Oysterworld - Disguising polygons with hand painted textures

Published at Oysterworld blog
When it comes to creating textures for relatively low poly models in game, you have the freedom to fake detail when necessary. The idea is to create an illusion with your paint work and make it seem like the object you are creating a texture for has far more geometry and detail than it actually does in polygons. This is not far from Street Art Illusions where it tricks viewers in seeing a massive hole in the ground where there is just flat road.

Some artists seem to like following the edge of the polygons of their UVs when they paint their textures, this may be because it seems right to follow when you've modeled them purposely to be the edge of a material/object, but a few tricks can improve the shape and look of the object- especially if the surface they are on is relatively flat.

I've created a padlock with an unfinished texture to show you the difference it makes to cut corners (literally and not figuratively).

The freedom of this style is you can paint all the detail you want in spite of the geometry. When painting your texture, try your best to treat it as a painting, and not worry so much about the what geometry you have modeled. It will most likely turn out better than you expect.

Update

It's been a while since I last posted, many apologies if anyone has taken interest up to this point. I have since left XD Studios (friend's own start-up games company) to pursue a company near home, wishing them the best of luck.
RAM has been discontinued, and in the end the competition was called off. We however received some tickets to the BAFTAs as an apology.

I now work with a games company called Oysterworld. It's been the best experience I've had thus far in the games industry, and I can only dream that I will stay with them for a long time.

My spare time has been spent on other things which are not art related, so this blog will probably not receive updates more often than once a few months- I will of course post the projects I work on, when they release/get published. If I do have some personal art projects going I'll make sure to post them!

It has been my recent interest to live life to the fullest and with balance. I hope some time I can come back to this blog full of content to show.

First Windows App: RAM

I proudly present RAM. My first ever windows app released, working with team members of my friend's start-up XD Studios. It's a bit rough and not as polished as we'd hope but it was made in less than 3 months to enter a Microsoft competition.

http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/ram/a68b086a-5f11-434c-bb7e-77429c9e5e84

Art Tests Ep. 1

I have been looking for a job for a while now and most required an art test- which I will probably never put up on my portfolio site... but it will give you an idea of the standards they require. Two of these were for junior positions.

Mind Candy

I started working on this, and then suddenly the positon was taken away- not filled, just... disappeared. :(

King

I was very proud of this one, it got me into the interview, and even now I claim to have been accepted to a second. But no matter how many times I called they wouldn't give me a straight answer... not even a rejection, haha.

MiniClip

This is actually on my portfolio for a lack of similar type of vector art. Unfortunately I didn't fit the bill. But I guess my 2D work is lacking in comparison.

The Unfortunate Outcomes of Freelancing Ep. 1

I've decided to post some of my freelancing experiences, maybe to help warn newbies of the risks they will need to take and the inevitable side-effects of life. It's easy to catch out those who want to trick you into making something for free, but sometimes tragedy strikes and it is genuine (or just a really cruel lie).

When there is no contract involved, you always run the risk of not getting paid- no matter how trustworthy you think the client is. Something life-changing may happen to them that will stop a project suddenly, and is likely to stop them from paying your work's money.

The lack of a contract of course means you have every right to show your work, and use it as you please, so there is always a silver lining.

Bleed Girl

Really old, finally finished. It was inspired by the artist Bleedman.

Sculpt Study of David's Head WIP02

I know the lighting sucks... :(

Mage Pouch DIY

Did some DIY today, got me some leather and crafted a Mage Pouch. :)
http://gemmasuen.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d5qn5yc

Sculpt study of David WIP01

Joined a cool face study with some polycounters on G+, directed by +Joseph March :)
We're doing these bit by bit every session, progress can be found on this polycount thread.

Here's my first progress shot of David's head. More to come soon!

A rough monster I drew for Giles Ruscoe, he and I are concepting a monster for each other to sculpt in zbrush. :) follow up sculpts will be posted soon.

Here's Giles Ruscoe's sculpt of the derpy dog thing:

Victorian Bedroom- Further Progress

Took my bedroom scene from UDK and placed in Maya 2012, rendering with viewport 2.0. Lighting is SO. MUCH. BETTERRR.

A New Roof (WIP)

I've been trying something new with zbrush, making tilable textures and trying to reuse uv space. Overlapping UVs yes. Since I was actually taught not to do that >_>...

Quick Victorian Window concept

Victorian Bed Diffuse/Spec WIP

There really wasn't much to do in terms of the Diffuse Texture or Spec. A lot of the work was done from the normals and AO, even the SPEC brought it to life. All that's left is the aging process. Thought I'd post it looking brand new... also maybe a different bed cover, that looks quite boring!

Bed Normal/Ambient Occlusion maps baked

EDIT: I improved the shape, polycount and everything, also was too dull to realise marmoset wasn't using the AO. Hurp Derp. You can see the difference by comparing them:

---OLD--

Finally, I thought I'd never get this done. I spent a good few hours trying to bake the maps. Xnormal proved to be much faster, but for a few bits like the drapery, it didn't seem to recognize which side it was meant to bake. So then I had to open up Maya and painstakingly wait for the viewer to actually catch up. Anyhow, the diffuse is coming soon, I'm thrilled to have this complete.

Bed WIP

Been working on this for a little while, it doesn't help that I had trouble with baking parts of the map. I decided I'd do each part separately to prevent Maya from crashing! So on the left is what I'm doing in Zbrush at the moment, and on the right is a marmoset render showing off the finished bedposts.

It's a pain, because I made the mistake of using dynamesh and then turning it off which prevented me from going back in sub-divisions. It was also way too high poly even after I halved the polycount. So... lesson learned. ><

Room: lighting improvement

Had enough time to mess with the lighting a bit more, added a lighting importance mass, ambient occlusion to the level and some items like candles. I removed the chandelier because it really got in the way and didn't look pretty. Just not sure if the changes made much difference.

Dissonance: Room improvement

So I've been improving some items for the room, I'm still in the middle of it, here's a few screenshots. I've shrank it down because it was very big before.

(Boring) Cabinet model

I've improved this model more:

Then... altered the texture again.

Cabinet Model WIP

Today I was feeling a bit down, so my progress has been slow with this. I scrapped my old cabinet model because it was so bad and started again. Got some references too. It looks better (much better than my old one).

I'm pretty stuck on how I should alter the geometry on the feet of the legs... they take up 360 odd tris alone.