Confessions of a Texture Artist
Amateur Texture Artist to be exact. Everybody has to let go of their best kept secrets at one point in their life, mine was literally learning how to texture in under a year. With few artists on Project Reality my break-through if you want to call it that came with Owen Demers “Digital Texturing and Painting” (links at the bottom of the page). A great primer on texturing, I recently looked over it again (which I do once a year or so) and instantly said to myself this is something that would really help out some of the people in the community, especially with regards to game art.
It breaks out of the standard “This is how your make a metal texture” or “Put a wood texture on your gun” but rather takes it down a level deeper and explains why materials look the way they do. This is essential in developing what we can call “The Eye”, the ability to look at something and understand how you would translate it into a digital texture complete with diffuse, specular & normal maps. When I finished reading the book I worked on a new model, a paintball marker. Upon completion I showed it to one of my newer industry friends over MSN and the first & immediate response was “Which studio do you work for again?”. It was very flattering to say the least and an indicator of my progress; here is the 3d model for reference.
I didn’t go to university for art, neither did I take that many creative classes, so a book like this really contributed in my understanding of color theory, lighting, temperature, roughness, hue, all those things which I didn’t learn online. It gave me that edge over textures which looked bland at best, and propelled me straight to images that had a much higher sense of realism and dare I say, style. “Digital Texturing and Painting” even goes over a series of real life paintings and analyzes the textures used within, also something which has come to be an invaluable resource to me. My next personal success was when my art appeared in a game magazine that boasts an impressive circulation. There I was, dead smack in the middle of the page, the continuous learning had paid off. At that moment I knew that the key was to look beyond the online tutorials and what everybody else was doing, but getting those fundamentals straight.
Whilst it probably is too basic for the industry artists and other art graduates out there, it sure found its place on my bookshelf. It also seems as if the price has come down quite a bit since I purchased it, but I feel the content and material covered in the book is more timely than it ever was, too much garbage finds its way on the internet these days, giving all too much a false impression of how texturing is really done. If you buy this book now and then kick my ass at texturing, please don’t rub it in my face! Hope this helps you save some money, especially from all these expensive training DVD’s which are really just glorified quick fixes & small tips which are available online anyway. I’m also willing to give away my book for free given you’re a member of Game-Artist.Net and are willing to pay for shipping, I’m sure someone else can benefit from it. All you need to do is post a comment here and tell us what gave you the biggest boost in your texturing abilities. Happy texturing!
North America & Europe below…
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Comments
Thanks meckanism,
You’re definitely on the right path. Collecting references is crucial and I was somewhat lazy about it, which meant google search all too often. Unfortunately I couldn’t photosource the images I found, hence taking your own is a huge advantage.
Keep it up buddy and I hope this book helps you like it did me.
Cheers 
Very good post, and blog in general.
I’m not that good of a texturer to be honest and that book sure would come in handy!
I’m considering buying it and with it “Advanced Photoshop Texturing” by Andrew Britton which got some good reviews over at Amazon.
I think my best improvement in texturing lately has been working at the supermarket as weird as that sounds.
(It’s not the most interesting job in the world and your mind wanders alot)
You might find me staring at an orange for quite some time and sometimes when I’m done early I take a stroll round the block where the market is situated (a part of town I don’t really come that often) and look at the decayed walls and brick variations. In fact, I find myself looking at the city in quite a different way than I ever did since I started with 3D design and map editors.
last but not least, although I’m fairly new to GA.net I’ve learned alot more in the past week (by looking at threads and asking questions) than I did learning months on my own. I’m very glad there is such a fine community full of people willing to help.
Keep at it!
Hey Requiem, great blog, and article. First up, I would like to thank you for your advice over at the PR Forums, I really appreciate it. Just after reading your article here, I went to amazon and bought Digital Texturing and Painting, and Ditital Lighting and Rendering.
Being involved with you and the team at Project Reality has been a BIG influence with where I feel I should be taking my life. I grew up taking an intrest in art, but never really taking it serious. The team took me as moderator last year, and since then I have taken serious intrest in modeling. Moving forward to the area of texturing has been very difficult for me.
I remember making my first model, an orange, and posting that in the forums. Changing that orange from gray to orange using default tools in max and adding a bump map. Since then I have never stopped learning about modeling and texturing, and I doubt I ever will. Now I am at the point where I have became a weapons modeler for a crysis mod called Assault Coop, which even got a small mention in this months PC Gamer (the US one).
Im only 16 years old, and hard at work to get into the gaming industry. Anyways, I would like to thank you again for the inspiration you have given me. Perhaps someday soon my grenade will make its way into a magazine.
Hey!
First of all congratulations for this fine blog! Bookmarked
I Bought that book 5 minutes after i red this article. Your testimony was good enough to convince me!
In this area one must learn the theory before moving on to the practice… especially on the texturing side. Unfortunately in my country there is a lack( like none actually) of courses in the game development area, so one must be completely self-taught.
The things that keep me going towards this area is books like these and communities like GA.net, because quite frankly the tutorials on the web just wont do it. Sure there’s lots and lots of good tutorials but like you said they only will teach you the ways and not the whys.
Regarding what made me boost my texturing skills i must say it was the Digital Camera i bought some months ago. Having lots and lots of reference, from rusty nails to flowers, really helps you improve. Plus when you’re taking the pictures you notice some details you never had noticed until then, details that will for sure help you define the object you’re texturing.
I’m reading that book until the end, once i got the theory’s right ill start texturing right, and who knows, someday might be my grenades showing up on magazines
Keep on the kick-ass articles, signing out,
meckanism\>