3D Course – Assignment 2 reflection (textures)

This is my reflection post about assignment 2 in the 3D Course. Like with the previous post about assignment 1, I will be talking about the texture work that I did.

Here’s the final model and textures, the first two sets of screenshots show how the model looked in 3dsMax (viewport view and then rendered) and the second set is how it looked in UDK:

I had a lot of photo references in different angles for this table, which was really useful when it came to both the modelling and texturizing.
(A post with some of the photo references can be found here: https://islandgamelog.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/3d-class-blog-report-assignment-2-part-1/)

However the photo quality wasn’t that great since flash photography wasn’t permitted, and most of the museum’s exhibition halls were pretty dark. The table I chose to model was actually in one of the few rooms that was lit up a bit more than the others, but that also meant that there were more shadows on it.

I wanted to use as much as possible from the photos in the texture (or at least have a solid base to paint over) so the shadows were a bit of a problem, especially when it came to the carved details on the sides.

Luckily enough, the shadows were only dividing the details in half, and since the pattern was symmetrical, I could just copy the lit up part and then mirror it (as shown in the image above). After that I just cleaned it up as much as possible (fixing the details, removing the light), and I was done.

I copy and pasted a lot from the photographs in the start, but I had to use the transform tools in Photoshop and paint over to make them fit the UV map. I also needed to create a unified look for all the different parts, since they all had differences in value and hue in the photographs because of the light. I think the parts I fixed up the least was the top of the table (which was lit up pretty good since the light in the room came from above), and the leg “frame” at the bottom, but most of the time I had to fix the photos a lot before I could use them.

When I was done with the diffuse map I moved on to work on the normal and specular maps for the table.

I’m not going to talk too much about the specular map because I didn’t really focus that much on it this time. The whole table was made of the same material, with the exception of the top of the table, which probably have had some kind of treatment to it way back when it was made, so I figured that most of the model should have the same level of reflectiveness.

As you can see in the reference photo above, the top of the table looks very shiny in the light while the wooden parts don’t seem to reflect the light as much. (Even the parts of the leg frame that is lit up look very matte compared to the top).

I tried to capture that in the specular map, but looking back at the model now I think that I probably should have toned it down a bit (or at least in the other parts of the table), since the whole model looks very glossy from certain angles.

When it comes to the normal map, I focused on making certain details of the model “pop out”, and put a lot of work into the carved details on the table’s sides.

It’s something that’s very evident if you look at the actual normal map. The carved details are very sharp and defined, while the other parts are a bit blurred out:

The rest of the table mostly got a bit of texture, because I didn’t want anything to steal the attention from the carved sides. I did however try add some interesting details, and the one I worked on the most was a scratch that was on the top of the table:

I had noticed that scratch when I looked at the reference pictures, and thought that adding it to the normal map would give the table a bit of character. It makes it feel and look like it has been used, and that’s something that I wanted to achieve with this model. I didn’t want it to look brand new, so I had to show a bit of wear and tear.

Lessons learnt:

As with the other assignments and exercises in this course I’ve learnt a lot while working on this table.

I realized even more the importance of good references, not only for the modelling but for the texturing as well. It saved me a lot of time and worry, and I think that the main problems I had when it come to the creation of this model was related to the UV mapping (how to add separate objects like the legs to the same UV map as the main body of the model) and fixing some of the textures (I didn’t have any good references to use as a base for the legs so I had to paint most of it).

I become a lot better at working with normal maps when working on this assignment, but I really should practise it more. (I noticed now that I accidentally made a bit of a mistake in the normal map, on the carved circle at the corner beneath the scratch in the last screenshot…)

The same goes for specular maps, where I should really try and avoid making things look too glossy (something that I think has happened a lot in these assignments).

I’m very pleased with how this table turned out (there’s some things I could have done a bit better in the normal and specular maps though), and it really was a lot easier to create it than I had thought and expected. I really liked this exercise, and had a lot of fun doing it.

About Rebecka Nyström

2013 Graphics

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