I use blender to make my models sense I dont have 3d max and I have no idea how to obtain it for under $3500
anyways. Im seeing some really advanced texturing on some models especially some on the Unreal marketplace projects.
It seems that models are very very simple and thw textures are doing 80% of the work.
Like super complex. …like textures were designed SPECIFICALLY for the model shape and UV.
Where are these textures being created?? A gimp or Photoshop program??
I would like to learn about all of this…if anyone knows where I could look or some good turorials on what im trying to say.
After UV Mapping your low poly model theres several thing you can do, from using photoshop or gimp to paint textures on your UV maps. You could bake your hi poly details to your low poly, not sure if blender does this but xnormnal is awesome fore this. It makes very nice maps. Theres also idie tools like substance or things low level price line like z brush. where you can do all your high poly in this and use it to make Low poly versions of your sculpting. Theres tons of solution. look up, xnormal first.
It has been said about 3d modeling you can save a bad model by having a good texture but a bad texture can’t save a good model.
The first thing I would suggest if you are wanting to understand the power of materials better is to watch our video series on Materials on YouTube.
There are several steps to creating our textures depending on what we’re trying to achieve with the models or material in question.
The basics would be as follows:
If we’re using a mesh that needs specific UVs to lay those out and organize them,
Create our base textures for diffuse using Photoshop or equivalent image editing software
importing and creating a material that will utilize this texture in UE4
using UE4 to augment and achieve the look and feel we need.
This is the basics. There are some more steps inbetween that you could do to better display your texture or other maps but again this is the basics.
There is also Normal mapping that Shoiko mentioned. This is great for creating depth to an image without the need for extra polygons. Our Brick and Rock materials are great examples of this. In the brick walls you can see the grout looks inset compared to the brick. This is due to the Normal Map.
If you watch the materials videos above you will learn a lot of key concepts, tips and tricks that will allow you to get the most out of your models and textures!
Good luck and if you have any questions feel free to ask!
Thank you Tim! Ive worked with normals and even displacement maps. Speculars and etc. My thing is the very advanced UV layouts I see. Like your scifi hallway…im still.mindblown…I see that quixel was used but im guessing its still not available…do I need a program like that to achieve that sort of look?? I use blender for some.models and I use gimp but ive never drawn anything on a model bc I dunno how to lay it on the UV. …is that where quixel comes in or do I still have other things I need to learn??
The Quixel demo is just that, it’s a demo of what can be achieved with their amazing software suite! I’ve personally used at home for some simple projects and to test it out. I’ve only used DDO quite a bit, while I’ve not used NDO as much but it’s a great tool.
While I have used their software, I still prefer to use Photoshop for doing my own textures completely. Quixel’s software is great to get a textured scene pretty quickly though. There are a lot of settings that you can tweak and use within their settings that update the Photoshop texture immediately! It’s got more features than I’ve had time to look at and really delve into to start getting the feel I want from my textures.
I didn’t realize until after typing this that you were using Gimp but this isn’t supported with Gimp since Quixel uses Photoshops scripting language for making alterations to the textures.
To answer your last question: Do you need to know how to UV?
Yes! This is a requirement as you’ll have to lay out your UV texture correctly to start using Gimp or any image editing software to paint on your model. Quixel just uses a rapid way and scripting to apply simple tweaks to the entirety of the texture UV for the model. Watching the videos, even the short one that I linked first will give you an idea of how Quixel paints textures and from this you can see the importance of good UVs from their video and images.
I also found these tutorials on using blender that walk you through UVs and texturing for Blender!
You may also be seeing the effects of using ZBrush, which allows you to “paint geometry” that then comes out in displacement/normal maps. Also, the higher versions of Photoshop lets you paint straight onto a 3D model.
Also, good UV mapping coordinates is a skill, and takes some time – it’s not automatic! Although there are various tools that help in various packages. 3ds Max has a robust set of “peel” and “pelt” tools that can work, as well as a few automatic maps (flatten map, unwrap map, etc) to get you started. I don’t know what Blender has, but given that it’s Python and open for hackers, I’d be highly surprised if there weren’t at least some scripts to get you started.
Excellent. Thank you very much. I saw that it was available to buy and I wasnt sure if I could use the textures they have and import them straight into unreal…can I???
I do know how to UV on a mediocre level…I just didnt know how to get my UV map to another program. I honestly woild just love to get my hands on those 8k textures. …and figure out a way to get things looking nice.
I was thinking about buting a graphic tablet that comes with photoshop…maybe all these things together cpuld flesh out my modeling. …
Using the textures from Quixel through Photoshop is no different than making a texture to apply in Gimp. The only difference is how Quixel makes it. It will export from Photoshop the same. It will save as the image type you specify and then in UE4 you can apply those textures to a Material that you can modify further.
As for tablets. I’ve got an Wacom Intuos4 at home. I got a decent deal on Ebay for a used one. It take a bit of time using a tablet and looking at your screen rather than where you’re hand is drawing. It’s well worth it with the DPI settings of sensitivity and getting a good look and feel on your textures!
Good luck and if you have any other questions feel free to post on the forums or here on the AnswerHub!
