Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Because of this reality and restriction, we aren't going to create really terribly
complex shader networks in Maya. Generally, we will create very simple
materials that may have a color and bump channel (sometimes a transparent
channel), so we can get the feel for the efficacy of our textures; however, we
will likely need to reassemble some of this within Unity.
Tutorials
Creating effective textures is truly an art form and many of the most successful
texture artists I have worked with had a serious painting background. There is
much to effective texture design that is beyond the scope of this volume, but
there are some techniques that are useful to most all 3D artists when creating
interesting texture maps.
In this chapter we will cover two tutorials. The first two will focus on
essentially Photoshop techniques with a smaller section within Maya that
allows for the creation of seamless textures and dirty textures. Creating
textures that really feel grimy and that tile well can give a scene an entirely
new sense of history—as if people and the weather have actually been there
before—and hold up under scrutiny.
In our game, we are largely working with photorealistic or photo-inspired
textures. To accomplish this best, good resource material is critical. Generally,
when working on a commercial game it's a good idea to go and take your
own photographs of the surfaces you wish to use in your game. However,
taking good photos and working out the lens distortion issues is nontrivial
and beyond the scope of this topic.
Luckily, for our purposes, there are quite a few places for surface resource
on the web. My favorite is at
http://www.cgtextures.com
. Loads of great
textures there, most of which have had some work done on them to
compensate for lens distortion issues, and many that have had the issues of
seamless edges worked out for you. However, even with these great textures
as base, you will likely find that some manipulation of the images is required
to make it match your research, or just to make the textures visually yours.
So, as per the official licensing agreements of CG Textures:
One or more textures
on this 3D-model have been created with images from CGTextures.com. These
images may not be redistributed by default. Please visit
www.cgtextures.com
for
more information
. (Note that CGTextures requires a quick registration and has a
bandwidth limit per 24 hours. Still it's a great resource and worth the hassle.)
Tutorial 4.1: Seamless Tiled Textures
So before we get into the “hows” of creating seamless textures, we should
chat a bit about the “whens.” In the UV layouts we did in the previous
chapters, there were times when all the UVs for a shape fit within the top-
right quadrant. In this case none of the UVs were sharing any texture space.
This means that the texture that is applied to that surface is very linear; each
