6 Months of Work (RTS Textures)

[glynnsmith]

Well. If it's crits you want :P

The second car texture looks quite odd in the way you've not included most of the upper framework that holds the roof on. It also looks quite mis-aligned because the front of the door doesn't line up so much with the bottom corners of the windshield. Saying that, it might have been a conscious design decision, but it's not really coming across as that. It's possible to get a near future idea working whilst still using today's designs

There's also a visible improvement in your texturing quality. It's an awesnome thing for you, but having art in a game that isn't in a consistent style isn't. It might be worth going back over your older textures to bring them up to par with the better, newer ones - I'm thinking of the first 4 images you posted. Compare them to the Medibot or the Abrahms and you might see what I mean. Not a negative point at all, but something you might want to think about.

The only other thing I'd love to see is a shot with these guys lined up, so I can see how you're handling scale.

Again - Lovely work. Only minor crits from me, I'm afraid

[DazJW]

I saw the Hind on a C&C news site, looked excellent if you did that.

[smurfbizkit]

@glynnsmith,

Good point about the car, its actually based pretty faithfully on a concept car I found. I never really noticed that yes, the beige supporting section does look disconnected like that...now that you brought it up it does bother me.

Well actually we already have a bit of a discrepancy with the project, in that there are two texture artists working on it. I planned it out so that the other guy (who's only really done a few) stuck to things which are different classes of units so the style difference isn't as noticeable (eg. its harder to notice a difference between the Abrams and the airship style than if it was the Abrams and another armored vehicle).

Also, from past experience...yes I do improve as it goes along, thus I've tried to do the art in chunks. I did the IDF vehicles first (which I didn't show here...those will need to be touched up a bit), then civilian, then the GOI, etc. That way, as with the above...its less noticeable (hopefully).

Although honestly, I still really like those civilian cars and dunno how much of an improvement I could actually make on them now.

@DazJW, your wish is granted

[smurfbizkit]

Time for an update! I can show some of the, now public, textures. As before, I didn't model or concept these...just unwrapping, and just texturing.



This texture really didn't want to look nice. Most of the textures shown are ones that paint themselves, that I can sit down and bang out exactly as I envision them. The Hind didn't do that, infact after about a day of work...I painted over almost all of what I did and started over. I ended up just doing grey edges, and deep black for a few spots....and the normal/spec map carried it through.



For some reason, I have this weird obession with painting things construction-equipment yellow. Its just really fun to do. It didn't hurt to have a great model and concept to work off of either.



[ingame screenshot]

The render, and the ingame shot are slightly different versions...the newer one having the Magino Oil logo on the side. That'll actually be changed as well, since a graphic artist friend has been doing up some great fake-company logo's to use...including a new one for this.

On the texture itself, the red-orange, navy blue and white color was taken from something else that I saw...but I can't remember what it was. As I was texturing it, I couldn't remember what it was I was trying to mimic...and still don't. If you have an idea, please enlighten me since it still bothers me.




[concept art]
[ingame screenshot]

This is one of only a couple units which I concepted, and thus I just stayed faithful to it. It was fun since it was really quick to do, and let me do this grungy metal texture that I havn't been able to do on much else lately.



[concept art]
[ingame screenshot]

I actually really dislike this texture, and honestly if we didn't have so much else that needed done (and little time to do it)...I'd redo it. Luckily, ingame it looks quite well (due to the normal/spec maps doing the heavy lifting). My problem with the texture is the walls...I really did it with little reference, and thus it turned out very fake looking. Same goes for the roof, which in an RTS is the bane of my existance. Its the area of an object that is seen the most....yet also has the least reference photo's.

The concept was altered slightly, so the domes were more Arab looking...although it still is very much a work of fiction. It looks good ingame though, and is a nice reference to the C&C Generals GLA command center.

-----------------------------

Right now the bulk of the art left is buildings, which should be interesting (tents and such for the IDF, then big concrete ones for the UN).

Anyway, please post any areas that you think could use improvement! In all honesty, my ideal reply to read would be one that tore my stuff to shreds (constructively).

[CaptainCock]

shred your stuff ? you must be kidding.... Flawless textures!

I got a questions: What is your texture flow ? do you use a tablet ? are those textures hand painted or do you use photosourced textures also ?


Edit: Those concepts rock, too! especially Command Center

[smurfbizkit]

I usually just use the mouse to draw the elements that'll be run through the photoshop normal map filter (its an RTS so we can do normals the easy way), then I'll bust out the tablet and draw (usually just a hard-round brush, set to wet). I rarely use photo elements in my textures, and when I do its usually modified beyond recognition.

[snotball]

Superb work - nuff said!

[latinmessiah]

These are well painted textures. Great work!

[CaptainCock]

well if you dig up this thread I can ask if we see textures of the t-90 which was posted recently over at moddb.

[Fuzzball]

Don't know why you dont like the texture on the news van, thats one of my favorite ones.