UV Maps:
Here are the final versions of my UV map layouts for materials. The papoose, footwear, drainage tube, and plant pot all share one map, the hair and plant have their own map to optimise how much of the mesh would have an alpha or back-face culling enabled.
Despite wanting to use as few individual materials as possible, I have ended up with 5, which is now 6 with the addition of the tools. If I'd merged some of the maps, I could've ended up with less, but I chose to prioritise sorting the types of material (i.e. skin, cloth, accessories). The tools could also be equipped or unequipped in-game so their separate map is just about justified.
Tools:
I utilised mainly smart materials to block out the textures for the tools, and changed the scale, texture and effect of masks as I saw fit to create the right level of wear, especially on the rubber secateurs handles and the wooden handle of the trowel.
Footwear:
I want the socks to look like plain white cotton socks, I used the knitted wool material and scaled it down as far as I could before the texture resolution failed to render the pattern, filled it white and made a few different layers to align the pattern in each so all the UV seams were hidden.
To create the base texture for the slippers, I used the baseball cap material and changed the colour to my preference. I made the stitching with the standard straight stitch brush after maxing out the length of the stitches so each were in kissing distance (making it all look machine stitched). As for the dirt, I used a brown-coloured fill layer a pre-set dirt smart mask and then grouped the layers. This was so I could mask out the dirt higher up the socks.
Gown:
After browsing my gown reference again, I constructed an alpha pattern that resembled the repeating motifs present in most of my collated images and split it into two pieces so I could make one half of it a different colour to the other without having to colour it manually. After a quick test on two different colour fill layers, I realised that the thin cross in the middle of the pattern were too fine for the texel density to display appealingly. I made the decision to remove that piece of the pattern and the motif is all the better for it and doesn't appear muddy or pixelated anymore.
Since I took the time to make sure the original flat UV layout of the retopologised gown was preserved after being deformed, I'm able to apply the pattern with UV projection and have absolutely no texture distortion.
To emphasise that her clothes are not practical for rugged out-door exploration, I want to add some frays to the hem of the gown. I decided to look through Substance Painter's alpha library to see if there were any pre-existing alphas I could repurpose. The 'drips' alphas felt like promising ones, but the 'drips high' was doubly useful because I could either paint in subtle fraying with one side of the alpha, and more aggressive tears with the other.
To finally add dirt staining to the gown, I copied the dirt layers I used for the footwear and masked it all in by hand. The areas I focused on were around the knees where would've knelt on to dig in soil, under the dirty blade of the trowel where it will have shuffled around and smeared soil on, and anywhere around the papoose straps where she may have touched it with soil-covered fingers.
Head and Hands:
 |
| Tired and Ill eye reference |
Above all other factors, I want this character to be visibly fatigued and subtly sickly, so it's more visually obvious that her body is clearly fighting an illness and not doing very well.
I started with a pale base colour layer and added some purple and pink discolouration layers with cloud texture masks.
I then added some redness/irritation around the eyes.
I applied the same discolouration and redness to the hands, particularly around the knuckles.
I added some freckles as well, but was sure to keep them subtle as she's not only quite pale but has been mainly inside and away from sun for a while. I also added some light skin creases around her eyes, nose and forehead, just so she looks more late 20's than early 20's.
To add some finer details to the hands, I used one of the marble pre-set textures as a mask for a height layer, which achieved pretty good effect of the tiny wrinkles visible on the hand. I also painted some veins on the back of her hands, her wrists and the inside of her elbow.
The final touch was to add an IV track mark. When fluid is filling your lungs you're going to become dehydrated quickly. After some research, I found that it's apparently standard to have an IV needle closer to your heart depending of the severity of one's condition, and usually ICU patients have their injected inside their elbow. I added mine in 3 layers to resemble my reference images: a red spot of irritation, the needle hole and some minor bruising around the injection site.
I've previously hand-drawn the webbed contracting fibres in the iris, but I felt determined to find a more efficient, more modular and less destructive way of generating them. I browsed the textures in Substance Painter and found a tiling fabric texture that I thought might work. I applied it as a spherically projected mask, changed the layer attribute to overlay and lowered the opacity. The the crucial step was to add a wrap filter.
I think this definitely works was a method and the best part is that I can change any factor of this effect non-destructively and without wasting time making hand-drawn alterations.
To add some fine blood vessels to the eyes I again used the fine marble cracks pre-set texture as a mask for a red base colour layer.
After finally starting to texture the eyes, I realised they were entirely too big to be at all realistic. So I proportionally scaled them and the eyelids down and re-imported the mesh into Substance Painter, and they look much more naturally sized.
 |
| Papoose Texture Reference |
Beginning with a muted blue base colour, I set about creating the iconic mesh surface of baby carriers and backpacks by using the 'Fabric Medieval Flower' alpha pre-set in Substance Painter as the mask for a height-fill layer (this alpha felt like the perfect one to use in creating the holes in this kind of fabric). I also applied a blur filter to make the holes softer.
Drainage Tube Last Touches:
 |
| Medical Drainage Tube Reference |
To flesh out the tube, I added some blue dyed lines down the its column as well as filling the ribbing on either side of the conduit. I've also finally chosen to add some labelling to the conduit's edge that reads 'Pulmonary Drainage'.
Hair:
To create a foundation for the hair cards to merge naturally with, I used the Substance 'hair lines dense' brush that comes with the software, enlarged the minimum brush size and set to combing in a hairline on the base-model.
Instead of attempting to texture the hair cards in Substance Painter, I chose to create each tress alpha in Photoshop as I had more control and more tools to create them. Once I completed each, I imported them as alphas and stencilled them on an opacity fill layer in Substance.
The final stage to the hair was to add some colour (to make the hair colour less uniform and more natural) and roughness (to make the hair look not quite clean) variation with a fill layer and a mask.
Plant:
To create the shape of the leaves, I imported one of my reference images of maidenhair fern into Photoshop and adjusted the histogram levels until it was a stark black and white outline. I then imported that image into Substance Painter as I did with the hair cards and used it as a stencil.
 |
| ^ alpha from reference ^ Applied as stencil ^Reference ^ Plant in Substance with alpha |
I drew in the stems by hand on their own layer and added some colour variations to the leaves as I previously did the hair.
Final Texturing Results:
I do wish that the texturing was more realistic overall, I'm worried that her textures look too bare in places like the papoose straps or areas of her face, hands and legs. I think it's definitely a solid attempt at realistic textures, but I think still I lack some of the the skills and experience in Substance Painter I need to fully achieve my goals with this character.
The footwear, gown and tools are more convincing since there was true to life reference, but I think that the skin, plant and hair should have been given just a bit more texture budget as well.
Overall, she is at least textured to a level that I'm minimally happy with, and I'm happy that she's been brought to life to any extent.
No comments:
Post a Comment