Suggestions 3ds to Photoshop Texturing.

[Kaioni Lyric]

Hi everyone,

I have a simple skybox model, I added some textures and Vray lights to my scene and know how to "render to texture" but what should I do to get the shadows and lighting onto my textures perfectly? Any suggestions would help me greatly! 

[Flapman]

Hi,

 

You are using 3DS Max right?   It has been awhile since I have used it since I am currently using Maya. I am ssuming you have already done your UV mapping for the skybox right? I do remember that part of your baking process (render to texture) in 3DSMax allows you to bake your light, shadow and ambient occlusion directly onto your texture.   I personally preferred to render to texture separately and then import to a master PSD file in Photoshop.  This method allows you to get more realist effects with your blending and layers than you can in Max.

I hope that helps.

 

~A

 

[Kaioni Lyric]

Hi Flapman,

Yes, I'm referring to 3ds max and that's the process I go through as well. But usually i'm working with a vray mtl light texture making the vray light useless and I Unwrap my Uvw, render to texture my target map slot is usually light color, save and go to photoshop.   

 

However with my skybox I added a standard bitmap texture and unwrap say the floor and render to texture, I get a different set of target map settings and don't really know which one works the best. I've tried ambient color and diffuse but they make the texture really ugly.

[Kaioni Lyric]

Also this is my scene, A couple plane vray lights i used as portal lights and a vray sun.

[Flapman]

Hi,

 

Sorry it took awhile to respond.   Seems like you are doing everything the right way.   I would however, look at doing a larger texture file so you can get better resolution.  You could UV map several of the smaller objects in your scene to one color/diffuse and one normal map.  A 1024 would suffice but I recommend rendering or baking your map at 2048 then reducing them to 1024 in Photoshop.  This way you can fine tune and add detail before you create you finshed maps.  

As far as the washed out look, that can be handled in several ways.   

1.) Add an AO occlusion map and set that as a multiply layer on your color map.  Beleive it or not that looks so much better than baking on shadows (which you can still do but bake that separately and experiment as a layer in PS).

2) Unless you are going for a specific look in your scene (with shadows in a certain place), you can use shadow maps afixed to planes under your objects in SL).  You may already know this.

3) Always render your maps separately then combin in Photshop (eg. Diffuse, Normal, AO, Shadow, Light, Specular).  I do the same using Turtle in Maya and it always looks better.  I have to admit though lately I have been lazy and have just mapped materials to faces and then texture them in SL.   I need to get my butt back to baking on the AO and Shadows.

My workflow always includes these steps (and forgive me if you already do this).

1)  Model using a reference image or diagram in meters or centimeters.  Set up lights for shadow and AO effects.

2) UV Map each individual object in scene.  I try to include 8 materials mapped to the specific face areas if I want to give the user the ability to modify my object later.

3) Bake on textures :  diffuse, normal, specular, ambien occlusion shadow and full beauty pass for reference only (looks better when handled in PS).

4) Import into SL.  Now you could also download Unity 3D and use that as a way to prototype your scene before you spend Lindens to import your objects into SL.  Or you could just render in Max.

Anyways, I am not sure if I helped but hopefully yes.

A