Texture Artists: Know Your Assets
Author of this post: Adam Capone | About Blog Authors »What is a game texture artist? The most basic answer to that is to say a texture artist’s job working for a game developer is to bring meshes created in 3D to life. The roles of a texture artist has expanded quite a bit in recent years since back in the early days of 3D graphics (Sony PlayStation 1 and Nintendo 64) texture artists were only really required to paint colours onto one single map which would wrap around a very simple 3Dmesh. The difference now is that meshes are far more complicated and require various other maps which in some cases require different tools from one another. I will provide a breakdown of how I generally work with regards to current technology.
Before I start here, feel free to reference my texture art blog, where every now and again I throw down a little something that is aimed towards helping others interested in looking to become a texture artist within the games industry.
On with the show!
Know Your Asset
First I will look at the mesh/concept art/reference photos I have been provided with and just brainstorm. Technically I need to start visualizing how the mapping will work (next section) and if my budget provided (number of maps and resolution) will be sufficient. Then if possible I like to add reference that could be helpful in coming up with details and throw them into a single folder for easy browsing. The less reference you have the more likely it is that your texturing will be cliche and unimaginative. Also reference doesn’t have to be just photos it can be other peoples textures that contain similar elements to what you’re going to need. This is easier if you’re working in a games studio but if not make sure to keep saving other peoples’ texture maps when you spot good ones in forums, portfolios or even modding communities.
Mapping
This is a crucial part of the texturing process. At its simplest you cut out pieces of the mesh and piece them back together in a way that avoids as much stretching and seams as possible. The amount of mapping required by the texture artist varies from studio to studio. In some it is expected that the texture artist maps from scratch where as in other studios the mesh artist will do the mapping and leave it for the texture artist to refine according to the requirements of the texture. In most cases its best to rough sketch the layout of your proposed texture map and make sure every piece is given as much density as possible by rearranging the pieces as tightly as your budget allows.
Light Bake
This is one of the initial maps that I or the mesh artist will make. Another name it can be given is ambient occlusion, the final result is a gray scale map used to add correctly placed shadows to your final texture. It has been used in the industry for a few years but not wasn’t used too much before Xbox360 and PS3 since the smaller map budgets didn’t really justify it since nice gradients require lots of pixels. This step isn’t too difficult once you get the hang of it and really just involves adding a specific light setup and rendering out a map which you will blend into your PSD.
And that’s certainly not all. Link in next week for Adam’s continuation!
