Repaint Question -- How Do You Make a "Dirty" or "Scorched" Ship?

[orwellkid]

Hello all,

I just finished a couple of repaints (one for the XR1, the other for the Vanguard [XR5]), and I notice a distinct lack of "realistic" quality between what I've done and what I see others do.

So I was curious how this is accomplished.

I am using Corel PhotoPaint 12 (I prefer the UI over Photoshop CS2, but I have that aswell... which is how I convert from PSD to DDS).

What I mean by this, is that my repaint appears rather flat... it doesn't have that nice "used" look to it... I'm not really sure how better to put this. I see, in the XR1 Repaint Kit there is a layer for "scorched", which is awesome... but I'd like to dirty it up a bit more, hehehe.

_O.K._

[Edited for spelling, grammar, and clarity... first time around I lost my train of thought mid-sentance.]

 

[Coolhand]

what you're really talking about is called 'weathering' and it's an old technique for adding wear and tear and dirt and soot and scratches and all the little colour changes that make a material look more realistic. if you want streaks then i find it's good to use a low opacity brush and build up the streaks with multiple strokes, if you can use a wacom and ease off at the end of the stroke so it gets thinner/less opaque then so much the better. In fact i'd recommend a Wacom to anyone who's interested in digital painting, whether thats artwork or texture painting. Otherwise you should be able to set some kind of falloff in your paint package so the stroke becomes fainter or thinner over distance.

Wear is another thing that you can do, paint chipping off on the corners of panels can be achieved by putting a colour (paint) layer over a base metal layer (images of metal surfaces are useful here) and then chipping away at the paint with a rough looking brush, scratches can also be applied this way, though the right sort of photo of scratches (you may want to experiment with this and all other techniques) can be used to mix in real scratches, which can be quite effective. look at using different layer blending modes, so your paint colour layer might be blended with 'colour' or 'overlay' and all give slightly, or vastly, different results. Streaks work well with multiply and wear works well with screen. Another wear technique is to fade panels in one way or another, sometimes a panel or surface might have wear in the middle, around the edges, or whatever, always observe real surfaces and try to emulate them in your textures.

Another thing to consider is lighting, you may want to paint in shadows and higlights, for example where a wing meets a fuslage there will be a certain amount of occlusion that makes the join and the area around it appear darker, so you can paint these in slightly darker, again you can use another layer for "shadow" or darker shading and use multiply to blend the layer.

keep all these in their own layer, so you have a layer for streaks, a layer for wear, etc. and you can perform a final mix of the layers to get the most pleasing effects.

Always try and use as much photodata as possible, this will add a lot of natural noise and variation to your texture, you can find resources on the internet or take your own but remember to keep it subtle as a general rule of thumb, unless your adding specific details. For example if you're texturing a wheel well, why not go and find a picture of a real wheel well (aircraft 'walkaround' sites are great to find these types of things, or think laterally and find something else that will give it a unique look) and use the picture to make your texture. images can be chopped, cloned and distorted in all sorts of useful ways. Everyone has a slightly different way of doing these things, experiment and have fun with it. As a finishing touch try adding layers of brightness and contrast adjustments (adjustment layers in photoshop) and colour balance, level adjustments etc in combination with layer adjustments to get your final balanced mix of the textures.

 

[orwellkid]

You are a champ.



_O.K._

 

[ar81]

Look at this site http://www.janeng.com/portfolio2/textures_01.html#
Making textures is essentially entering in the realm of arts.
Just like any art, you can learn and that's why schools exist.
There is no such thing as talented and non talented people.
Art is just a matter of practice and persistence.

 

[n0mad23]

I find that using digital photograph textures is a good foundation. However, after touching them up as per Coolhand's advice puts them in the zone you'll want to occupy.

However, be prepared to do a lot of experimentation before becoming satisfied. And remember, it doesn't have to look good under a microscope to look really good as the skin of a mesh!

 

[ar81]

You would be amazed that even if I have worked commercially making arts, I still feel not satisfied with most of my drawings.

This was a commercial work I made for UNFPA event some years ago.
I had to make several sketches, several drawings until I came to have this.
Many people think that you make a piece of artwork and it is finished, you sell it and that all. True is that art is a process, and commercial arts also have taste of customer involved.

 

[Coolhand]

for that site, thats a talented artist for sure, but too stylised for a realistic spacecraft and the 'mechanical' textures are, aside from being too cartoony and stylised are a bit too soft and fuzzy really, there could be a lot more detail in them. Not a great example imo.

If you want good examples then check out some of the stuff that gets put into say, the unreal tournament games for really detailed, grungy and realistic looking textures.

 

[Coolhand]

You would be amazed that even if I have worked commercially making arts, I still feel not satisfied with most of my drawings.

This was a commercial work I made for UNFPA event some years ago.
I had to make several sketches, several drawings until I came to have this.
Many people think that you make a piece of artwork and it is finished, you sell it and that all. True is that art is a process, and commercial arts also have taste of customer involved.

What does this have to do with creating realistic textures?

 

[Coolhand]

I find that using digital photograph textures is a good foundation. However, after touching them up as per Coolhand's advice puts them in the zone you'll want to occupy.

However, be prepared to do a lot of experimentation before becoming satisfied. And remember, it doesn't have to look good under a microscope to look really good as the skin of a mesh!

I'm not sure what you mean exactly by that last bit, a model is only as good as it's texture, well a finished model anyway... generally you want to paint in as small a detail as you can, this makes the most of the texture resolution. some people paint 2x size and scale down, some (and i think this is generally preferred) paint 1:1, so if you've got a fine line then it's one pixel thick and so on. and try and keep the textures as sharp as you can, fuzzy, blurry textures are not nearly so effective.

 

[Linguofreak]

What does this have to do with creating realistic textures?

The picture doesn't have much to do with it, since it's not a texture for Orbiter. But the story about the picture has to do with what goes on in any such process, I think.

 

[Coolhand]

And what a lovely story it is, anyway, moving on...

 

[castorp]

There is no such thing as talented and non talented people.
Art is just a matter of practice and persistence.

what a fascinating viewpoint. it's awfully reassuring to know that giotto, michelangelo, rembrandt, monet, cezanne, van gogh, etc ad nauseum were all just as talented as you or me...
how comforting it is to know that we're all geniuses!
what a lovely world it is where everybody's really just the same as everybody else, and everyone's really nice to each other too, and there's no poverty or crime or war or any of those icky nasty things to get in the way of everyone's budding instinct to be a picasso or just whatever it is they want to be! i just get such a warm cozy feeling when i think about how lovely it is there in la-la land.

ok, i'm off to go play my next professional tennis match, right after i perform this brain surgery and finish composing my 148th symphony in the style of beethoven, and then i'm going to fly to saturn and back in my own rocket made of popsicle sticks...

:rofl:

 

[Shadow Addict]

what a fascinating viewpoint. it's awfully reassuring to know that giotto, michelangelo, rembrandt, monet, cezanne, van gogh, etc ad nauseum were all just as talented as you or me...
how comforting it is to know that we're all geniuses!
what a lovely world it is where everybody's really just the same as everybody else, and everyone's really nice to each other too, and there's no poverty or crime or war or any of those icky nasty things to get in the way of everyone's budding instinct to be a picasso or just whatever it is they want to be! i just get such a warm cozy feeling when i think about how lovely it is there in la-la land.

ok, i'm off to go play my next professional tennis match, right after i perform this brain surgery and finish composing my 148th symphony in the style of beethoven, and then i'm going to fly to saturn and back in my own rocket made of popsicle sticks...

:rofl:

HAAAAAAAAAAAAA. SO FUNNY

It IS possible to learn how to see things like an artist, you know. Just because one isn't born in the right brain doesn't mean they can't learn it.

 

[Tommy]

ok, i'm off to go play my next professional tennis match, right after i perform this brain surgery and finish composing my 148th symphony in the style of beethoven, and then i'm going to fly to saturn and back in my own rocket made of popsicle sticks

And who could do all these things? Saying anyone could could do everything is rediculous. But just about anyone can do just about anything, if they fully commit and try hard enough. Sure, not anyone can be a pro athlete of scientist, we are limited by our potential, and all have different potentials. Yet even if we don't excel at something doesn't mean we can't do it well.

I'm not nearly a "Bob Dylan", but I'm I'm an alright folk songwriter. I'm not super talented, I've simply spent lots of time and effort learning. I've written over 100 songs, about a dozen of which are good. Many I wouldn't admit to writing even under torture. But just because I'm not a superstar doesn't mean my art isn't worthwhile.

Even if you'll never be "one of the best" texture artists out there doesn't mean you can't be good at it. It does take determination. You have to take the time to learn, and be willing to keep at it when your first efforts don't live up to your desires.

I'm a musician, but I'm sure the visual artists have a saying that means the same as the musicians mantra - "If you want to play the blues then you gotta pay your dues, and you know it don't come easy"

Here's a link to a "textures" site. Some usefull metal textures maybe, and some would make good "noise" textures if converted to greyscale.

http://mayang.com/textures/

IIRC, these are free for non-commercial use (which should cover Orbiter add-ons that are free).

 

[michael_GR]

Here's the best weathering tutorial I know of:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=373024

It's a must-read for texture artists.

 

[SpaceNut]

Here's the best weathering tutorial I know of:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=373024

It's a must-read for texture artists.

That's a great resource. The long and short of it is photoshop is your friend. A firm grip of layering techniques really opens up endless possibilities.

 

[unknown_orbiter]

To put all of this into a nutshell:
Wacom tablets = beast
PS Brushes = beast
Photorealistic textures = beast

Combine these and you have a nice weathered texture
Making hand-made textures is quite fun once you get used to it.