Texture Work (TS_SushiBar)

I have been lurking these forums for awhile now. Reno and CJ and Cracker Jack know me quite well. Just finished a rather exhaustive project and was approached by someone to do a map for TS. This is the first texture in a series of textures for a map I like to call TS_SushiBar. This first one is for the kitchen area. I will post the progression textures as well so people can see the stages of production. I am drawing this all by hand as well.

Enjoy!

FoX1

I like the "katana" label on the fridge :biggrin:

ive worked in lots of environments with these kinda fridges (i think thats what yours are!), and if you wanted to add extra detail, I have a few ideas..

rubber seals, more shine, bumped effect along the bottom (like you see on floors... cant describe it), bits of scum on the corner of the venting/scum dripping down (yes, you get this in our national supermarkets etc ^_^)..

lights (red/green)? having said that, they look excellent to me all the same but im not the resident texture buff...

Sweet textures, perhaps a bit more colour variation?

Nice work. The handles seem a little off though, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I've never seen those type before though.

Thanks for the great comments guys. I will try and answer everyone in this reply.

Vash- Yah wait until the name for the Freezer is made. :biggrin:

Gwil- Thanks for that I was wondering how to spice it up a bit. I need to get some better refs.

Matt- Not sure what you mean by color variations. The 3 textures that were posted are the same texture. I just wanted to show everyone the different stages of production.

Alien Sniper- The handles are from this small ref pic I found when I started the texture. They look a bit odd in the ref as well.



FoX1

Awsome, I particularly like the grill at the top of the fridges, really good detail.

This art forum is working out really well :smile:

Drawing by hand will suit you just fine for refridgerators, but past that, most people who attest the virtues of hand-drawing your textures will give up and use photos for material.

Then again, I see you're using a Mikezilla technique - using photos for whatever's particularly tricky to hand draw, i.e. your grate at the top.

As for the finished product, it looks nice to me, for its purpose - look at the reference pic, the handles are not simple indents, they slant towards the center. The bottom metal is probably your best opportunity in this texture for some more 'gritty' traditional texturing style, but alas, all I see is Render Clouds.

Keep at it.

Cassius- The idea of snapping photos to make textures sends shivers up my spine. This type of "art" has no place in my style of work. I have been a natural media painter for 17 years oil,acrylic,watercolor and India Ink as well. Transition to Digital Art started with me in Doom Days. In the years that I have considered my work art I have never given up look at Bushido for a good HL reference. I joined Bushido with very little idea of what was needed for Japanese Texture Design. It took a year of my free time to study architecture and design to make over 400 hand drawn textures for that mod. Photos might be an easy way out for some but not for me. My current Freelance work has me at tight deadlines due to my style of hand drawing everything I get assigned for projects. I don't shortcut cause I spent good money on the tools I use. I have a USB 9 X 12 Wacom and a 6 X 8 Wacom as well. I guess the reason for this rant is that when people look at textures they automatically have it in there head "oh it's a photo". It takes an artist to make them think that.

personally,either way, i think they are very well done....gj..now, all that bs aside, this is an art forum, so how about giving us a taste of your techniques....what are they, overlays by the ton, etc...resolutions, what are your methods...you say youve spent good money on your "tools"...care to elaborate a bit?..... :wink: ...you obviously have a good talent either way, so dish please...

Doc Brass... :dodgy:

Thanks Doc!

Well the money I was reffering to is the software. I am a Freelance Artist and I spent a lot of money on PS 7,Painter 8 and Expression 3. That right there is close to a grand without a student discount. I don't particularly use overlays at all. Overlay really makes the change to your work permanent in my eyes. If you look at the first texture. I usually use a brush and rough in mostly with dodge and burn in grayscale. I then choose 3 to 5 shades of color that I want to use sort of like a build up in oil paint. Base,Tint,Highlights,Shadows,Detail. I then use a round brush with a very low Opacity level or in this case a square brush to start and bring out color in the texture. Using various blending modes from the brush menu. Multiply is usually what I use for depth it builds on the texture. Also if you want to make a nice smooth metal here is something I use. Choose your dark and light colors and paint your canvas with the dark color ans mottled the two together. Next take your brush and set it to Luminosity for the Mode. Grab the color you want to make the metal and paint over it with a large brush around 100 size. The Mode your using brings the colors together and leaves it blended and your on your way to a nice blended metal. Also I never use Filter/Sharpen I use my tablet and the sharpen brush in conjunction with blur and smudge to bring out the right sharpness in textures. The sharpness brush however has to be set at a very low pixel strength I set mine between 4 pixels to 8 pixels strength. If it's an higher than that it will white out the texture and show major artifacts.

I think the doors on the last one could do with looking a little more like the earlier ones. As it progresses you can see the door become more flat; personally I think the second stage was better in this respect. Gwil has good ideas for making it more realistic but at the same time it makes a nice "shopping cart new" texture as it is.

Cassius,

Wanted to appolgize for the snap I made to the post. Lot of stress last week with Bushido going live with Samurai Wars and hardly any sleep during that time beforehand. Should have some updates soon the sushi bar set, I am working on a oven and a few other items in my spare time which is nil due to the Mod Release. If your not sure what I am talking about go check Bushido for all the new details.

FoX1

Texture artists will probably stab me violently for saying this, but photo textures are better than anything you guys ever create! Max Payne 2 is the best looking game out atm in my opinion, and its mostly photo textures...

Stab...

That was a pretty pathetic stab. Make it violent and bloody like he predicted.

Textures don't have to be photo-realistic to be great-looking.

Plus, I agree with Alien_Sniper. Put some heart and intensity into that stab. :smile:

sweet

texture

good

job

man

Have you ever seen Slicky's textures? He has very little technical skill, at least up against the bigger names in texturing. His textures are almost entirely spliced, sharpened, and shadowed photos. However, he reaches a level of realism that not many other people can match.

Clearly, resizing a photo does not make a realistic texture, as it sticks out like a sore thumb and will generally look terrible. On the other hand, there is no texture artist who consistently creates textures of a decent variety of subjects and types that can start his textures with a blank document in Photoshop.

So I think that for a refridgerator, you're free to use photoshop only, because you clearly have the skills to make a good looking fridge by hand alone. However, why waste your time using the same technique to create a grass texture when you could use photos as a base?

I think it breaks down like this, and I use this as my own style: feel free to use photos so long as you are in control of the texture's specifics, not the photo. Mix photos with overlay styles. Photos should be for material, not real details upon the texture.

Beyond that, remember that the object of your texture art is not to follow a strict moral code for their creation, but number one, to look good, and number two, to look real.

Umm that would be me Cassius. I create that style of art all day. Do you have ICQ or MSN or some other messenger? I will show you what i create from a blank canvas everyday. Ask CJ I bore the hell out of him with these little "take a look at this" messages.

FoX1

My ICQ and My MSN are in my profile if you want to contact me. That really goes for anyone that needs help or general questions.