Depression knocking on your door?

Dec 30, 2011 //
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If depression is knocking on your door (mind you, these tips are not for those who are seriously  or medically depressed), and you are feeling a little sad with your life — lack of job, lack of love, lack of money, illness — then the best thing to do is to STOP thinking about the problem and focus on something else. Most problems take time to get resolved, and spinning around thinking of it will not get you any closer to resolving it.

Instead, try to work on the following “homework”:

1) Exercise more: exercise releases endorphins, which are one of the ‘feel good’ chemicals in our bodies.

2) Journal or go to therapy: release the problem by writing it down or talking about it. Spare your friends and get a therapist if you are the “chatty” type.

3) Socialize more: friends and loved family always makes us feel like … Read more…

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Categories Empowering & Focus

Creating Fantasy Worlds

Dec 29, 2011 //
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One of the main tasks of a computer graphics artist, particularly if working with 3d, is the creation of fantasy worlds. No matter what the industry, games, film, video or any other, creating backgrounds and environments plays a major role in making the actors or animation look good. In more traditional media such as animation and live film, entire teams specialize in creating sets or backgrounds for the scene. In the computer graphics world there is the same tendency to have people specialize in creating the “sets” and environments for the computer graphics actors.

The first thing to consider, even before discussing design issues, is the meaning of the word “Fantasy”. If we can understand the notion of Fantasy, coming up with the design of fantasy worlds becomes a more natural process.

The second thing to consider is the specific attributes of a 3d computer graphics environment. While fantasy … Read more…

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Categories Fantasy Design

Painting custom textures

Oct 11, 2011 //
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In today’s 3D industry, great value is given to organic modeling. Many believe that the more complex the model, the better the artist. In fact, a good artist does not have to create complex organic models to be a good artist and to show a lot of detail.

Look at the following image, created for the whimsical interface of a game.

Observe carefully this image, which seems to contain a lot of detail. However, upon closer inspection, notice that almost all of the objects in this picture are either planar or cylindrical in nature. What makes the image look intricate is the overlap and texture work.

Of course, there will be times when the project demands specifically the creation of organic-shaped objects. However, the artist should strive to make things easier, not more complicated, whenever possible.

Notice how many of the textures in this picture were painted SPECIFICALLY for each … Read more…

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Categories Creative Textures

Texture art gives personality to 3D objects

Oct 05, 2011 //
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Look the following model of a regular chair. With the current texture applied to it, you have no indication of who it belongs to, where it should be placed, or what is the context of the story it was included in.

However, once you create custom textures made especially for it, then you can really determine a lot about the owner, context and location. (Perhaps this chair is owned by a cartoon character, in a whimsical type of setting! The story is probably fun and cheerful!)

 

Textures indicate materials and add interest

Textures are also responsible for letting the viewer recognize the type of material that a specific object is made of. Besides identifying materials, textures also add detail and interest to otherwise plain models.

 

Textures disguise imperfections and finish off models

And finally, textures can greatly hide the imperfections of a poor model and can also help … Read more…

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Categories Creative Textures

Taking lighting into account in texture art

Oct 05, 2011 //
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Question and answer regarding the nature of lighting in texture art:

>>Student question:  I guess I’ve always had the impression you need to consider the interplay of light with your texture during the process of creating the texture.  For example, if I’m developing a texture in PhotoShop, and cast the shadow incorrectly, then I would think the texture would be bad if I later cast the light from a different direction?

Answer: Yes, absolutely, in that case you do need to take lighting into consideration. But that is only important if you are making textures that have “dimensional quality”, that is, that have a lot of depth to them. In fact, “dimensionality” is one important decision one needs to take into account when creating textures. If your textures are rather flat, then the lighting is independent of texture creation. Of course you would want to imagine in your … Read more…

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Categories Creative Textures

An Alien Bouquet

Oct 03, 2011 //
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This image was created in 1998 (that’s a long time ago!) as part of a tutorial article for Serious 3D magazine. The software 3D Studio Max 2.5 and Cebas Optic Suite (for the flares) were used.

Every single object you see in this image was created using the ‘box method’, which consists of the following: create a box with 3 to 5 segments and modify its vertices and faces until it resembles roughly the format you want. Then apply the command MeshSmooth, which makes it look nice and smooth, with a very organic look. All the textures were hand painted especially for each model.

The branches can be created by extruding the faces out individually, and then rotating and scaling them.

The inspiration for the image was a flower bouquet. I tried to organize the various different elements in a way similar to a traditional bouquet of flowers, but … Read more…

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Categories Creative Textures, Fantasy Design

Scifi Texture Art

Oct 02, 2011 //
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This document is part of a Realtime Sci-fi Texture art online class I held around 2000.
Sci-fi is one of the most interesting types of fantasy design, and greatly used in video games. Typical scifi is usually moody, mechanical and almost always covered in a with a layer of grime…. which is probably why it seems to attract so many young men who play games. Video games are no longer a new media; it is a billion dollar industry working on new titles with budgets that are comparable to feature films.

One of the most interesting careers in this industry is that of a texture artist. Painting textures for games is no small thing , you must have good sense of design and be able to transmit dimensionality that is not available due to restricted modeling.Typically, in realtime projects, due to memory and engine speed, the 3D models are kept … Read more…

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Categories Creative Textures
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