First attempt to create a shader that looks like rough 2D sketches.
I will definitely put more effort on this in the future.
I'm pretty much combining three different pen strokes.
look-dev
First attempt to create a shader that looks like rough 2D sketches.
I will definitely put more effort on this in the future.
I'm pretty much combining three different pen strokes.
I've been using Isotropix Clarisse in production for a little while now. Recently the VFX Facility where I work announced the usage of Clarisse as primary Look-Dev and Lighting tool, so I decided to start talking about this powerful raytracer on my blog.
Today I'm writing about how to set-up Image Based Lighting.
A few days ago I did my first tests in Colorway. My idea is to use Colorway as texturing and look-development tool for VFX projects.
I think it can be a really powerful and artist friendly software to work on different type of assets.
It is also a great tool to present individual assets, because you can do quick and simple post-processing tasks like color correction, lens effects, etc. And of course Colorway allows you to create different variations of the same asset in no time.
With this second test I wanted to create an entire asset for VFX, make different variations and put everything together in a dailies template or similar to showcase the work.
At the end of the day I'm quite happy with the result and workflow combining Modo, Mari and Colorway. I found some limitations but I truly believe that Colorway will fit soon my needs as Texture Painter and Look-Dev Artist.
Transferring textures
One of the limitations that I found as Texture Painter is that Colorway doesn't manage UDIMs yet. I textured this character time ago at home using Mari following VFX standards and of course, I'm using UDIMs, actually something around 50 4k UDIMs.
I had to create a new UV Mapping using the 1001 UDIM only. In order to keep enough texture resolution I divided the asset in different parts. Head, both arms, both legs, pelvis and torso.
Then using the great "transfer" tool in Mari, I baked the high resolution textures based on UDIMs on to the low resolution UVs based on one single UV space. I created one 8k resolution texture for each part of the asset. I'm using only 3 texture channels, Color, Specular and Bump.
My lighting setup in Modo couldn't be more simple. I'm just using an Equirectangular HDRI map of Beverly Hills. This image is actually shipped with Modo.
Image Based Lighting works great in Modo and is also very easy to mix different IBLs in the same scene. Just works great.
Shading wise is also quite simple. Just one shading layer with Color, Specular and Bump maps connected. I'm using one shader for each part of the asset.
The render takes only around 3 minutes on my tiny MacBook Air.
Rendering for Colorway takes more than that but obviously you will save a lot of time later.
Once in Colorway I can easily play with colours and textures. I created a color texture variation in Mari and now in Colorway I can plug it and see the shading changes in no time.
Finally I created a couple of color variations for this asset.
Notes
A couple of things that I noticed while working on this asset:
A few days ago (or weeks) The Foundry released their latest cool product called "Colorway", and they did it for free.
Colorway is a product created to help designers with their work flow specially when dealing with color changes, texture updates, lighting, etc. Looks in general.
This software allow us to change those small thing once the render is done. We can do it in real time without waiting long hours for rendering again. We can change different things related with shading and lighting.
This is obviously quite an advantage when we are dealing with clients and they ask us for small changes related with color, saturation, brightness, etc. We don't need to render again anymore, just use Colorway to make those changes live in no time.
Even the clients can change some stuff and send us back a file with their changes.
Great idea, great product.
I'm not a designer, I'm a vfx artist doing mainly textures and look-development, and even if Colorway wasn't designed for vfx, it can be potentially be used in the vfx industry, at least for some tasks.
There are a few things that I'd like to have inside Colorway in order to be a more productive texturing&look-dev tool, but so far it can be used in some ways to create different versions of the same asset.
To test Colorway I used my model of War Machine.
A few things that I'd like to see in Colorway in future versions in order to have more control and power for look-dev tasks.
UDIM workflow has been around for the last 10 years or so. It became more popular when Mari came out and these days it’s being used by everyone in the vfx industry.
In this blog you can find different ways to setup UDIMs in different software and render engines.
With Modo 801 has never been so easy, fast and great!
With just one click you are ready to go!
Another quick entry with my tips&tricks for Modo.
This time I’m going to write about setting up Mudbox’s vector displacements in Modo.
Another of those steps that I need to do when I’m working on any kind of vfx project and I consider “a must”.
This is how I set up my Zbrush displacements in Modo.
You know I’m migrating to Modo.
Multi UDIM workflow is on my daily basis tasks, so this is how I do the setup.
I did a simple and quick texture breakdown for an human arm.
These are the textures that I usually create when I need to texture digital doubles for films or any kind of humanoid character.
These are the most basic textures used.
Usually working on movies we need more additional textures depending on render engines, other pipeline tools or artistic decisions.
But as I said, take this example as a base or starting point for your work.
These are quick renders using a neutral lighting rig for look-dev.
Diffuse textures.
Overall textures.
Scatter textures.
Displacement textures.
Fine displacement textures.
Specular textures.
It is always a bit tricky to set up Zbrush displacements in the different render engines.
If you recently moved from Mental Ray or another engine to V-Ray for Maya, maybe you should know a few things about displacement maps extracted from Zbrush.
I wrote down here a simple example of my workflow dealing with that kind of maps and V-Ray.
Just testing Vray’s SSS shader for realistic skin look-dev purposes.
I ended with the theory that would be quite simple to set-up a nice, realistic and cheap SSS shader for human and creature assets. I love the raytraced solid scatter, but with complex models I can’t get rid of some of the artifacts in the SSS channel.
I will post more quite soon.
These are the key points of an introduction lecture which I gave about texturing for VFX film projects.
We used different assets on the class but this is the only one which is not copyrighted and I can show here.
I created this asset specifically for this course.
Summary
- Check the model.
- Render a checker scene.
- Decide about the quality needed for the textures. Is it a hero asset?
- UV mapping.
- Organization methods.
- How many UDIM’s?
- Photo Shoot.
- What kind of lighting do I need?
- Accessories. (Color checkers, tripod, polarized filters, angular base, etc).
- Bakes. (dirt maps, dust maps, UVs, etc).
- Grading reference images. Create presets.
- Clean reference images for projections.
- Create cameras and guides in Maya/Softimage for projections.
- Adapt graded and cleaned reference images for projection guides.
- Project in 3D software or Mari. (Mari should be faster).
- Work on the projections inside Mari. (We can use Photoshop, Mari or both of them. Even Nuke).
- Create a 16 bits sRGB colour textures.
- Test colour channel in the light rig.
- Create a 16 bits gray scale specular textures.
- Create a 16 bits gray scale bump textures.
- Create a 16 bits gray scale displacement textures.
- Create a 8 bits gray scale ISO textures.
- Look-Dev blocking.
- Import the light rig.
- Create a basic pass.
- Checker render (matte).
- Checker render (reflective).
- Create clusters.
- Block materials.
- Look-Dev primary.
- Set up diffuse.
- Set up specular and reflections.
- Balance materials.
- Look-Dev secondary.
- Set up bump.
- Set up displacement.
- Rebalance materials.
- Set up ISO’s.
- Look-Dev refinement.
- Rebalance materials if needed.
- Create material libraries.
- Render turntables.
Here some assets which belong to my Texturing and Look-dev course, available soon.
I’m starting a new work with V-Ray 2.0 for Maya. I never worked before with this render engine, so first things first.
One of my first things is create a nice neutral light rig for testing shaders and textures. Setting up linear workflow is one of my priorities at this point.
Find below a quick way to set up this.
A walk through video about setting up linear workflow in Softimage, audio only in Spanish but it’s quite simple to follow watching the movie.
Recently I was involved in a master class about texturing and shading for animation movies, and as promised I’m posting here the technical way to set-up different UV sets inside Softimage.
Super simple process and really efficent methodology.
SSS is a very nice shader which works really great with a good lighting setup, but sometimes is so expensive shader when you´re using Mental Ray.
Find below a couple of tecniques to deal better with SSS. Just keep in mind that those tricks could improve your render times a bit, but never will reach the same quality than using SSS for itself.
Yes I know, working with normal maps in Softimage is a bit weird sometimes, specially if you worked before with 3D Max normal+bump preset.
I’ve been using the same method over the years and suited fine for me, maybe would be useful also for you.
I prefer to generate the normal maps inside Softimage rather than Mudbox or Zbrush, usually works much better according to my tests with different assets.
- The most important options are:
- Use a normal map node connected to the bump map input of the shader.