[mtmckinley]

Texturing!

The goal is to take one (or more) of the provided models and texture AND light them to the best of your ability. They can be textured as if for games or using all the Sub-Surface-Scattering-bells-and-whistles your heart desires!

The guidelines:

1) This is a texturing and lighting challenge, so SOME kind of texturing must be done. Your textures are not limited, but if you'd like to go for game type work, feel free to limit yourself accordingly.

2) The models provided are BASE models. That means you are free to modify them if you wish. Some of the character models provided don't have eyes, for example. Feel free to add them. Also, several of them have some sort of UVs applied. Feel free to modify and edit them to suit your own needs.

3) The deadline is June 4th!

4) All work must be done by the artist submitting. You may submit one entry per model. So if you want to texture each and every model provided, you are free to do so and submit an entry for each one. Only one submission per model worked on though.

5) This one's important. If any of you decide that you really like the work you've done and want to include it in your portfolio, I must be credited for supplying the base model! This is just common courtesy and should be done even if the base models are heavily modified. I can be credited as Michael McKinley and you can link my name to my website (link in my sig).

6) There's no limit as to what software you can use to create your textures. From Photoshop to MS Paint, they're all applicable.

7) A finals thread will be created toward the end of the challenge. Finals should be posted there, with screens/renders of the final result along with a (watermarked if desired) image of the textures created.

If you have any questions, ask them here. Keep a look out for any addendums or additions to the guidelines as issues are brought up and answered.

Prize to be determined.

[mtmckinley]

Provided Models
-------------------------
http://www.mtmckinley.net/SimplyMaya/May/Cadbury.jpg
http://www.mtmckinley.net/SimplyMaya/May/Cadbury.obj

Sir Cadbury is a cartoon-style knight. Feel free to make him up to be cartoony or realistic or any style you'd like!

http://www.mtmckinley.net/SimplyMaya...artoon_Gun.jpg
http://www.mtmckinley.net/SimplyMaya...artoon_Gun.obj

A cartoonish, futuristic weapon. Feel free to make it as realistic as you'd like!

http://www.mtmckinley.net/SimplyMaya...wgirl_Head.jpg
http://www.mtmckinley.net/SimplyMaya...wgirl_Head.obj

The head from the Calamity Jane project of my second book. Unfortunately, I'm unable to provide the entire model.

http://www.mtmckinley.net/SimplyMaya/May/Patches.jpg
http://www.mtmckinley.net/SimplyMaya/May/Patches.obj

Patches is Sir Cadbury's trusty horse and also done up in his cartoony style. Again, make him realistic if you'd like to!

http://www.mtmckinley.net/SimplyMaya/May/tank.jpg
http://www.mtmckinley.net/SimplyMaya/May/tank.obj

A simple object can sometimes be the most challenging to texture. Here is a simple cylindrical shape. I'd like to see what you guys can do with it!

[mtmckinley]

You may need to right click the save links and "Save File As..." as sometimes when just left clicking them, they open up as text files.

[mtmckinley]

FYI:

If texturing for renders (not games) you don't have to try to fit an entire mesh's UVs onto one texture or anything. You can have a texture for the face, a texture for the eyes, a texture for the hands, etc if you wanted.

If texturing for game type stuff, that's when you want to try to fit as much as you can onto a single texture map. Typical game texture resolutions are:

1024x1024
512x512
256x256
128x128
etc.

Normal maps, spec maps, etc are all free to use. Feel free to zbrush the heck out of these things if you'd like.

[sandman300]

Sounds coool. Just so I Know.
1. What exactly is the object called tank.obj?
2. Can I mod the obj to use as Sub-D?
3. Is it OK to post a second thread over at SM?

[mtmckinley]

1. It was originally made to be a canister worn on someone's back, like a scuba tank.

2. If you want to, sure.

3. If you want to, sure. Just don't submit your entry or entries more than once.

[jocco]

Originally posted by sandman300 Sounds coool. Just so I Know. 2. Can I mod the obj to use as Sub-D?

Is this possible, cause there are some polygons that have more than 4 vertices ?

jocco

[Ave]

Lightwave 9 now supports Catmull-clark sub-d's which work with polly's that are greater than 4 vertices... otherwise you could always triple the offending polly's

[jocco]

That's right, but I only tried to use them once. I had some troubles with a SubD-UV map.

I still haven't findan anwser to that problem ...

Maybe you know ?

Here's a link tot the topic I started http://forum.simplylightwave.com/sho...&threadid=4915

[sandman300]

I've never used the Catmull-clark sub-d's, so I just modified the geometry. :blush:

[paintballfrog99]

Do I have to use UV maps for this?

[Warlock 279]

Paintballfrog, I can't say whether you have to use UV's or not, but worse case scenario, you just blow the model apart with an atlas map, and bake off your procedural textures. That being said tho...

I get the impression you're not comfortable with UV's?

If that's the case, this might be a good chance for you to dig into that a bit. I haven't opened any of these models and looked, but from the images, none look to be overly poly-intensive, and should work pretty well for practicing UV'ing.

I waited far longer than I should have before [still am really] learning to work with UV's, I just couldn't [un]wrap my head around them. :p [Wow, lame, sorry ]

In retrospect I really wish I'd have learned to UV straight outta the gate; back when I was making simple models with 500 polygons, that way I'd have learned to UV incrementally larger amounts of polygons as my models became more complex, rather than getting to a point where I had to use UV's and needed to unwrap 128,000 polygons, when I didn't really know how to unwrap 10. It left me feeling quite overwhelmed and a little sick at the notion. So I'd encourage you to give UV's a go here.

[paintballfrog99]

Yeah, never really used UV's before, and I am trying them here. So far half is UV's, and the other half is procedurals.
Also my other problem is that I don't have any programs like photoshop that I could make the images for the UV's in.

[Warlock 279]

"I don't have any programs like photoshop that I could make the images for the UV's in."

Give GIMP a try, I've been using it for better than a year now, its not PS, but its not that far from it really, and it can get the job done.

http://www.gimp.org/

There are a few other open-source paint/image editing programs out there. I think Project DogWaffle has a lite/free version as well.

Glad to see you are trying UV's tho. :beer:

[paintballfrog99]

I'll try gimp then. and I think I am getting how to make the uv's better now, so I'll hopefully be starting a thread soon.