Tutorial: Creating a next-gen environment setting - Maya/Photoshop

[DanielVijoi]

Hi guys,

my name is Daniel Vijoi and I have been working in the gaming industry for 7 years. My current job is Lead Texture Artist at AMC Studio, a Romanian game development company based in Bucharest. During this time I have worked on many projects, like Test Drive Unlimited (Atari), Mercenaries 2, Saboteur (Pandemic Studios/EA), Pure (Blackrock Studios/DISNEY), Rise of Nations & Rise of Legends (Big Huge Games/THQ), and other exciting titles yet to be announced.

I decided to write this tutorial as I noticed a certain lack of interest for game-related environmental texturing in the 3D community. This tutorial is targeted at medium level users and will present the process of modeling and texturing a photorealistic building.

Here are some shots from the tutorial:

Render and Concept art




Normal map on




Water tank




Textured truck




Final render





Unfortunately, the tutorial is too big to be posted on forums, but you can download a PDF copy from here:
http://www.amc.ro/shares

I hope it was fun and educational for you as it was fun to make it for me. Another tutorial focusing on the texture creation will be here soon. Until then you can enjoy this one.
Any questions and comments are most welcome.

Thank you!
__________________
www.amc.ro

[Xoliul]

Man, I love you guys from AMC! First Valentin does this fantastic Next-gen vehicle tutorial, and now this! Very, very appreciated to have professionals from the industry do this kind of effort!

[DanielVijoi]

Thanks, it's great to bring back to the community stuff that we learned along with time and experience. All the finest, Daniel.

[swag]

Thanks for posting this making-of tutorial. It has some very useful tips and gives a great insight into a professional game studio.

Cool stuff.

[DanielVijoi]

Thanks, here is a new tutorial of mine, focusing more on the texturing side of making a next-gen asset for games.

3DTotal Tutorials

Here is a final render of the textured asset:




Enjoy it.

All the best.

[SPY]

Thanks for the tutorials - very useful!

[prld]

i tried to fallow the tutorials modeling is doing fine but the texturing specially the unwrappin of the buildings and then add textures in photoshop. cause if i try to get a brick wall or the wall looks low quality while its high res texture or i get to much repeation on the wall. and afcourse the lightning you use.

but the rest of the tutorial is good

greetz

[DanielVijoi]

Hi, I'm not sure what you did at the unwrapping side but if you keep the same aspect ratio on all the UV's shouldn't be a problem. For example on most of the projects we work the pixel ratio per meter is 128...so..on every meter you'll have 128 pixels..wich means for a 4 meter tall wall you'll have a 512 texture alocated...if you unwrap proportionaly you shouldn't have a problem...also the textures must be at the same pixelation, you shouldn't have areas on the textures more blurry..it should be the same sharpen and nicely pixelated textures all over the building you make. About the lighting doesn't have to do anything with the texturing/modeling side...In fact when you work at your textures and check those in Maya or any other softwere you use, you should turn your viewport lighting off to see the real colors from your textures..this way you won't miss any seams....I put the lights only for the render..you should think everithing for production, not for rendering..if you work an asset for a game no one will ask you for a render :d...all the best, and if you have other issues don't be shy..cheers

[DanielVijoi]

Oh..and if you don't wanna have repeting textures to much you should be carefull where you put your details...all the details should be spread all over the texture, not in some areas only..also you should have the same intensity all the way...the simple way to do it for example if you have a dirty wall to do is to imagine it new and clean, and after that start adding details like water stains, dirt, paint chips, or anything else....try to keep it on few simple layers to be easy for managing into Photoshop

[DanielVijoi]

Here is a example of few wall textures..as you can see there are lots of details spread arround the texture...but with all that you won't be seeing much repetition because everything is uniformly aranged..certainly there are many compromises in this process of texturing...mainly because of the budgets