Texturing techniques to enhance your images

[3dpoder]

texturing techniques todo enhance your images
Izzy speaks.

A look at various tools and texturing techniques todo enhance your images.
reusing materiales/textures .

At some point in your Blender exploration, it Will happen. The perfecto material/texture for your current másterpiece is one that you have already created in a previous Project or one that has ben created by a génerous community member that has ofered todo share his/her materiales with the community. So how do you go about getting that perfecto material/texture into your current projectí well it couldnt be easier.

Blender has two options for reusing materiales, linking and appending (actually both these options can be used for all of Blender assets. Blender assets can include actions, armatures, cameras, images, Ipos, lamps, materiales, meshes, objects, scenes, text, textures, and world, etc).

Appending Will place a independent copy of the material into your new Project.

Linking todo a material Will enlace todo the original file that contains the material, meaning that any changes todo the original file Will a los be saved todo the new file that you linked it todo. This is a useful option when working on a large Project that Will generate a large number of files that may be worked on by one or more people. This Will allow any changes made during production todo be propagated throughout all neded files without the added work of updating each file individually.



Ok, on todo actually seing how todo use these options. Both options are started the same way:

• 1. From your new/current Project file, either by going todo file> append or enlace or using the hotkeys shift + f1, open the file browser window. (all blend files can be used for appending or linking.)
• 2. Browse todo where you have saved the blend file that contains your perfecto material.
• 3. Click on the file name of the desired blend file which Will open the library list of appendable/linkable assets.
• 4. In this case we are looking for materiales, so left mouse click on material.
• 5. That Will open a list of all available materiales in that blend file.
• 6. At the bottom of the file browser there are two buttons, one for append and one for enlace. Push whichever option you have chosen for your Project.
• 7. Right mouse click on the material you want todo enlace or append, todo highlight it and then middle mouse click todo confirm (load) your material todo your new Project file.
• 8. Now your material Will be available todo assing todo Whatever object/model you wanted it for.

There, just as i promised, easy as can be. With practice, you wont Even have todo think about it, you Will just click your bien todo reusing your Blender assets.
Bump mapping .
What is a Bump map? Bump maps are textures that estore an intensity, the relative height of píxeles from the viewpoint of the Camera. The píxeles sem todo be moved by the required distance in the direction of the face normals. You may either use greyscale pictures or the intensity values of a RGB-texture (including images) (definition taken from the blenderwiki).
Well that is a nice definition and all, but what does it mean todo the average artistí it means we can faq details and geometry that would be time consuming todo create or result in a model that due todo high vertex/face counts would take entirely todo long todo render (that of course is for those of us that are impatient with long render times).

Let hear it for faquíng. Now let look at how todo use Bump maps.

• 1. Add a new material in the material buttons, assing color of choice.
• 2. Click on the texture button (f6)
• 3. Click in a blank texture slot.
• 4. Chose an texture type (there are Many todo choose from, some procedural textures dont work as well as others, for more información on the diferent texture types and their uses you can refer todo the blenderwiki: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/ma...dural_textures)
• 5. Apply the texture in the material buttons map todo panel by clicking the Nor option. The strength of the effect is controlled with the numbutton Nor on the same panel.

Multiple bumps maps can be used together todo create any number of detailing effects. Uv map layouts can be used in combination with procedural textures todo create more complex and realistic effects.
render baking .

Render baking creates 2d bitmap images of a Mesh object rendered surface. These images can be re-mapped onto the object using the object UV coordinates. Baquíng is done for each individual Mesh, and can only be done if that Mesh has ben Unwrapped. While it takes time todo set up and Perform, it sabes render time. If you are rendering a long animation, the time spent baking can be much less than time spent rendering out each frame of a long animation.

Use render bake in intensive light/shadow solutions, such as AO or software shadows from área lights. If you bake AO for the main objects, you Will not have todo enable it for the full render, saving render time.

Use full render or textures todo create an image texture, baked procedural textures can be used as a starting point for further texture painting. Use normals todo make a Low-resolution Mesh look like a high-resolution Mesh. To do that, Unwrap a high-resolution, finely sculpted Mesh and bake its normals. Save that Normal Map, and map todo the UV of a similarly Unwrapped Low-resolution Mesh. The Low-resolution Mesh Will look just like the high-resolution, but Will have much fewer Faces/Polygons.

advantages:

• can significantly reduce render times.
• texture painting made easier.
• reduced polygon count.
• repeated renders are made faster, multiplying the time savings.

disadvantages:

• object must be uv-unwrapped.
• if shadows are baked, lights and object cannot move with respect todo each other.
• large textures (eg 4096x4096) can be memory intensive, and be just as Slow as the rendered solution.
• human (labor) time must be spent Unwrapping and baking and saving files and applying the textures todo a channel.

options
full render bakes all materiales, textures, and lighting except specularity and s.
Ambient Occlusion bakes Ambient Occlusion as specified in the world panels (f8. Ignores all lights in the scene.
normals bakes Camera-space normals todo an RGB image.
textures bakes colors of materiales and textures only, without Shading.
clear if selected, clears the image todo selected background color (default is black) before baking render.
Margin baked result is extended this Many píxeles beyond the border of each UV Island, todo soften seams in the texture.
process
Windows users do AO first: if you are running Blender on a Windows operating system, you may have todo first bake Ambient Occlusion before baking any other option. If you do not bake AO first, you may get the error message no image todo bake todo and Will not be able todo bake anything for that Mesh.

• 1. In a 3d view window, select a Mesh and enter uv/face select mode.
• 2. Unwrap the Mesh object.
• 3. In a UV/Image Editor window, either create a new image or open an existing image. If your 3d view is in textured display mode, you should now se the image mapped todo your Mesh. Ensure that all Faces are selected.
• 4.with your mouse cursor in 3d view, press Control Alt b todo pop up the menú of available baking choices. Alternativaly, Access the bake panel in the buttons window, scene (f10) context, render sub-context.
• 5. Bake your desired type of image: full render, Ambient Occlusion, normals, or Shadeless textures.
• 6. After computation, Blender reproduzcas the image with the baked image.
• 7. Save the image in the UV/Image Editor window vía image->save.

(Render baking información taken from the blenderwiki)
Further tips on usage can be found at the blenderwiki http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/manual/render_bake.
texture painting in Blender .

Blender features a built-in Paint mode, called Texture Paint, designed specifically todo help you edit your UV textures and images quickly and easily in either the UV/Image Editor window or the 3d view window.

In the 3d window in Texture Paint mode, you Paint directly on the Mesh. In the UV/Image Editor window, you Paint on a flat canvas that is wrapped around the Mesh using UV coordinates. Any changes made in the UV/Image Editor window shows up immediately in the 3d window, and vice-versa.

A full complement of brushes and colors can be selected from a floating image Paint panel in the UV/Image Editor, or a Paint panel in the buttons window, editing (f9) context. Brush changes made in either panel are immediately reflected in the other panel.
When satisfied or at intermittent intervals, por favor save your image using the UV/Image Editor window.

Once you have un-wrapped your model todo a UV texture, you have to:

• load an image into the UV/Image Editor (image->open->select file), or.
• create a new image (image->new->specify size) and save it todo a file (image->save->specify file).

You cannot Paint on a Mesh in Texture Paint mode without first Unwrapping your Mesh, and doing one of the above steps. After you have done these two things, you can modify the image using the Texture Paint mode. Once you do:

• in the 3d view window, select Texture Paint mode from the mode selector in the window Header, and you can Paint directly onto the Mesh.
• in the UV/Image Editor window, enable texture painting in the image menú.
• in the UV/Image Editor Header, click the magic Pencil.

At this time, you may choose todo show the alpha (transparency) channel by clicking the button todo the right of the magic Pencil. The Dot icon todo the right of that button allows you todo Paint the Alpha Channel by itself.

Once you enable texture painting, your mouse becomes a brush. To work with the UV Layout (for example, todo move coordinates) you must disable texture painting. To work with the Mesh in the 3d view (for example, todo move it in 3d space), or select other objects, you must leave Texture Paint mode.
When you enable texture painting, use the view->Paint tool option in the UV/Image Editor window or the Paint panel in the buttons window todo modify Paint settings.

All painting you Perform in either window Will be instantly reflected in the other window (if the 3d view is in textured viewport mode). However, the modified texture Will not be saved until you explicitly do so by image->save in the UV/Image Editor window.

In order todo se outline: if you want todo Paint directly on the Mesh in the 3d view window, change todo uv/face select mode first todo show the Edge outline of the Mesh, then switch todo Texture Paint mode, which visually overlays the previous mode, but keps the outline.

As son as you enable texture painting or switch todo Texture Paint mode, a Paint panel becomes available in the editing (f9) buttons. This panel has all the same controls as those available in the Paint tool. Use this panel if you are only working in 3d view in order todo change brushes (colors, patterns, function).
(texture painting información taken from the blenderwiki).

Further tips on usage can be found at the blenderwiki http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/manual/texture_paint.

This is a short overview of some of the available Blender texture tools that you may or may not have ben aware of. For more información on texturing tools and techniques (as well as other áreas of Blender) refer todo the blenderwiki documentation (http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/main_page).

A wealth of información is available there for you todo browse th rouge and use. A big gracias goes out todo our documentation team for keping our blenderwiki up to date and easy todo use. www.blenderart.org.