Course Overview

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  Justin Holt

  Currently Justin is the lead texture painter at Image Engine Design Inc. in Vancouver BC working on Neill Blomkamp's highly antic...

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• What you'll learn

  
  

   

  You'll delve into detailed Mari texturing on a model provided by Justin. You will develop film quality textures, colour palettes, and begin a texture library. You'll develop and paint colour, bump, displacement, specular, reflection and wet maps.

  Justin will also give you his personal tips on how to paint areas like eyes and believable skin. By the end of the course, you'll have a finished painted model ready for film production!

   

• Week by week outline

  
  

   

  WEEK 1

  Introduction

  - Discussion on the elements to becoming a successful texture painter in the feature film industry. Observation, reference collection and resourcefulness.

  - Study the asset and begin to develop ideas for textures, necessary to go as far as to developing a back story and history for this character. The more details and parameters we have for any asset, the better we can decide what needs to be folded into the asset to bring it to life and add believability.

  - Developing color palettes and texture concepts for the asset. Typically in production all of this is provided to you by the art dept but here we have the opportunity to define these ourselves.

  - Building your texture library. This vault of reference images will be the key to your success as a texture painter. Not only will you use these reference images in your actual paint but you will also need some of your reference to guide you in your decision making process regarding color palette, patterning and overall surface qualities. The best texture painters always refer back to the reference before making any decisions, no matter how much they think they know what they want to paint.

   

   

  WEEK 2

  Painting Color Maps Part 1

  - This week we're going to focus on developing the baseColor map for our creature. For me, this is the first step I take when beginning paint on a creature. There are a lot of things I do in my color development that I get for free when I continue into the development of all my other maps and furthermore, several things I can decide to leave out of my color maps and use exclusively in other maps to enhance the complexity and photo-realism.

  - Short discussion on texture resolution and what is needed for hero character work.

  - Discussion on decoding reference material in order to rebuild back into your textures.

  - Discussion on the types of color maps needed for this character: epidermalColor and subdermalColor maps. Because we won't be covering lookdev and rendering in this course, I will provide example subdermalColor maps and how they look in a final render for the creature.

  - I will be providing extracted displacement and normal maps from zbrush for their use in their development.

   

  WEEK 3

  Painting Color Maps Part 2

  - Discussion on adding complexity within Mari in a non-destructive method.

  - Discussion on ways to step back and re-assess the work you've done in order to add more flair and interest to the color maps. Never settle with the just 1 pass of your color maps. You need to give it 2 or 3 rounds of development in order to finesse the maps.

  - Discussion on what details from the displacement, normal and cavity maps to fold into the color maps in order to add more realism.

   

  WEEK 4

  Bump vs. Displacement Maps Part 1

  - Discussion on bump vs. displacement and when to use what.

  - Discussion on decoding reference material in order to rebuild back into your textures.

  - Discussion on displacement maps and what detail goes into the sculpt and is reserved to the skillsets of the modeler and what detail goes into the paint and is reserved to the skillsets of the painter. (Will be providing example renders of displacements from modeler vs. displacements from painter).

  - They will already have the extracted displacement and normal maps from zbrush to aid in their development.

  - Reference reference reference. Another discussion on always going back to the reference for clues and inspiration.

   

  WEEK 5

  Bump vs. Displacement Maps Part 2

  - Discussion on utilizing the shader modules in Mari in order to finesse the displacement and bump maps.

  - Discussion on the order in which i develop my maps. why color comes first, then disp/bump and then spec/reflection.

   

  WEEK 6

  Specular/Reflection and Wet Maps

  - Discussion on specular maps and reflection maps. In my experience, I've provided several specular maps to look development and most of the time my spec maps are used not only for specularity control but also plugged in as reflection maps, and sometimes even substituted. All is based on the need and overall goal.

  - I will provide examples of the effects of a spec map on the creature vs. a reflection map. And for our course, the map they paint can either be spec or reflection since we won't be implementing these maps into lookdev. I will however, show example renders of the differences btw spec and reflection in a series of renders of the creature for visual aide.

  - Discussion on wetMaps and their use.

   

  WEEK 7

  Painting Eyes

  - Discussion on how I paint eyes.

  - Discussion on the breakdown on a typical eye model you will be painting

  - What details are needed on each part of the eye.

  - Why I stick to painting eyes in photoshop and not Mari.

   

  WEEK 8

  Final review week!

  - The key to believable textures is the final 10%. This week I will allow the students to spend it finessing the last bits of their maps, going back to reference and adding in any and all details they can to push the illusion of realism.

  - Show how putting your maps together in MARI in order to assess if they are working together and how to tweak them.

  - I will open for one-on-one reviews and critiques.

   

   

  EXTRA: Provide a second creature model for students to take home and practice what they've learned to paint. I will also be open to having students contact me after the course for further guidance on the second model should they choose to paint it.

   

• Student requirements

  
  

  Students will require Photoshop, and either Mari or the system requirements to install the educational trial version of Mari provided with the course. Link below:

  http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/mari/system-requirements/