Suggestion and Idea thread

[Tiros]

Now we're talking guys, good comments from both Thanoz and Laughing bun there, like those ideas

Well, I'll see what I can do, right now I'll have to throw up the comp for today before anyone started wondering where it is, as they prolly already are.. sorry about that.

Cheers!

[susia]

I do not mean to bitch or anything like that, but taking this model into zbrush and doing some heavy sculpting on it makes this more of a speed sculpting project not a texturing one. Well... of course it is not technically nothing more than texturing when u bake the normal maps from the highres sculpt, but I would really consider it sculpting instead if you think what the word 'texturing' means literally... anyway great comp otherwise and a nice model to begin with.

Fleistad: Nice work! The diffuse looks really solid. One thing I would ditch are the AO bakes since it can look wonky when the hand is animated. Also I would make the leather more shiny opposed to the skin it looks tad bit too sweaty for my taste. The finger nails look abit too polished almost they have varnish on them if you consider the grungy look of the rest of the arm... Some blue veins under the arms would give the extra detail this piece needs.

[John Barnard]

Sorry Susia but I have to disagree with that first point. I would hardly call spending half an hour in zbrush painting in some wrinkles "heavy scuplting". It's the obvious thing to do in fact, and it would probably take a lot longer to generate normal maps without using it. You're still painting maps, the choice of software is surely irrelevant? I did count the time spent in Zbrush as part of my two hour texturing slot, by the way.

Also, I forgot to detail how I made my entry...
I literally spent 30 minutes very hastily adding in wrinkles around the joints, and a little bit of detail on the nails. I then used xnormal to generate the normal maps. I made a UV snapshot in maya and then painted my texture in Photoshop ( using photographs of my dad's arm as source and ref :P ) I then worked the textures up with several layers of grime, nicks and cuts. This literally pushed me to the last minute of my 120 allowance :P

I love your entry Fleistad! It is what I was hoping mine woud look like. :P Your diffuse map is indeed very solid looking. I like the way there are loads of details but they are very sharp and not muddy like mine.

By the way, how do I attach a large picture like Fleistad did instead of just the "attached thumbnails"?

[Gekko]

[quote=susia;56082]I do not mean to bitch or anything like that, but taking this model into zbrush and doing some heavy sculpting on it makes this more of a speed sculpting project not a texturing one. Well... of course it is not technically nothing more than texturing when u bake the normal maps from the highres sculpt, but I would really consider it sculpting instead if you think what the word 'texturing' means literally... anyway great comp otherwise and a nice model to begin with.

Hi all..
I can see both sides to this point and it leads me to ask what sculpting actually fulls under.
Traditionally it was alway just 'Modelling' & ' Texturing' but 'sculpting' is not technically either.

I was just looking at the entrants in the hands speed modeling comp and the clear winner is the only one that has used zbrush. All credit to him as it was a great job how ever there is now this extra element that 'distracts' (for want of a better word) from the display of skills of texture painting &/or poly modelling.
We have speed modelling comps and speed texturing comps, perhaps we should have a third for speed sculpting???

I would just like to make it clear that I am not being critical at all but just posing the point for discussion.

[Coridium]

Hi all,

Heres my two cents...

I think that the normal map creation has to be included in the overall texture construction time, whether its created in Zbrush, max, maya, crazybump or whatever program you like, the main reason for this is, a normal map can often make or brake a model and if you were to allow unlimited time, then the overall quality could improve massively, but so would the time taken to enter the comp and therefore would kinda change it from a speed texturing to just a texturing competion.

Also, I wouldn't personally like to see the use of normal maps removed, I think that normal maps are a integral part of the games industry now and creating a texture for an object with normal maps and creating a texture for an object without normal maps/specular maps, is very different. A texture that does not use normal maps/spec maps usual includes a lot more information like fake highlights, 'burnt' in shadows/dark areas etc. Assets like this are, i guess, more last generation, not to say that they are not impressive textures, in a lot of cases the textures actually look better, because it contains more information, but the ingame asset would not be as convincing.

Again like Gekko, I'm not criticising anything or anyone, just wanted to add my thoughts on the matter.

Oh, Nice model and texture Fleistad!

[thanoz]

Also, I wouldn't personally like to see the use of normal maps removed, I think that normal maps are a integral part of the games industry now and creating a texture for an object with normal maps and creating a texture for an object without normal maps/specular maps, is very different. A texture that does not use normal maps/spec maps usual includes a lot more information like fake highlights, 'burnt' in shadows/dark areas etc. Assets like this are, i guess, more last generation, not to say that they are not impressive textures, in a lot of cases the textures actually look better, because it contains more information, but the ingame asset would not be as convincing.

Kinda been my thoughts for the last 2 months or so - except that i disagree heavily with the idea that simulated lighting and texturing is last-gen. Next gen non-painted can't make the next mario, can't make the next Naruto game, can't make the next World of Warcraft....

How many of the last entries to all the texturing competitions have had only ONE color used for the entire COLOR/DIFFUSE map???? Peach color + Zbrush does not = hand. I'm all for a normal-map competition if it leaves room for an actual diffuse competition. Right now there's 1.5 modeling competitions and 0.5 texturing as I see it. It's just not motivational even trying to compete in apples vs oranges. Normal maps take a lot of time, Diffuse maps take a lot of time - lets PICK ONE and compete with that one. As it is everyone is opting for the normal maps and just photo sourcing or NOT EVEN CREATING a color/diffuse map. That wouldn't fly in any industry, we can't have a Hot Rod contest where everyone does the bodywork, skips on painting, then has a show with primer can we?

I'll list some color attributes that hands should have, and lets see if anyone has all of the things just in this list of 5 seconds of staring down at the hands on my keyboard...

-Palms pinker than back of hand
-knuckles more reddish than the rest of the fingers
-more pinkish towards the finger tips in general
-veins with a desaturated hue (due to green/blue cancelling out the pink of skin)

Hmmmm, your call guys.

[susia]

Good post thanoz!

I think the specs should be at least should have more restrictions since example with the texture sizes and the amount of maps we use and style.

Using 3* 2048x2046 texture maps will look better than one 512x512 map. Also it is pointless industry wise to try to hand paint skin textures in 120mins, it will never look better than photo sourced ones. Looking at the past competitions I think there is a bit confusion with artists where they will take the work because the restrictions don't state clearly how it would be best to start working with the challenge.

My main problem with zbrushed normal maps is that they fall to the category of 3d sculpting, and on the other hand creating normal maps with nvidia or crazybump is a photosourced normal map and would call it texturing.

[Tiros]

Gee.. What is this, a riot?

Well, we're getting nowehere here really. Some saying sculpting is important and others saying it shouldn't be allowed.



Anyhow.. Why shouldn't sculpting be allowed in STC?

"Because it's not texturing"

So.. what about highpoly modeling in your standard appto generate normalmaps.. that shouldn't be allowed either then?

Of course it should... Sculpting is indeed a form of modeling, but modeling is also a key part of texturing to create normal maps. Sure, you could paint your normals is you'd like.. but if you already know how to, why not learn the other methods aswell? Or the contrary..



And as already mentioned, sculpting is a part of modeling.. so of course we should allow it in the SMC aswell.

But then there's people who say:

"But think about us poor sods who don't know how to use it.."

Duh.. completely missed the point of these competitions then..? It took em only a couple of hours to go through some mini-tuts on ZBrush's UI and tools.. then all I had to do was simply sculpt to improve. The point of these competitions ain't being the best, even though it might be fun... it's about learning.

I think the specs should be at least should have more restrictions since example with the texture sizes and the amount of maps we use and style.

Texture with the size you want, varation might be a good thing, since some people only use a 1024x1024.

Same with the maps, always good trying new maps, and one shouldn't -have- to do a certain amount of them either.

And style.. everyone can't do it with the same style.. that'd be utterly boring imho. Adding your own style to your work is what defines it as art and makes it intresting.

Also it is pointless industry wise to try to hand paint skin textures in 120mins, it will never look better than photo sourced ones.

How exactly would a photo-sourced texture look better in a cartoony game where everything else is hand-painted?


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So, in short: Sculpting should be allowed in both STC and SMC. And I think we'll be better off without rules on certain speccs and methods of creation unless it's something special as a hand-painted competition etc.

Cheers!

[susia]

Heh, well... I think there seems to be a bit misunderstanding here. The competition is very nice and I love texturing since I'm not very good at modeling work and UV mapping is just boring... There is always room for improvement me thinks as in everything in life.

I still think more restrictions would give more depth to the challenge. A game industry scenario where a simple prop piece is taken to the texture artist there is always very strict guidelines what to do with it. There will never be a situation in real work where "make many maps and size you like" will do. A 3*2048x2048 texture is surely overkill in small and simple prop and it will give you an unprofessional look. If you ever want work in game industry you need to know the proper specs for different objects.

A properly specced challenge will give newbie artist like a proper learning process opposed to the confusing "do whatever you like" method. Restrictions are not boring if you know how to play with them. Let's say the restrictions in painting terms would be that you must paint a baroque style portrait of an old man using only oil paint. Now would there be the slightest chance that all the work will look the same?

I hope I didn't heat up this thread too much I don't mean to offend anyone here I'm purely trying to give good critique. I'll stop right here.

Cheers.

[Tiros]

Don't worry Susia, everyone's free to give their own opinions

I'm mainly just saying that this dbate or what to call it ain't really leading nowhere imo. And decided to add my opinion to it

About needing to know the proper speccs for different pieces, that's a good point though. I assume most people already know of them.. so to be able to decide a little yourself on the speccs might be fun as get a bit more freedom as opposed to working in the industry where you have to follow certain speccs, styles etc.

But, I'll keep it in mind and think about it

Cheers!