Texturing Experiments

[morpethcurve]

Hello World!

Having managed to temporarily resurrect my ailing PC, I'm going to take the opportunity to post shots of some wagons I have been working on. They are based on original drawings found on http://www.champwilde.f9.co.uk/gwdrawings/index.html (Yes, I know: what am I, a dedicated LNER man doing building GWR stock?!), but the real improvement is in the textures:




I have discovered several ways to improve the texture details, as well as adding further depth by developing a quick way of creating drop-shadows around raised objects (Rivets, ironwork, etc.). the real experiment though was the usage of high-resolution textures: each of the above wagons uses a 2048*2048 texture for the bodywork and much of the underframe. Overkill? Maybe, but I think the results speak for themselves.

If there is sufficient interest I may release them here as freeware.

-Chris

[dee4141]

The textures do look sharp and well defined.

[charles9malcolm]

I have discovered several ways to improve the texture details, as well as adding further depth by developing a quick way of creating drop-shadows around raised objects (Rivets, ironwork, etc.).

Chris,

These look great! Any chance of a tutorial or post covering what you have discovered?

Cheers

Charles

[morpethcurve]

It's nothing really special; all you need is a half-decent paint program (I use a ten-year-old version of Paint Shop Pro) capable of handling multiple layers. You then create all the iron work as a separate layer, then create a shadow layer behind it. Fill the shadow layer with solid black, the go back to the iron work layer and select all of the image. Create a floating selection of the iron work (so that just the iron work is selected, not the empty spaces) and feather the edges of the selection by a few pixels. Invert the selection, and use this to delete the non-shadowed bits from the shadow layer.

I'd show you this in a proper tutorial, but my big computer has gone bang and I'm not sure this little Netbook will cope with the memory demands. I'll see what I can do - it's a good job I back everything up to an external hard drive!

-Chris.

[ianmacmillan]

I use a different method for drop shadows in PSP.

First make a duplicate layer.
Select the area you want the shadow to land on.
Invert the selection.
Goto Effects/3D Effects and choose Drop Shadow,

You need to play around with the settings until you have the effect you want.
I find it best to do horizontal and vertical shadows seperately but you need to adjust the selections so they don't overlap.

Finally erase the selected area to remove any unwanted shadows and show the underlying texture.
This is because sometimes when you create a shadow in the right a slight shadow appears on the left.







Always worth saving the selections so you can re-use them if you do a repaint.


I make the edges of raised parts slightly lighter on the right side and darker on the left.
You can see the strip to the right of the texture.
Artistic convention has the sun at the top right and behind the artist.
A very interesting programme from the OU explained that the brain is so used to this that it sees the image correctly even when the real sunlight is from a different direction.

[dogmouse]

Very Well Done, Chris. Those look beautiful!!

~Rich

[lumpchase]

If you create the drop shadow on a new layer, then another with all the detailing on, its technically possible to just do a flood fill of the base paint scheme and still have all the detail on the upper layers still applied.

Its a good tutorial though Chris and one that should be useful for reskin artists.

[champy]

Yep im with you there, top stuff

Jon