Evaluation

Throughout this project I have learnt a lot of things, I now understand more about textures as well as the design process in general, I did my first proper mood board and I have learnt many new photoshop techniques. It also taught me how important research is and how you shouldn't be discouraged when an idea falls through as it usually leads to an even better idea. I also learnt to not decide on your final piece at the very beginning as you never really get to develop it properly from the initial thought and reach the idea's full potential.

All in all I am rather proud of my final textures, I think they show my skills with Photoshop and I believe they will fit into a 3D environment really well. I feel my textures have quite a stylised simplified look, which is what I was looking for. My favourite is my wood texture as it is a good combination of the simplified look but with a Photoshop filter incorporated.

If I did this project again I would defiantly choose something more challenging and with less rock-y textures as they were my least favourite to do as they didn’t tile well. I think I’d do an Elvan city o I have the chance to do a lot more natural textures but still incorporate the glowing aspects from my last street.

Final textures

1. Night sky

2. Cobbles

3. Gravel

4. Patio

5. Wood and Plaster

6. Roof tiles.

7. Brushed steel

8. Wood

9. Smaller bricks

10. Water

Game texture reaserch

Looking through games it becomes apparent that textures are very important to a game, by far my favourite example of textures I've seen through my research are from a game called Alice Madness Returns. The games designs are amazing, ranging from colourful woods to steam-punk to Gothic, and their slightly grungy textures they use fit perfectly with the game's style, weather saturated or dark.

There are bad textures too but they are a lot less common nowadays, the only problems you see with them is a textured wall meeting a flatter wall and the part where they join is a straight line, not shaped where the bricks on the texture would protrude, other problems include pixelated textures, textures of say long grass or rocks where the actual model is flat and blobs with a texture of rubble or rubbish thrown on.

Initial Textures

These are the first few textures I made, I used the techniques I learnt form out experimentations. 

This was my initial floor texture, I decided to make it very small so I can tile it in photoshop then add general shadows as when tiled in 3ds Max it looks horrible. I also did a less saturated version but I ended up preferring this.

This is my first floor texture, I tiled it in photoshop and marked on where my buildings would be, then added shadows and highlight's. 

For my houses I decided the best thing to do is to have a simple model and a complicated model so I made this texture map for my house.

I also made this brushed steel texture for my metal add ons. 

This is my final house, I used the texture map on the basic house shape then added add on's with the steel texture and a glass texture I made on Max. 

Mind map

After I decided what I wanted to do I started to plan the buildings on my street. After a bit of researching I decided the type of houses I wanted to use were 16th century timber-framed houses. I also wanted to do a church based on Notre Dame so I started to sketch out my ideas using references from the internet.

Finally I started to design my buildings, for the house first I draw the original building, then copied it and added in the ‘sci-fi’ aspects on top. While drawing I decided I wanted to slightly change my idea, I didn’t really like the sci-fi aspect, it was too clean and futuristic, I wanted to grunge it up so I decided to add more mechanical/grungy take, I also decided I wanted the light sources of the street to be glowing crystals.


Statement of intent


I intend my street to an abandoned 16th centenary town which has been build upon by a modern group of people. I want the street to have metal plates and wires added on by these people as well as having glowing crystals as a light source. I plan to have the scene set a night to the glows will be more intense. For my street I hope to have these three main buildings, a house, a church and a fountain.

http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/asset60055_218-e2bn.html
http://www.peartree-miniatures.co.uk/tours/stfagans2.html
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/gardelegen/Town/Gardelegen02.html
http://teenyblessings.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/15th-16th-century-houses/
http://www.grimshaworigin.org/Webpages2/GrimshawHallKnowle.htm
http://www.stmgrts.org.uk/directory/historic_house
http://www.eppingforestdc.gov.uk/Council_Services/planning/conservation/MORETON.asp
http://halmapr.com/news/apollo/2008/12/
http://www.3drt.com/3dm/sf-constructions/sci-fi-constructions_shots.html
http://www.sgnonline.com/2009/01/10/the-future-is-now-ish/
http://www.tuvie.com/search/Futuristic+city+building+design
http://planetoddity.com/the-existing-cities-of-the-future/
http://www.buildingdesignideas.com/2011/08/07/futuristic-building-designs/
http://www.smashinglists.com/top-10-futuristic-concept-hotels/
http://www.trendhome.info/2011/06/futuristic-modern-architecture-buildings/
http://www.cityphoto.tk/city-photos/notre-dame-cathedral-photos-and-notre-dame-cathedral-pictures.html

Fire textures

Today we made a fire texture in photoshop from simply using render clouds and render difference clouds then adding a gradient map ranging from black > red > orange > yellow > white. I think this looked more like lava though.

 After this I looked at another tutorial for a fire creature that got a really good effect by using the smudge tool http://blackravensong.deviantart.com/art/Fire-Creature-Tutorial-84060887

Rust textures~

Today we looked at making a rusty corrugated iron texture. First we  made long thin selection and filled it with a gradient so the two sides of the selection were black with a white middle bit. We then went into edit > define pattern. We then selected the whole canvas and selected edit > fill and chose the pattern we just made to get this. 

Next we made a new layer with rendered clouds on  it and a crystallized effect and set it to multiply. 

Then with an orangey-red colour  we brushed on some rust on a new layer with a big soft low opacity brush set to multiply to get this. 

 For a little extra touch we set the rectangular marquee tool to fixed size and entered in a third of the canvas size and selected the left third of the canvas of the rust layer. We then added shadows with the same brush with a dark grey until it looked like three separate panals.

I then used the same big soft brush on a brushed steel file to get another rusty look. 

Lighting effects in photoshop

Today we had a closer look at using lighting effects in Photoshop to make 'rocky' textures and 'raised' effects.

As you can see this simple rock texture was made by simply rendering clouds on a normal layer and also on a new layer in the 'channels' area, then going into render > lighting effects and setting the texture to Alpha 1. 

As you can see this technique can be used for giving a 'raised' or 'etched' look as well.

As you can see I used this technique to make this quick brick wall.

Research

The first thing we did after reading the brief was to go out and take pictures of streets and the different textures there so we know where to start with our textures. I researched a couple of streets and decided picked up a few aspects of the streets I really liked like cobbled streets and old houses but I also like modern buildings like the Plymouth college of art building. Thinking over this I decided that I wanted to have an old fashioned street but with modern things built on top, and with this idea I went on to research old fashioned houses and sci-fi houses. 

 I like this picture because of the way the raised bit's are nice and clean looking while the rest is rusty, it would be good for a floor texture.

 I really liked this picture because of the yellow patches, it would be a good texture for an old wall.

 I like this picture because of the way the light falls on the different layer's of rock, this would be a good texture for a wall of rock.

 I like this picture because of the yellow mould (?), this texture could be used for a floor or wall.

 I really liked this picture because of the ivy, I think it'd make a good wall texture.

 I think this picture is good as you can see the different depths of the rock and cement, this would make a good wall texture.

 I really likes these bricks because of the grunge all over it and I think it'd make a good old wall texture.

I liked this picture of tree bark a lot because of how rough the bark is, it would make a good texture for a tree.

Here are the rest of the pictures I took.