How to texture!

Well it came across as i was crolling through my blog that i havent actually said how i create textures or the process i go through to create them, so i thought this bank holiday would be the oppotunity to go through it. So, i will be doing it through a chair Alec modelled for polished off, well the first thing i do is to create the UVs so i can then put them in Photoshop to paint, but in order to get the textures looking good i need to think what will be seen most in the film and what needs the most space in the uv editor.

In this case i decided to make everything have the same amount of space, i also thought carefully about where the seams would be for the object as it will have its back to the wall the seams are at the bottom/back of the cushion and this is the same for the metal as well. Now, if this chair was for a game most would bake an occlusion on to the texture as some game engines wont allow for this as it takes up to many processes, this can me done through the rendering settings and would be put in photoshop over the texture you have created. Below is the uv work i did within maya, i decided to have metal on one side and fabric on the other as it will be easier to handle within photoshop and tweak.

I then use a jpeg of coloured squares and numbers, this jpeg allows me to see if there is any stretching occuring on the object or if anything looks abnormal, i am satisfied with what i see and save the UVs as a jpeg ready for photoshop.

Once in photoshop i always lay down a basic colour in this case a grey for the metal and a navy blue for the fabric, by doing this it is easy to adjust these base colours instead of changing each layer you have created, saving me time and effort. Once i am happy with this i can start adding details.

The details for this object are pretty simple i wanted the metal to have some detail but not overpowering as it is an object in the background so i went for a sort of stainless steel look. In order to do this i created a new layer and used the filter add noise, i then motion blurred this which gave the effect of lines going through my basic colour, i then changed the brightness/contrast. For the fabric i used a texture i already have in my libary, however i think it still needs tweaking as i am not satisfied with it at the moment.

Once this is done it is time to start thinking about other attributes of these materials, for the fabric it will have a bump map to create holes withing the fabric and other areas pushing out, whilst the metal will have some subtle scratches. I also create a spec and reflection texture map, i put these different attributes in groups within photoshop so the file is easy for me to access instead of tweaking individual files it is all there in one file. I then put these files into the shader within maya and then tweak the settings within maya and tweak the textures in photoshop until i am happy with it, i then send it to Edgley to see to get his seal of approval and then goes to Grigsby to light link and make even more beautiful the the default render below.