Textures for Games

[WhiteKnight77]

I have seen a bunch of things recently that I want to photograph to create different textures for games. There are some rock walls and buildings that have some interesting textures that I think would be great for use as textures. One in particular is a river rock wall on some buildings in the office/industrial park where our old office is. Another is the one of the buildings that the local school system uses. Even my own credit union would make a cool buildings for some games.

I am looking for tutorials or something that are easy to follow so I can give something to the modders that create maps that I enjoy whether RS or GR. Can anyone help me out?

[Sup]

Essentially simple, if you just want to get the pattern of the photo as a tileable texture. The easiest way is to use the offset filter in photoshop 50%, then clone out the seams.

If you intend to use the photographs straight, you just want to get a good angle and take a photo.

[swartsz]

Here is a little tutorial on some things that will help you making the best pictures for textures:

http://www.culita.org/philipp/?p=31

One thing to remember is that it is easier to paint some lighting information into a texture than it is to remove it from a texture.

Another great resource to learn everything about taking pictures for textures is the book "Digital Texturing & Painting" from New Riders, http://www.peachpit.com/title/0735709181

and here is a great tutorial on making seamless textures from digital photos: http://www.3dtutorials.sk/index.php?id=97&page=

Look forward to seeing some of your pictures!

[WhiteKnight77]

Thanks Swartsz. If any one else wants to contribute sources. I will pin this post.

[Suli]

If possible (esp. for brick like patterns) Take the photo from farther away zoomed in to help reduce distorsion.

Us as neutral of lighting as possible. I prefer cloudy days, mid day. Note the time of day you took it, in case later you need to compensate for Blue shift.

Take lots of photos of any given subject. This will make it easier if later you want to manipulate it and need more texture data. Otherwise you have to use texture data from a single image and it can be noticable. (I take 2-3, when I get an image I like)

Hope all goes well and look forward to seeing them.

oh P.S. watch out for the Jpeg artifacts. output in raw or TGA if you can. And remove pure black and pure white from the final texture.

Edited June 20, 2006 by Suli

[firefly2442]

If possible (esp. for brick like patterns) Take the photo from farther away zoomed in to help reduce distorsion.

Hmm, is that really true? I would think the farther away you got and the more you had to zoom in, the worse it would be no?

[pz3]

it depends on your camera and lens.

No zoom and step back would work well but it depends.... play around with it and see what best suits your needs.

[Suli]

I forget where I learned that one. My camera will put some serious distortion one when close and zoomed out.

[WhiteKnight77]

Here is one of the buildings I was talking about. This is my companies new shop/offices. I have only included only half the building as it is the same on both sides. I have measurements even for those who may want to try and model it. I really need to get some better pics so they can be stitched together better. I did shrink the orginal down so it wasn't so large (over 3MB in size).

[Sup]

If you can, try and think of what parts could be mirrored or tiled.

At first glance it seems all an artist needs is what I've marked here;

http://aycu29.webshots.com/image/228/15980...77304121_rs.jpg

the rest can be thirded and tiled, and the lights can be delegated to their own uv space, assuming the spec they were working at was high enough to allow that kind of modeled detail (which anything near modern is)