Custom brushes for texturing? Cheating?

[samgriffiths]

Hello

I've been learning texturing a over the past 2 weeks now and I have a question:

Is using Photoshop custom brushes to create effects 'Cheating', I mean It's alot easier but is this what they would use in an industry situation or would they have to create those rust marks themselves?

Also, how do you feel about overlays of textures - is this also used alot?

[Tiros]

Well, commonly, I'd like to belive that they don't quite care really, aslong as you get the job done

Overlays, well, I use them quite a lot sometimes, and sometimes hardly at all.. depends what kind of style you're after. As for textures made for oblivion are pretty much just photos with painted in details, and sometimes not modified at all.

Cheers!

[Briamond]

My humble opinion on this is that if you can find a way to make your job more efficient and ultimately get a result that is satisfactory then why not. I would recommend using whatever tools are your disposal. Different tools work for different situations.

I would recommend however that you don't be afraid to use your own brushes wherever possible as you have complete control.
Hope that helps

[AlexanderSmith]

Just make sure that your photo texture sources come from places that allow commercial use and editing if you intend to sell your art, otherwise you could have problems. [CG Textures] - The worlds largest free texture site is pretty much the best so far as I have seen.

[benclark]

I dont see how custom brushes could possibly be seen as cheating. apart from the standard soft round brush I only use custom brushes

Thats like saying that writing a maxscript to improve your work is cheating

[Talon]

If it works and you're not stealing from anyone... it's a valid workflow.

[Ghostscape]

As long as the brushes can be used in commercial work an employer isn't going to have a problem with you using them.

I don't think anyone in the industry frowns upon cheats and hacks if they produce results - the only problem is when you do not understand what the hack is doing and so you mis-use the hack or use it improperly - IE people who use photo overlays of scratched surfaces and wind up with scratches in weird spots that wouldn't get scratched, etc.

If you don't know how to paint whatever the detail is that you're borrowing from photos or brushes or whatever then you should probably practice it.

If you're downloading brushes from someone else and can't replicate the effect yourself, you're ultimately kneecapping yourself as an artist. Having said that I snagged a bunch of awesome brushes from a guy at work and have been using a few of them for some really quick weathering that looks nice and adds some variety to the brushes I had built for similar purposes, and I'm a huge proponent of sharing models and stuff between folks at work.

The biggest difference between your portfolio and your professional work is that when working on the portfolio, the quality matters the most - when you're working on professional work, the schedule matters as well, so shortcuts and hacks are more acceptable.

[Jedah]

There is a poster at my college that states "Computers don't draw, Artists draw with computers"

To put it simply if you are relying on someone elses work to accomplish that which you lack the skill to make for yourself, then you are in effect "cheating" and screwing yourself over in the process. A custom brush that you both did not make for yourself and cannot make for yourself - like ghostscape said - is self limiting.

Think about it, things may change at a slow pace...but they do change. If art is what you want for your career then you need to actually be an artist who understands what he/she is doing, because if you don't then what happens when all these tools become obsolete ? 5 years from now things will likely be different, but not by far...but 20 years from now ? I can't say what will be going on then but it definitely will not be the same as what we currently use.

The same goes for image sourcing. If you can, its better to get yourself a 5 megapixel or higher digital camera and learn how to take photo's for texture referencing for yourself. Sure you can easily get a photo off of a free texture website and make some leet specular/normal maps for it in photoshop, but can you say that is really 100% your work ?

TL;DR, if you can't make it for yourself don't use it, and even if you can its still better "self improvement" to make it yourself anyways.

[Cryrid]

TL;DR, if you can't make it for yourself don't use it, and even if you can its still better "self improvement" to make it yourself anyways.

From all the digital painters I know (none are texture artists mind you), the general feeling I got was more or less that it doesn't matter if you make brushes or not, what matters more is that you know how to use them, and that you know your way around the brush properties so that you can get the most out of any brush. It shouldn't matter if you use an original one you created, a downloaded one, or a default one to create something; it's not going to be self-limiting. What matters is that you know how to use any of them to create the end result (which ultimately, matters most).

[doylle]

The way I see it, it doesn't matter how you do something. As long as the end result is good, and what you were aiming for. Why should somebody care if you use self made brushes, or brushes you got from a friend. I personally collected a few brush sets from friends. Brushes I could probably make myself if I wanted to (some i can, some i cannot), but why waste time on that if i can get them (and "use" them)? And don't get me wrong, it's not all "give me give me", i give my own brushes away to whoever is asking. Even a respected artist like Riki who made the next gen texturing DVD at eat3d sais he collected brushes from everywhere...

Same with pictures. Sure you can take them yourselve, but with a site like cgTextures, why would you even bother? I've done quite some urban exploring, trying to get good photo's from old factories and what not, and i'd usually take alot of pics from walls and floors, but in the end i never get the same result as the pics in cgtextures (so far for my photography skills ^^), and I keep going back to that site...

So, in a nutshell, I couldn't care less where someone gets his resources, as long as his all licences are in order and the end result looks good.


@ Jedah: I'm sorry, but that post you made is just plain BS. When you say stuff like this:
"If art is what you want for your career then you need to actually be an artist who understands what he/she is doing, because if you don't then what happens when all these tools become obsolete"
you assume that by using other peoples photo's or brushes, you don't understand what you're doing, or understand less? And if current techniques become obsolete, then does any of this really matter? You'll have to learn the new technique anyway.


@ samgriffiths: From all the textures on my portfolio, there is not a single one that doesn't have one or multiple overlaying photo's. As far as i know, it's the only way to get small details in them that break up the surface.