The texture art of TONY BARBER

Random Art Dump #2

2012-02-02T19:00:00.001-08:00

plants

2012-02-02T18:40:00.000-08:00

Haven't really done much in terms of organics. So i thought id try something simple. I ended up downloading a free 3d model and having a look how it was build. This asset was build with geometry only and no alphas. Doing more research most organics such as this use a combination of the two.

Trials - Hand painted textures

2012-01-02T16:33:00.000-08:00

Trying out various hand painting techniques.

More Mac 10 in marmoset.

2011-12-07T19:27:00.001-08:00

mac10 in marmoset

2011-12-04T18:08:00.001-08:00

Mac 10

2011-11-24T17:58:00.001-08:00

Low poly silhouettes and low poly with normal map/high res model.

Random Art Dump #1

2011-10-27T16:28:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted much on here for a while, so i thought id do a random art dump. Just for you to see have I've been up too these last few months.

Handpainted texturing tutorial

2011-09-29T21:52:00.000-07:00

Just going through a hand painted texturing tutorial. Coming along nicely. The stone shapes are abit too sharp and square-ish but the overall look is good. Plus wooden planks. Pretty much used the same techniques as the stone.

Hand painted texture - stone ground #3 update

2011-07-17T18:18:00.000-07:00

Small stones and moss added.

Hand painted texture - stone ground #3

2011-06-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

Just an update.

Hand painted texture - stone ground #3

2011-06-06T22:22:00.000-07:00

Back again with another stone ground texture. This is more like what im looking for. Needs abit of work with the colours and moss, But happy so far.

Hand painted texture - stone ground #2

2011-05-24T20:10:00.000-07:00

I wanted to try some different texturing techniques. Reference used but no photo sourcing. After creating the first test stone, i placed it on top of the reference photo. It came out pretty close but I was looking for more of a hand painted/stylised texture. Maybe the reference should of been handpainted/stylised from the start.

Hand painted texture - stone ground

2011-02-11T19:46:00.001-08:00

Went back to finish up a hand painted texture.Added moss/grass in the gaps plus tightening of the stone space. Looking at it again it might need more lighter/darker tones to vary the stones.

More Sci-fi floor panels

2011-02-01T15:57:00.000-08:00

Finished version of the sci-fi floor panels. Not sure where to put the glow map (lights) into udk.
Baked from high res to low.
512 maps - normal, spec, difuse and glow.
1 Poly

Sci-fi floor panel

2011-01-26T15:46:00.000-08:00

Difuse finished + spec.

Wip - sci-fi floor panel

2011-01-24T04:00:00.000-08:00

Little something im working on.

Bevel gear texture

2011-01-11T17:44:00.000-08:00

Just Thought Id post something I worked on 3 or 4 weeks ago. Texturing based from the game enslaved. It just needs a final pass and the right lighting.

Looking at the screenshot again, I think the texture size might be 256. There’s few low res areas and the focus is on the top.

WIP - (hand painted texture) stone ground

2010-12-05T15:41:00.000-08:00

I wanted to work on my hand painting skills. So far so good, I think the gaps need more detail/darken to made the stones pop and maybe moving the stones closer. This texture is also tileable.

bf lights - clean/dirty

2010-11-16T16:36:00.000-08:00

psp hallway preview render

2010-11-08T17:05:00.000-08:00

Crayon mario stage 1-1

2010-10-17T04:45:00.000-07:00

Ndo test 1

2010-10-12T04:24:00.000-07:00

The first of many tests with the ndo action/plugin. I wanted to start with something simple, the end result was a corrugated fence. Great tools, definitely the step up from the nvidia plugin.

UDK screenshot

2010-10-08T23:18:00.000-07:00

More UDK screenshots

2010-10-08T23:13:00.000-07:00

Crayon texture test

2010-10-04T18:04:00.000-07:00

Im always looking for different texturing styles. Painter has some very interesting brushes inturn creating interesting results.

the 8th hour - UDK screen shots

2010-09-27T15:12:00.000-07:00

the 8th hour - medicine cabinet prop

2010-09-26T20:51:00.000-07:00

F-ZERO stingray

2010-09-26T04:48:00.000-07:00

wip work on my f-zero stingray. Its good to do some low res texturing to mix it up. screens from the ds viewer coming soon!

ds texturing

2010-09-15T18:05:00.000-07:00

the 8th hour - waste bin prop

2010-09-15T04:31:00.000-07:00

plastic fold test

2010-09-13T22:05:00.000-07:00

Just quick test to see how would i go about creating the folds for a plastic medical waste bag.

the 8th hour - props

2010-09-11T21:24:00.000-07:00

the 8th hour - props

2010-09-07T18:46:00.000-07:00

Black Flamingo - decal

2010-09-05T21:18:00.000-07:00

Haven't really done many decals before but there quite handy being re-usable. You just got to test the decal out on multiple textures.

The 8th hour - props

2010-09-01T17:12:00.000-07:00

Props for unreal mod called The 8th hour.

psp hallway - update 3

2010-08-17T06:02:00.000-07:00

Almost finished with the textures, i need to work on my uv placement skills or what i call uv tetris. Theres abit of unused texture space in the props but the hallway texture is tightly packed.
Maya playblast isnt the best for showing show off but you get an idea :)

Sf4 mod – ken as joker.

2010-08-17T05:50:00.000-07:00

Just mucking around within SF4 pc. Someone already created the joker (SF4mods.com) but it was more the cartoonish joker. I was going for the dark knight. The results were varied, looking back on it, it does hand itself to more of the stylistic joker. Bright colours and a black paint wash finish. The eyebrows where interesting because they were separate from the head.

1000 views!

2010-08-09T18:25:00.000-07:00

Hey hey! 1000 views ,go me! Though properly about 100 of them were me posting and viewing my own blog. I haven’t really advertise my blog that much, * I've only got 3 followers and I think 1 is a bot ^___^ lol I just put a link in a post for The Game Development Club (GDC). Properly should start watermarking/ signing each screenshot/render/texture.

I'm hoping that when I get to 2000 views ill be twice the texture artist!

STC 2 - Sun Lounge

2010-08-09T03:25:00.000-07:00

Here's my entry for the speed texturing challenge. In the original , the presentation was pretty rushed and i think missed an element to the competition.*the details of my textures - map sizes etc.Im fairly happy with the texture but i still need to work on my specs.

psp hallway playblast

2010-08-09T02:51:00.000-07:00

psp hallway - update 2

2010-07-19T00:55:00.000-07:00

Modeled gas heater and wheelchair.

notes

de-res all textures + sharpen/colour mods.
texture wheelchair.
camera setup for renders.

psp hallway - update

2010-07-13T23:42:00.000-07:00

Just a small update on the texturing. The ceiling and floor needs abit of work.plus i wanna add a wheelchair and gas heater.

wip -psp hallway

2010-07-07T04:31:00.000-07:00

I wanted to do some psp spec texturing. Just a simple repeating hallway + plus some small props. Maybe a wheel chair or old heater. The final texture will be a 512 x 256 x 1 and 256 x 256 x 1 for the props.Placing the scene in a psp (480 x 272) give me an idea how it would look in game.

Not texturing but - low poly head

2010-07-03T00:15:00.000-07:00

Thought id do some modeling for a change :) it needs abit of work but a good start.

MOD - STREET FIGHTER IV

2010-05-25T22:33:00.000-07:00

I finally got a copy of SFIV, giving me an opportunity to re-skin the street fighter characters. So for my first attempt i would go something simple. Slightly changing kens gi into the kobra kai gi (karate kid). A color change here, logo there etc and it was pretty much finished. The hardest bit is that there is no UV layout, so its hard to workout where the texture/uv's stop. Not bad for a first shot, once i clean it up i might upload it to SFIV mods.com

Normal bake

2010-05-17T18:53:00.001-07:00

I haven't really messed around with normal baking. So i thought i would give it a shot. Its really cool how you can get alot more detail out of a low poly object. The UV's weren't exactly placed right, resulting in texture stretching. I originally didn't have plans to texture at all or have a theme/idea to model by, i just started extruding. The texture maps came out pretty well.

Then and now - road works.

2010-05-11T01:18:00.000-07:00

I thought i would revisit some old work and came across this road work scene. A basic props set up.Instead of re-texturing the scene, i wanted to challenge myself by modeling and texturing/UV from scratch, in a time limit of 2hours.So this is what i came up with.

Not bad for 2hours but in my haste i missed out on a few things.
1. The alpha map isn't clean. you can see the poly plane borders.
2. The stop sign type is not quite in the center, looks abit odd.
3. Excess orange from the street cone is making a seem on the road.

kids stage prop

2010-05-03T23:27:00.000-07:00

I wanted to texture something different but also something that had multiple materials.So i decided on a kids stage prop. The hardest thing was getting the right brush to texture the painted side.I might redo the paint.

Not texturing but....

2010-04-30T02:35:00.000-07:00

More mudbox stuff.

prop - pop dog perk cola

2010-04-30T02:17:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite games playing online is WaW nazi zombies. So i thought id create and texture a prop that would fit into the game. 512x normal,difuse,spec and light maps.

Madworld - Japanese rooftop

2010-04-19T23:25:00.000-07:00

Almost done, I think the backdrop needs something.

Next gen - crate

2010-04-19T18:20:00.000-07:00

Just recently got access to a better pc , so now i can turn on high quality rendering. This gives me a better insight into my textures as it emulates graphics/texturing in real time. Plus now if i enter any STC, i can take screenshots with bonus of show off spec and normal etc.

Madworld - japanese rooftop

2010-04-13T03:35:00.000-07:00

I wanted to practice more madworld themed texturing. With this project (Japanese rooftop) i went through all the processes - sketching(yeah i know...) modeling and now texturing. I also added a camera plane image which will be the sky/moon backdrop.

No so good - STC steampunk blunderbuss

2010-04-08T22:08:00.000-07:00

When i heard that the STC was coming back, i was excited. Thinking time has passed and im a better texture artist then when i first started. So i was pretty confident going in. But as i was texturing it became clear that ive got a long way to go.

2 major problems : I had some cool ideas but couldn't apply these to the texture. I found it hard to make a copper/bronze texture *which is one of the main elements in any steampunk object. The other major problem was that i couldn't use any maps (besides difuse) in my viewport. So i cant really see how it really looks. I know it sounds like "a bad workman blames his tools". but the rules strictly say NO RENDERS.

But anyways here's my texture.

Not texturing But...

2010-04-08T21:49:00.000-07:00

Afew months ago i started to play around with mudbox. Slowly getting there, its more about the anatomy the of object then the tools or program. I thought id share my latest results.

NOTES

- the ears and eyes are the hardest to get right.

- I gotta play around with sculpting the hair.

Old Texture work

2010-02-10T16:19:00.000-08:00

Just thought i would post some of my old texture work, including my first head texture.

Madworld - cage match first pass

2010-02-01T18:45:00.000-08:00

I wanted to add some weapon props in the scene. So i decided on a bead trap, bone saw and spiked launcher. When texturing the first pass i kept models large, so they look better scaled down but also to see the details. All weapons are using the same 512 shared space. Second pass will be grunge, blood etc.

TF2 - corner and seamless texture

2010-01-13T13:36:00.000-08:00

Heres a quick update of the tf2 corner, mir suggested i add some detail in the corner. After adding some detail, i created a wall to see what the texture would be like as a seamless texture.

Madworld - cage match review

2010-01-07T17:46:00.000-08:00

Just a few notes on my progress with the cage.

Bent cage bars - the bars look too perfect. straight and unmarked, so i bent a few. Not sure if i want this effect all over the cage. (Repeating UVs)

Side and corner posters - not really happy with the posters all round .I think ill go back re-visit the posters.Not so much the borders but the type and images.

Adding a logo changes things - with the madworld theme in mind, i thought id add the logo just for fun. For some reason it makes the scene/texture more believable.

Madworld - cage match update

2010-01-05T19:46:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update on my madworld themed cage. After the guard rails, went on to do the steps (which are on the same texture map).Some of the cage was also attempted. I always knew that colour plays a big part in the overall texture. Colour can create mood, theme and can also tell a story. But when you are limited to a few colours it is even more important.

Update - Madworld - fence

2009-12-20T15:53:00.000-08:00

Well its been a little while since Ive posted last. Slowly working on the Madworld themed cage- match-arena. Came out alright I think. Even though it was only a quick sketch, it helped me a lot

with the texture.

Madworld - cage match

2009-12-07T19:33:00.000-08:00

A mate of mine told me a wise tip about texturing. Between the collection of reference and the actual painting of the texture. Its a good idea to save a few renders and sketch on top. For this I used the madworld texture treatment. I guess you could skip this if you had a few good pieces of concept art.

war hammer axe - wireframe + render

2009-12-06T17:18:00.000-08:00

WarHammer axe - Texture map

2009-11-24T17:51:00.000-08:00

war hammer axe model - update

2009-11-18T15:45:00.000-08:00

Only using transparency for the blade holes just didn't look right. So i cut two holes, which looked a lot better. Now I'm wondering if the single planes will be enough.

Madworld - Bin

2009-11-18T14:48:00.000-08:00

Madworld is an interesting visual style which in turn has interesting textures. The style (Comic Noir) is basically black and white treatment, with a possible 3rd colour to add effect/mood. Example: Red for blood. In madworld red is used as blood and gives the game a visual punch.

I used an old stc prop to practice the style. I'm a bit unsure about where/how to add detail in a style like this. Adding too much detail would make the prop to busy. The other issue I had was choosing what was white and what was black. High lights are white but so are details.

WarHammer axe model

2009-11-12T15:51:00.000-08:00

I havent done any modeling in ages and thought i should. Plus im a little bored with re-hashing STC models.

Basically using the concept art as a template i modeled from that. Using alphas im going to create the spikes around the axe and blade holes (not should if its a good idea) with poly planes.

Update - Stc TF2 Corner

2009-11-04T18:13:00.000-08:00

Looking back at the tf2 corner, i knew that texture needed a lot of work. Adding more detail to the wall and grass would make the corner interesting. I also added some up right planes for grass. Previously having trouble with transparency, i wasn't looking forward to it. But after a little trial and error , it all came together. The original grass has this border/stoke around it, the trouble is that the anti-aliasing makes the alpha map play up. So basically turn it off when dealing with alphas.

*Is the corner too busy?

*would the alpha play up if the map was a bigger res?

Borderlands - sledge hammer

2009-11-02T17:22:00.000-08:00

The other day i got a good look at borderlands. Great game and interesting visuals. Similar to a crack down/ prince of Persia style. So i thought id give this texture style a shot. Still having problems with the toon outline in the render but fine in the view port. A good starting point to develop this style.

STC - TF2 Corner

2009-10-29T19:03:00.000-07:00

Attempting more stylized textures i decided to work on a corner wall. Most of my time was spent, trying to get the tf2 style down. It really needs more interesting elements such as borders on the top and bottom. Warning lines to add more colour. Also the ground plane (grass) needs some open dirt or rocks. Im tempted to add some grass up right poly planes.

Cannon - redone

2009-10-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

With just ten more minutes, i recreated the normals, changed the wood and added more finer details. A much better result.

STC - kabar

2009-10-25T21:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't really worked on any melee weapons before. A 512 map might of been a bit small, in that this might be viewed as FPS melee weapon. I think it needs maybe a bit more contrast on the handle. oh and before this doing this i didn't know what a kabar was :P.

STC - Thorns

2009-10-22T18:08:00.000-07:00

Im starting to get pretty familiar general man-made textures, but organics..... not so much. I think this STC shows a little of this.

One of the STC limits was 120 mins. I got to 90mins and i didn't know what to do next. Maybe more time on the yellow tape or more contrast between thorns and vines.

STC - Road sign 2

2009-10-21T21:27:00.000-07:00

60 minutes later, another STC is finished. I was going for an old weathered beach sign, of course I needed more time. Maybe time spent adding more details on the sign. e.g arrows, borders or more info *distance etc.

TF2 - prop

2009-10-21T18:21:00.000-07:00

One important thing when it comes to texturing is the creation of different styles. Realistic & stylized are the most common and the others are mix of both . Just for a bit of practice I textured simple health crate going for a stylized TF2 look. The first try was without any reference.

STC- Road sign

2009-10-18T22:02:00.000-07:00

Im pretty happy with his 60 minute STC.

Then and now - Cannon

2009-10-18T19:03:00.000-07:00

The texture quality is obviously better but the normal came out a bit over kill. With all STC's I need to allow more time for normals and adjustments.

Elevator - redone

2009-10-15T20:34:00.000-07:00

Struggling with the first attempt, i decided to give it another go with a different theme. I was going for a underground cave/mine elevator. More work was needed on the cave wall, it looks to much like photo just slapped on there.

STC - Elevator

2009-10-14T19:02:00.000-07:00

I really struggled with this STC. Mostly because of the time constraints, I tried to design the wallpaper and flooring by scratch. This took a chunk out of my time, I really should of used some photo sourcing. The other thing is the theme I chose, I went for a old fashioned elevator. I reckon I could of made it a lot easier on myself if I used a more modern theme.

STC - Gas canister

2009-10-13T20:38:00.000-07:00

Yet another stab at an old STC challange. 90mins later these are my results.

Then and now - Arcade machine

2009-10-12T20:20:00.000-07:00

With the new skills and knowledge, I wanted to go back and redo an old texture. The mesh is from an old speed texturing challenge. I went over the time limit (90mins) but it made me realise how to much time is used/needed for the other maps.

Aztec pots - redone

2009-10-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

I went back and redid the texture but also the mesh . Not so sure about the spec seeing that its an old clay pot. Maybe a dim spec instead.

Wip - Aztec pot.

2009-10-01T21:16:00.000-07:00

I wanted to texture something different So decided on a Aztec pot for 2 reasons. 1 -Haven't textured before and 2 - to try out other types of materials such as clay.

I'm having some difficulties gathering base photo texture reference. Besides that its just doesn't look right, i think i need to find more info on clay and Aztec pots!

Case study - Grass

2009-09-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

Seeing I'm having trouble with this subject, i thought id be good for me too take some time to look into the world of grass textures.

The information Ive gathered so far.

The basic set up (placement) is a plane for the ground and up right planes to give the grass some height.

Generally the base (ground plane) of the texture is photo sourced, unless it is a very stylistic/cartoony game.

The up right planes are very simple and have little or no details.

Very little or no shadow is placed on grass textures.

Follow up question: How many poly planes do you need to create believable grass? and how are should they be placed?

Various in-game samples:

Transparency - Dead grass update.

2009-09-27T20:00:00.000-07:00

I decided id go back to the grass texture and work out more of the kinks. This time I've got different issues....

Basically, I don't know what else i can do to make the texture better or I'm doing wrong? Afew questions come in mind...

1) Is it the quality of texture?

2) The way i have placed the up right grass planes.

3) The effect of lighting/shadow?
4) Transparency quality?

5) pre-made grass brushes vs. hand painted grass.

6) view distance?

Then and now - Old tv

2009-09-24T22:28:00.000-07:00

Heres a texture i did in late march, which shows my progress. Just by adding normals and specs gives more to the texture. The only thing is that I kinda took my time with this one. But mostly happy.

Ammo store - finish.

2009-09-20T19:54:00.000-07:00

I'm not completely happy with the textures, I just cant quite figure out to how to improve it. Maybe its the lighting or colors. Every texture I create makes me a better texture artist.Bottom line, I'm progressing well but still have along way to go.

Approx texturing time : 3 hours

Ammo store - update

2009-09-15T22:00:00.000-07:00

I finally got a chance to update the ammo store. I also added an air-con.

Details

Broken glass on the window door.
Quarantine sign changed to a poster.
Door grill added.
Graffiti and sticker on the door.
Edits to the old poster edges.
Air-con added.

Wip - Back alley ammo store

2009-09-01T15:10:00.000-07:00

Just something I'm slowly working on, the texture is about 50% complete. whats taking so long is that i'm learning techniques as i go. Hopefully it will look pretty nice.

Model from game-artist.net

Photoshop only - old door update

2009-08-30T14:12:00.000-07:00

I wanted to render up the photoshop only texture. Not bad, the normal and spec needs some work.

Cardboard box - Update 2

2009-08-30T13:12:00.000-07:00

Every time I look at the cardboard boxes texture , I just think something not quiet right. I think its the zombie box, it just doesn't look believable. So I scraped the zombie idea for a frieght package.

Transparency - Dead grass

2009-08-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

Something im still working out the kinks with is transparency. I have a basic understanding but have trouble seeing the transparency in the maya viewport. (render is fine)

Not sure if its:

My graphics card/pc being too old.
Me not putting the corrent settings to allow for transparency.

Anyway.... heres my first attempt at grass and transparency.

Photoshop only

2009-08-26T22:17:00.000-07:00

I wanted to test my texturing skills by using only the tools in photoshop to create a texture.Although photoshop is a powerful program, alot of texture creation is based on photo sourcing. Its missing somethings but not bad for a first attempt.

Tileable textures - Metal

2009-08-25T19:31:00.000-07:00

Something less fun but necessary... tileable textures. Im pretty rusty but I thought id get back into it. Here are my results in 3 stages. Though it tiles, I wonder if ive changed the texture too much.

Cardboard box - Update

2009-08-17T19:29:00.000-07:00

These are the results of after playing around with the normals and spec. I'm slowly getting a grasp on other maps besides the difuse. Its not as simple as using the nvidia plugin, theres alot of tweaking involved or just use crazey bump :P

512x 512 x 3 maps - difuse, normals & spec.

Back alley/ Ammo store - wallpaper reference.

2009-08-12T22:52:00.000-07:00

Point of view.

2009-08-09T22:02:00.000-07:00

One of the questions I always seem to ask myself, is it worth spending extra time on texturing details if no one will notice? I just finished texturing a screwdriver and now I wonder.... I guess I should look at the facts:

What is the object/texture used for in game? - the screwdriver is a static prop used in my mates workshop scene.

How close would the player get to the prop? the player would walk past it as it is on a bench with other tools.

How important is the object/texture? compared to other props in the scene, small importance.I guess answers would change if this was in game weapon or item.

Working in true res.

2009-08-07T19:10:00.000-07:00

I thought id mention that when I can, I try to work in true res. By that I mean working on the final texture size unchanged.Using the transform (PS) tool alot I noticed stretching/ resizing layers/images can cause multiple changes e.g bluring/ loss of detail. This can also happen when resizing a total texture. You can fix these issues but this takes time.

For more info:

http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/resize.htm

Then and now - hammer

2009-08-06T22:43:00.000-07:00

Another updated texture, pretty happy with the results.

Update breakdown: *bottom one is the original texture.

Original texture

1024x 1024
Difuse + Bump map
Render @ production setting.

Updated texture

256x 256
Difuse + Normal + Spec map
Render @ preview setting.

Wip - cardboard box

2009-08-03T21:11:00.000-07:00

I wanted to create multiple textures on the one map.Repeating the UV's for some of the texture gave me some room for individual texture details.