Cineversity

Greetings,

I’m getting back into 3D modeling, texturing and animation after a 10 year break.  Would anybody be able to direct me to a great texturing intro video?

Thanks for your time.

Jon

Hi Jon,

You write that you start working again with these tools. So a refresher is perhaps all you need.

From my point of view texturing is based on these main areas:

-texture capturing/texture painting
-projection methods/UV texturing
-shaders
-resolution check (scene based)

(The main change, considering a decade, is the use of “linear light” instead of a gamma based pipeline. This has many advantages. The key is certainly to have textures which have this kind of linearity, or are pure gamma and profiled as such. No crushed blacks or clipped whites as well. The worse scenario, from my point of view, is to have textures treaded like photos with all kind of post processing applied to, like a standard S-curve to make them look better (which ruins it for high end use), for example. I will make this clear in an a series which will be soon published. Textures are the result of reproduction-photography, with all the precision of it. The typical DSLR enhancement stuff, or “post-traumatization” ;o) of the material has to be avoided)

To have a quick overview, you might check these
http://www.cineversity.com/vidplaytut/getting_started_with_cinema_4d_part_17

I have done a referenced based series about all projection-methods, a long time ago…

However, Cineversity has a powerful search management, see images. A key step to do is to klick on “show all” (other wise the folliwng results are based on only newer tutorials), then go to the filter options and click one time on the sub-area you like to explore.
Example, click “show all”, then twirl open (for example “Processes” and in the sub categories on “Material/Textures”.
If you like, you might select more subcategories in other filters additionally.

Let me know if you have any questions.

All the best

Sassi

Hello Sassi,

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply and send me links to tutorial videos.  That is greatly appreciated.

You’re welcome, Jon. I hope these tutorials bring back the memory and you are quickly back into your routine. As I assume you know already a lot, most general informations might have too little specific information for your needs, hence the idea of the forum here. If there is anything, just ask.

Enjoy

Sassi

Sassi,

Thanks again for the link on creating materials.  I’m currently attempting to place a .pdf file onto a model.  Specifically a beer label onto a beer bottle that already has a glass material applied.  I’m noticing that placing a graphic texture onto a model is handled differently then simply applying a material.  Does Cineversity have a tutorial that could help with that?

Hey Jon,

A label or decal is a standard to do in production. To find something, please place the term “Label” in the search field (Cineversity). :o)

Perhaps more luck in the Help Content of R15 will be given with the term “decal” instead of label.

There are two ways to add a label to a bottle, directly or on a specific cylindrical object. The label directly on the bottle will show very flat, like printed on the glass—if not handled with bump or displacement.
The Cylinder around the bottle in the label area might speed up the work and helps even in some cases, if the bottle had no proper UV set up so far. The Cylinder is ver tight around the bottle, but not as close to intersect, and has typically the same resolution (mesh)—to have no intersections.

A decal/label is typically delivered with a new material, and the texture tag is set to front and “Tiling” is disabled. For a bottle cylindrical projection is certainly a good start. The Offset and Length values will help, as does the Texture Axis tool. (If the Cylinder object is used, this can be rotated or moved, which many people prefer. (The cylinder object needs to be (1. material) invisible/transparent, no spec or other channels on, then (2 Material contain the label, with no tile etc)
The top layer of such an texture sandwich is always the most right sided one. There is more in the Help Content about this.

Sometimes an “Alpha” channel needs to be fed, to get the label nicely projected. Print version (pdf again!) have often more print area than needed, to follow the needs of the print office. Nothing that your client likes to see. I will leave my “two cents” about PDFs later, but the alpha channel handling will perhaps already change your mind.

Many labels have not a perfect connection to the bottle, these little imperfections needs to be addressed. With the cylindrical object via Magnet on the mesh directly, or via bump/displacement.

A word to PDF: yes it is possible, but I do not advice that, except you know what the pdf contains. Nearly twenty years ago when Adobe got the idea to use the postscript format that was send to laser printers as the world unique language, and re-translated it to virtual prints (PDF): a world standard was born. More than often PDFs contain informations that will not help your work, perhaps it works even against you. Since ten+ years PDF can contain even multi media and 3D data. Nothing that makes your workflow more safe. Again, if you know it is just a wrapper for an image, you might have no trouble. I do not use PDF at any time in production. I trust on standard graphic formats. Tiff is certainly the most stable format I’m aware off. It is large, so I tent to use Open EXR. Photoshop if layers are needed. Other people love other formats, which is a longer story and should fit to everyones workflow of course.

The handling of color profiles in an 3rd party PDF is not simple. Etc.etc. Just my two cents.

Good luck

Sassi

Hey Sassi,

Thanks again, your reply was very helpful.

You’re welcome, Jon. :o)

My best wishes for the project

Sassi