Open Request For Handmade Textures

[SneaksieDave]

What the hell, might as well ask.

 

We've generally gone the photo route for textures, and there are still more to be had, so I'm not proclaiming that we've run out. Just thought I'd post this general request and see if anything comes of it. Even if it's a trickle, a good new texture now and then, cool.

 

Not all of our textures are photos (for example blocks_008-14 are hand painted by David Gurrea from RebelAct Studios/Blade of Darkness), so our artists shouldn't feel that they can't submit handmade textures for use. And handmade textures are often (usually?) better, because they are specialized to fit exact needs, instead of having to hunt around for a perfect photo, of which almost none exist. Finally, remember that virtually all of Doom3 was handmade.

 

So, artists, if you've the desire, make some pictures! That's all you have to do, if you don't want to do the rest of the steps. I'll be happy to do my best to take what I can and normalmap, specularmap, and prep them for use in TDM.

 

 

Need suggestions?

 

1. Wood. Planks, beams, reinforced beams!, raw wood and fancy. You name it.

2. Stone. Stuff that's interesting and appealing. We have plenty of stones in the repository, but let's face it, not too many of them are pretty to look at. They're usually plain and dull (some are downright ugly), because the reality they're taken from is often plain and dull (and ugly).

3. Metal. Reinforced machinery parts. Girders. Rusted, new, damaged.

4. Windows. You could go nuts with decorative, fancy, stained glass, plain, broken. Needed!

5. Skyboxes. Backdrops, wispy clouds, starry skies, mountain scenes, city scenes. We need 'em! We currently have two choices with our missions - a horizonless starry night sky, or Mars.

6. Arches. Needed less (thanks to patch texturing), but useful anyway (especially for facades)

7. Trims of all materials - needed! From the fancy to the mundane. Also stair fronts.

8. Doors. Reinforced, iron, gated, scratched, decorative, plain

9. Decorative scrollwork. A few of our woods hint and what could be done with this. Liven it up!

10. Decals. Cracks!, burns, dirt, grafitti, snow, spiderwebs

 

All - add more as you think of them.

[angua]

I'm currently looking through our bonehoard textures and improving some of them. I will upload them to FTP when I'm finished and would be happy if Gildoran can have a look at them then. Will be about 30 textures, mostly stone textures, but also some decorative and a few metal textures.

[Redface]

I can't really imagine that 100% hand made textures could be better than photographed ones, combining them should work nicely though.

 

I might give the skyboxes a shot, planned to do some distant city art anyway.

[sparhawk]

If they fit, it shouldn't matter how they were made.

[Springheel]

And just a reminder...don't even bother with a specular unless the material is metal, ceramic, or wet stone.

 

Many of our older textures are way too shiny.

[Springheel]

I might give the skyboxes a shot, planned to do some distant city art anyway.

 

I'd like to see KFM give a cityscape a shot. Are there special techniques for drawing a skybox or can you make one from a 2d picture?

[Gildoran]

I can't really imagine that 100% hand made textures could be better than photographed ones, combining them should work nicely though.

I can... usually photographed textures are noticeably lit from one direction - almost always from above. Most people don't seem to notice this when looking at the photo (hence why I suggest rotating photos 180 degrees). When it comes time to turn it into a D3 texture, photos with shadows screw with the lighting and make the texture look wrong. D3 is designed so that you can have beautiful 3D-looking textures if you do them right, but most photo-sourced textures are designed for older engines and work against D3 rather than with it.

 

Don't get me wrong, when I "hand-paint" textures, I extensively use photos, but the diffusemaps are more like photo-collages than snapshots with tiling added.

[Gildoran]

I'd like to see KFM give a cityscape a shot. Are there special techniques for drawing a skybox or can you make one from a 2d picture?

I'm not sure I'd recommend drawing a skybox by hand. It's difficult to draw them by hand without shattering the illusion of the skybox not being a cube.

 

There is a program to help you draw skyboxes by hand without perspective problems but I can't remember what it's called.

 

Another possibility would be to create a 3D mockup of the skybox, then paint on top of the mockup.

[Gildoran]

Generic material textures for wood, so I don't have to use my own crappy ones or try and manipulate floorboards into railings.