Making textures for 3d models

[OnlyOneKenobi]

This is something I've been struggling with a little, mainly I use photo source for making textures for models, obviously manipulating them here and there, as required - but what do you do for textures when you need something really unusual, something like alien skin or metallic walls, etc.

I know some people actually draw textures like that themselves, and I'm not too shabby at drawing things - but drawing textures is not something I can do...

[Leigh]

Well this is what I do for a living and have written books about

I tend to paint all my textures from scratch. Photographs tend to be problematic in that they have their own inherited lighting qualities within that need to be removed, or else their surfaces clash with the digital lighting within your scene when applied to the model.

Of course you can eliminate a lot of the inherited light from photographs (a popular method is converting the image to LAB colour and then editing the Luminance channel to even it all out), but personally I find that takes longer than painting them from scratch.

Although some surfaces are still easiest to begin with photographic sources, especially wood, rust (since it's so non-reflective, it's easy to get pictures of it without lighting artifacts), some types of cloth, etc. Once you have a basic photographic base, you can just build up your own details.

Painting textures is actually really simple. Mostly because it is largely a logical process as opposed to a creative one, in my opinion. You have to understand how each surface property actually works (ie how each one actually responds to digital lighting conditions), and then painting them actually becomes a very simple, albeit time-consuming, task.

[OnlyOneKenobi]

I guess it makes sense to paint your own textures, but the problem lies with inspiration? It just seems so boring to paint a piece of a carpet, or a piece of a wall for example - especially if the textures required are supposed to look normal...

[Leigh]

Yeah those types of textures can be a bit boring, especially when they have to look all clean. But hey, it pays the bills.
Organic and metal textures are my personal favourites Those are always fun to do.

[OnlyOneKenobi]

I'm assuming the right thing to do is to complete the model first before making the texture?

[Leigh]

Yes, absolutely One of the biggest mistakes people make is when they jump the gun and lose focus. Model first, then lighting, then shading, then texturing, then lighting tweaks where necessary. Then render