Grunge Textures

I am a big advocate of using photographic images as only a jumping off point when creating your own textures. Grabbing something off the web can sometime bare fruit, but too often the texture is the wrong resolution, the wrong size, or the wrong color. To avoid this problem, and give yourself more control over your final textures, I like to create Grunge Textures as the base for creating original textures from scratch.

Basically, a Grunge Texture is an organic looking stain, wood grain, rust, or cracked surface image that you layer over your base texture. I have a growing collection of these in my own library and most of these started as images I found on the web. To create a Grunge Texture I start by finding a dirty, patina covered surface, usually without any hint of shadow or noticeable light source. I then completely de-saturate the image until it is completely black and white. I then lighten this texture and save it to one side (see above example).

Several Grunge Textures can be stacked up to create a more complex surface while still retaining control over the texture's color and dimensions. In this example I have started with:

1. A wood grain texture that I have made into a black & white Grunge Texture.

2. Next, I take a flat base color and on a second layer I draw several vertical lines to suggest separations in the wooden boards or planks. To do this I apply an Outer Bevel, Depth 50%, Size 6px., Highlight Mode Vivid Light 100%, and Overlay Shadow 85%.

3. I apply the wood grain as a Multiply Layer at 75%

4. I then take the second Grunge Layer (example at top of article)

5. and I apply it to the entire texture as a Multiply Layer at 60%

Although I could have gotten away with only using the wood grain texture, the second Grunge Texture acts as additional aging, as though the wood has become spotted and stained over time. This method allows me to easily change the color of the wood just by changing the brown base color to anything I like. It is worth mentioning that it is easy to get a little heavy handed with all of these dark layers, so I suggest you play with the opacity and contrast of your Grunge textures to find that perfect balance.

Note: If you plan to tile your finished texture, be sure that your Grunge Textures are tile-able as well, or else you will be able to see the edges of your texture as it repeats. More on Tiling soon.

If you would like a look at the original .PSD file for the example texture, you can find it here.

Getting More Out of Your Textures

I know it can be a temptation to load a mesh with a ton of textures, but the reality is that the more textures you use in your products, the slower your (and your customers) frame rate will be when trying to render it. Although there are situations were many textures are best, there are also ways to get more miles out of the little details found in just one texture.

The more I build for IMVU the more I challenge myself to find ways to create textures that include elements that I might be able to use in a variety of ways. For the recent Santa's Workshop bundle, I created a holiday themed brass machine texture for several of the Steampunk inspired furniture items.

Although this example includes a pine tree motif that I wanted to use sparingly, it is the top 1/3 of the texture that had the most promise for re-use. The bands of metal with the brass bolts become something that I could wrap around a myriad of edges, and plaster on surfaces. I even isolated the bolts for accents here and there. Whenever possible, try and find ways to stretch your texture budget... your customers will thank you for it, even if they don't understand the technical gymnastics you went through to make sure their IMVU experience remained a smooth and un-laggy one. ~Don

Adding Drama To Your Products

There are a lot of special tricks that you can use to give the illusion that your 3D models have more detail and drama than just what your geometry and applied textures will allow. Here is just one of them...

IMVU does not currently have a dynamic lighting system, so as content creaters we have to be a little cleaver about how we suggest mood and lighting in the products we create. One of my favorite tricks is to add depth to the surface of my models with Vertex Shading. Although the tool itself is a little like trying to decorate a cake with a hammer, this trick has given me some nice results.

In 3D Max I select the mesh I wish to shade and flood the entire surface with a darker tint. I then take the eraser tool and just ever so lightly pick out areas that help define the object's surface, allowing other areas to remain dark, and in the “shadows”. This trick does a nice job of turning an otherwise flat model into one with a little more theatrics. Still, it is possible to get a little too dark, so I suggest you take a light hand when shading your own creations.

One other note. Vertex shading can get ugly fast if there is not enough geometry to help the transitions smoothly gradate across the surface of your model. To help alleviate this effect, I suggest you add just a little more geometry over large flat areas, and when in doubt use the blending tool to soften out any hard edges. It takes some time to get used to, but you will be happy at how much better your meshes look in the end. ~Don