rough version. You can even just slap on the color corrected reference images. It doesn't matter. We just want the color and tonal values.
3.) Run your turntable and your subsurface scattering shader if you have one. Use the color that is around the softest part of the creature for the color.
4.) Color correct your color maps and reference images to compensate for the sub surface color.
You will be extracting stuff from the reference images, so that is why you must also color correct them.
5.) Overlay your converted 8 bit extracted displacement maps over and build your color maps with brushes and stuff. Use the extracted displacement as guides. Extract low and high freq maps and overlay them if needed.
6.) PAINT.
Next up interpreting Call out sheets.
Color maps - Do a quick and dirty maps and set the render up b4 tweaking. Just to see how the lights are interacting with the maps. Balance out your shaders, define you color space Then Paint. Do not go back and forth, render, re-render, paint, etc... very time consuming.
1.) Have your approved reference. Remove specular highlights either by Replace Color in photoshop or clone tool or just paint over.
2.) Pick out some color values from the images and build a rough color map. Just the very rough version. You can even just slap on the color corrected reference images. It doesn't matter. We just want the color and tonal values.
3.) Run your turntable and your subsurface scattering shader if you have one. Use the color that is around the softest part of the creature for the color.
4.) Color correct your color maps and reference images to compensate for the sub surface color.
You will be extracting stuff from the reference images, so that is why you must also color correct them.
5.) Overlay your converted 8 bit extracted displacement maps over and build your color maps with brushes and stuff. Use the extracted displacement as guides. Extract low and high freq maps and overlay them if needed.
6.) PAINT.
Next up interpreting Call out sheets.
September 2, 2010
Texture Painting Notes Level Up.
Some texture painting notes off the top of my head.
1.) Look at natural occuring patterns. See the rhythm and shape of dirt, stains. Leaves. For a painter, you need to see a lot. This is most crucial when painting skin and organics surfaces. A lot of painters face this difficulty because they have not look and study at patterns long enough. See the recurring patterns and commit to memory. When you do that, things will fall into place when u look at shapes and patterns during painting.
http://www.miqel.com/fractals_math_patterns/visual-math-natural-fractals.html
http://web.mac.com/camazine/Camazine/Self-organization_files/Patterns%20in%20Nature.pdf
When designing fantasy floral and fauna surfaces, the key is believability. Not realism.
2.) Low and high frequency levels. Near and Far. Details needs to oread both from near and far.
3.) Spot the Hardness and Softness in transaction. Both in color and in tone. And how to apply them in painting.
4.) Clearly be able to dissect from a reference image, what can be created as specular, color and displacement maps.
5.) Color maps - Do a quick and dirty maps and set the render up b4 tweaking. Just to see how the lights are interacting with the maps. Balance out your shaders, define you color space Then Paint. Do not go back and forth, render, re-render, paint, etc... very time consuming.
6.) Color grading of references. Before u do this, u need to define the color space. Is it gamma 2.2 or 1.8 or whatever. Then again u can color correct and use curves to a photo to match the lighting in the turntable or shot so this is really a moot point. Just make sure that it stays between around 15%-85% brightness.
7.) Letting Go. Dun go into a detail on a particular area and focus on it. Remember you got to do the same for the rest of the model. UNless that area is in the money shots. Get a overall look 1st. U might get away with more then you know. Different people look at Different shapes, different details. That area that u been busting ur balls over, people might not even care or notice.
8.) Layers, Keep it low, keep it simple. Easy to fix. Too many overlays/softlight confuses you. Once you like a look, flatten it. UNLESS its a decal or something that needs to fix. Dun be too depend on it. You are a texture painter. Paint.
9.) Brushes and Channels are your friend. Learn them well and you will prosper.
10.) Color Picker. USE IT.
11.) Reference. Do not just use a few. For color, preferably ones that are well lit with little or no specular. For specular reference the object in different lighting conditions and with flash/no lfash helps.
12.) Reference. There is such a thing as too much reference. Pick the good ones and stick with it.
13.) See how the light hits the object. How it breaks up the surface. And also if there is any white balance used in the photo.
14.) Specular maps are ur most important weapons.
15.) Paint the full range of values for scalar maps. i.e displacement, bump and specular. no use painting only 60%-40% gray for bump. Use the full amount and then u can adjust in shader. If the shader permits, use low and high freq maps separately for greater control. Else, have them in photoshop layers and combine them as 1 map like the old days. Of a more civilized time.
Thats it for now.
1.) Look at natural occuring patterns. See the rhythm and shape of dirt, stains. Leaves. For a painter, you need to see a lot. This is most crucial when painting skin and organics surfaces. A lot of painters face this difficulty because they have not look and study at patterns long enough. See the recurring patterns and commit to memory. When you do that, things will fall into place when u look at shapes and patterns during painting.
http://www.miqel.com/fractals_math_patterns/visual-math-natural-fractals.html
http://web.mac.com/camazine/Camazine/Self-organization_files/Patterns%20in%20Nature.pdf
When designing fantasy floral and fauna surfaces, the key is believability. Not realism.
2.) Low and high frequency levels. Near and Far. Details needs to oread both from near and far.
3.) Spot the Hardness and Softness in transaction. Both in color and in tone. And how to apply them in painting.
4.) Clearly be able to dissect from a reference image, what can be created as specular, color and displacement maps.
5.) Color maps - Do a quick and dirty maps and set the render up b4 tweaking. Just to see how the lights are interacting with the maps. Balance out your shaders, define you color space Then Paint. Do not go back and forth, render, re-render, paint, etc... very time consuming.
6.) Color grading of references. Before u do this, u need to define the color space. Is it gamma 2.2 or 1.8 or whatever. Then again u can color correct and use curves to a photo to match the lighting in the turntable or shot so this is really a moot point. Just make sure that it stays between around 15%-85% brightness.
7.) Letting Go. Dun go into a detail on a particular area and focus on it. Remember you got to do the same for the rest of the model. UNless that area is in the money shots. Get a overall look 1st. U might get away with more then you know. Different people look at Different shapes, different details. That area that u been busting ur balls over, people might not even care or notice.
8.) Layers, Keep it low, keep it simple. Easy to fix. Too many overlays/softlight confuses you. Once you like a look, flatten it. UNLESS its a decal or something that needs to fix. Dun be too depend on it. You are a texture painter. Paint.
9.) Brushes and Channels are your friend. Learn them well and you will prosper.
10.) Color Picker. USE IT.
11.) Reference. Do not just use a few. For color, preferably ones that are well lit with little or no specular. For specular reference the object in different lighting conditions and with flash/no lfash helps.
12.) Reference. There is such a thing as too much reference. Pick the good ones and stick with it.
13.) See how the light hits the object. How it breaks up the surface. And also if there is any white balance used in the photo.
14.) Specular maps are ur most important weapons.
15.) Paint the full range of values for scalar maps. i.e displacement, bump and specular. no use painting only 60%-40% gray for bump. Use the full amount and then u can adjust in shader. If the shader permits, use low and high freq maps separately for greater control. Else, have them in photoshop layers and combine them as 1 map like the old days. Of a more civilized time.
Thats it for now.
October 18, 2007
Photoshop sunset Painting tips
This is the final image.
This is a newer wip...
Below is a simple compilation of steps basically for reminding myself (getting old) the steps I did. I always just fudge along until sometime works and den totally forget it the next day. And its getting tedious. Anyone seeing this, if u got some tips, pls comment.
- Breakdown into background, midGround and foreground.
- Use different flat colors and layers to differenciate them for a start.
- Using different colors and gradient tool, adjust saturation and opacity to give the image some subtle color changes.
- Use Soft brush with Shape Dynamics. Use broad Strokes to lighten section of sky. Again just to introduce some difference in density in the sky.
- Add far clouds on new layer.
- USe custom brush that is soft and cloud-like..... Pay attention to where the light source is. Also paint contrastingly to light the clouds from background. E.g light on dark, orange on blue. Use Low opacity(like 20% and below) on brush and build up gradually.
-Remember to maintain the illusion of volume of the clouds.
- Use color dodge to get the strong rays of light hitting the clouds
- If you fail to paint manually or is a lazy git, photo manipulation with cut and paste saves you a lot of time. But the rules above the apply in terms of colors and how light works
- Reference, reference and more reference.
- IMPORTANT! Be careful of the range of colors used. As intense as a sunset is, the colors are fairly consistent. Eg. The strong highlights should all be the same hue. But as the sunlight travels further into more atmostphere. The color gets redder and less intense.
Below is an earlier attempt that was quite simply fugly. For your amusement on how not to paint a sunset.
This is a newer wip...
Below is a simple compilation of steps basically for reminding myself (getting old) the steps I did. I always just fudge along until sometime works and den totally forget it the next day. And its getting tedious. Anyone seeing this, if u got some tips, pls comment.
- Breakdown into background, midGround and foreground.
- Use different flat colors and layers to differenciate them for a start.
- Using different colors and gradient tool, adjust saturation and opacity to give the image some subtle color changes.
- Use Soft brush with Shape Dynamics. Use broad Strokes to lighten section of sky. Again just to introduce some difference in density in the sky.
- Add far clouds on new layer.
- USe custom brush that is soft and cloud-like..... Pay attention to where the light source is. Also paint contrastingly to light the clouds from background. E.g light on dark, orange on blue. Use Low opacity(like 20% and below) on brush and build up gradually.
-Remember to maintain the illusion of volume of the clouds.
- Use color dodge to get the strong rays of light hitting the clouds
- If you fail to paint manually or is a lazy git, photo manipulation with cut and paste saves you a lot of time. But the rules above the apply in terms of colors and how light works
- Reference, reference and more reference.
- IMPORTANT! Be careful of the range of colors used. As intense as a sunset is, the colors are fairly consistent. Eg. The strong highlights should all be the same hue. But as the sunlight travels further into more atmostphere. The color gets redder and less intense.
Below is an earlier attempt that was quite simply fugly. For your amusement on how not to paint a sunset.
Painting Clouds Tutorial.
http://www.geocities.com/~jlhagan/lessons/arialpersp4.htm
Great tutorial about how to paint the shapes of clouds.
http://painting.about.com/cs/paintingknowhow/ht/Howto_Clouds.htm
this one is about the different types of clouds
http://www.steeldolphin-forums.com/htmltuts/cloud_tut.html
http://www.androidblues.com/cloudtut.html
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=260976
and these are just different techniques
Great tutorial about how to paint the shapes of clouds.
http://painting.about.com/cs/paintingknowhow/ht/Howto_Clouds.htm
this one is about the different types of clouds
http://www.steeldolphin-forums.com/htmltuts/cloud_tut.html
http://www.androidblues.com/cloudtut.html
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=260976
and these are just different techniques
Sunset painting theory science.
1st some simple science lessons that I really should have research before I started out.
- The atmosphere of Earth is made up of particles that filters white light.
- When the sun is overhead, the sky appears blue because the light is filtered, allowing the short wavelengths in the color specturm to be visible.
- When the sun is setting or raising, the light have to travel a further distance. Therefore it is the thickest amount of atmosphere the light have to pass through than at any other time during the day.
- This causes the short wavelengths to become scattered and deflected as the rays pass across the curved surface of earth.
- The sky is then slowly illuminated with longer light waves; yellow, orange and red. Sunrise are usually less intense because the air particles settle during the night.
- Under certain conditions, like after heavy rain, the sunsets can be bluer whereas in polluted cities or low lying cloud, they often become redder. It all depends on the density of air particles and distance the light have to travel.
- The thicker the atmosphere the deeper the red. Thinner atmostphere will produce orange, then even thinner, golds and finally yellows.
- The red light sometimes strikes the underside of the clouds directly overhead and turns them red, yellow and orange depending on the wave lengths of light that have managed to penetrate the earth's atmosphere.
-Before the sun completely sets, the light travels up the atmosphere, there is less particles there. Which is why, you can still see some blues.
- The atmosphere of Earth is made up of particles that filters white light.
- When the sun is overhead, the sky appears blue because the light is filtered, allowing the short wavelengths in the color specturm to be visible.
- When the sun is setting or raising, the light have to travel a further distance. Therefore it is the thickest amount of atmosphere the light have to pass through than at any other time during the day.
- This causes the short wavelengths to become scattered and deflected as the rays pass across the curved surface of earth.
- The sky is then slowly illuminated with longer light waves; yellow, orange and red. Sunrise are usually less intense because the air particles settle during the night.
- Under certain conditions, like after heavy rain, the sunsets can be bluer whereas in polluted cities or low lying cloud, they often become redder. It all depends on the density of air particles and distance the light have to travel.
- The thicker the atmosphere the deeper the red. Thinner atmostphere will produce orange, then even thinner, golds and finally yellows.
- The red light sometimes strikes the underside of the clouds directly overhead and turns them red, yellow and orange depending on the wave lengths of light that have managed to penetrate the earth's atmosphere.
-Before the sun completely sets, the light travels up the atmosphere, there is less particles there. Which is why, you can still see some blues.
Above is just simple color gradient demostrating the different type of atmostphere.
U can read more about the theory below.
September 25, 2007
The finished painting
So after farting around for many hours.... this is wat I got....
I had great difficulties with painting the feel of volume of the clouds. So I cheated with images of real clouds layered on top. Hiaz....will keep experimenting.
Things I realised (painfully)
- Take note the direction of the light
- There is keylight and also Fill/bounce light!
- Organise and Paint in Layers. e.g background clouds, midground, foreground.
- Colors of the clouds have to be consistent. I had too much contrast and color variation.
- Paint Loose.... I was too tight in my strokes..
- Know what you want! I could not decide the feel of the painting. I could not decide whether to paint realistic or painterly and the detail as well was a problem...
7.) Its all about lighting and shadows....
Until next time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)