UV'ing and texturing of a Sci-Fi crate

This task was different to the others as the model was already made for us. The difference was that we were provided with a high poly model and a low poly model. The task being to bake the normal map of the high poly crate onto the low poly crate to make it appear as though it was a high poly crate.  The first part was organising the UV's. I looked at the presented method of laying them out and tried to mimic what I could see, there were a few exceptions though when I mapped it. 

I used X-normals and created an Ambient Occlusion map of the crate and also created a normal map of both of the meshes, it copied the high poly details onto a low poly UV map making it appear as though it was heavily detailed. As for the texture I used the AO map to aid me and overlayed multiple textures and altered them slightly with clone stamp and smudge. I used a variety of rusted metals, glass and even marble to create the desired effect. I reduced the saturation of the textures as though they were colorless and altered the layer modes to create the texture seen below. I was very pleased with the result. I wanted to add some decals to the crate to make it interested and went for some simple lines which i made sure were worn away using various eraser brushes. I also added dirt to the parts of the crate i felt would attract the most dirt and added some text to give the crate a purpose. I also added some graffiti in as though it had been sitting there unused for some time. 

  For the final Render I was really thrilled with the result. The marble texture I felt made it look cell shaded and the details on the crate were outlined. I tried adding more decals to the crate but felt it didn't enhance it in any way.

Spellbook Model and Texture

After my enjoyment of the crate I was assigned the task of modelling and texturing a spellbook. Modelling this was slightly trickier than the crate but still enjoyable. I had to create bends in the book to make it appear realistic and to keep it exciting to look at, as a flat book would be boring. The spine has curvature and the pages bend inwards slightly. As for texturing the book it went okay, i used a few textures and overlayed them to create the leather effect of the book whilst using the clone stamp tool to adjust these internet sourced images. I used different kinds of brushes to create the markings around the frame of the book whilst using a rather jagged eraser brush to take of random parts as if it had been worn away over time. For the wooden texture I hand painted the markings onto a photo source plain wooden material. I flipped the UV's on the wood so they do not appear identical. The pages were a few overlayed textures and playing around with the layer modes. I wanted gold pages to contrast with the cover. I found using a bright gold was too garish and nullified it. It made it look much better.  

 For the final render I was pleased with the result. I went for a simplistic look with the book, as in I had no text on the book rather an illustration. I embossed the illustration to make it stand out. As for the clamps I felt as though the book would not of been sealed with a button or a clip rather wooden clamps.

Week 1 - Crate Model and Texture.

For the first week of Texture Development, we were assigned the task of modelling and texturing a common game item - a crate. The modelling was easy as we discovered an effective method of extruding a single flat plane and then duplicating the plane to form the shape of a cube. Texturing was fun as a wood texture was something I implemented into my vending Machine from Intro to 3D last term. I felt what I lacked there was the knowledge to add effects to the layers and overlay the textures. I tried to do this with the crate and used 'drop shadow' and 'outer glow' to enhance aspects of the crate. I made the crate look worn as though the wood had started to weather. 

Here is the final render of my crate. I used two different crate textures for them, one of my crate textures was ever so slightly darker so it didn't look too repeated. I am very pleased with the outcome and learning this method to create an easy crate in Maya and how to make an effective wood texture.