Texturing

Importing & Setting up the Project File:

For the texturing of my knight character, I opted to use the program Substance Painter to texture my character. I was relatively unfamiliar with the program, however I was able to understand the basics thanks to my experimentation session #2. From this session, I had grasped a small glimpse of the potential that this program had to offer, and was very suitable for realistic-based texture work. There were other options in terms of programs to use, such as Mari, but unfortunately this was locked behind an extreme paywall that was not supported by our university. As such, Substance Painter seemed to be the obvious choice for this assignment. 

When working in Substance Painter, you need to first setup your project file. This starts by allocating a resolution for the texutres and some other features, such as UDIM workflow (which will be useful for my particular model). An important step is to import your model into Substance Painter so that it can be textured. Since my model is already UV mapped, unchecking the 'Auto-Unwrap' option (which will automatically unwrap your models for you) is important. 

However, upon attempting to import my character into the project file, I was met with an error, which can be seen above. This suggested that one of the bolts in my model had not been UV mapped, something I must have overlooked whilst UV mapping. This demonstrates the huge benefit of my very clear naming conventions, as this could have proven very difficult if I might have left the names as something such as Bolt01, Bolt02, Bolt03 ... and so on. 

Fortunately this only affected one side of the character as I had started UV mapping the individual models on the right-hand side, so I just needed to quickly go back to Maya, delete the current bolt and replace it by mirroring the one on the opposite side. I didn't need a unique UV layout since my bolts were all sharing the same UV space so the idea was to intentionally overlap these UVs into the same space. From here, I re-exported my model and tried importing it into Substance Painter again. 

Frustratingly, another error was spotted this time. In this instance, it was spotting that some of the UV shells were overlapping in the UV space. I went back into Maya to check for this. 

Sure enough, the UV shells were only just overlapping into a separate UV tile. This can be see in the above image, where the red line indicates the next tile and how it was only just overlapping into this new section. Since I had been working with the UV layout at more of a distance this was something easily overlooked. I was able to easily fix this by adjusting the UV shells and moving them slightly down to now fit the correct UV space, since there were some very slight gaps between UV shells it didn't require much to adjust their position correctly. 

One last time, I exported the now-fixed model and again re-imported this into Substance Painter. Fortunately, no more errors were appearing and the project file was correctly set up. 

Before beginning in the texturing of my character, I first needed to bake the Mesh Maps for my character. This is a very important step before texturing since these mesh maps are used by the Smart Materials within Substance Painter in order for them to work correctly, as well as other functions. This is something I had previously missed during my experimentation session #2 and had wondered why I was unable to use one of the features to create metal edge wear; The reason is that this feature required the Curvature mesh map to be created but was not, and thus the feature had no way of operating correctly. I selected all of the important mesh maps to be baked, ignoring ID and Position as I was told these should not be relevant in my project. After selecting the mesh maps, I selected the 'Bake selected textures' button in the bottom right, which - after a couple minutes - completed this step for me. I could now start working on the texturing. 

Texturing my character:

Here is my current progress. Mainly, a Steel material and Gold material have been applied to the bulk of the model. My method for doing this was to apply these materials to my model and then apply a black mask. Then, in the UV layout, I was able to select the UV shells I wanted the material to be applying to by essentially masking those shells individually. Thanks to my very organised layout, this was very easy to achieve. 

I have also applied a leather material to all of the straps of the model, though this may be subject to change. Again, I was able to apply the material to specific parts of the model as mentioned earlier. I have also added a basic cloth material to the gloves of the hand, which can be seen on the right of the above image. Again, this may be subject to change. Furthermore, I have applied a basic chainmail material to the areas appropriate, though I am not keen and will be changing this later. 

The purpose of this was to apply a bunch of simple materials as a starting point for my texture work, as well as setting up the masks and getting a feel for the overall look. So far, I am mainly pleased with the gilding material applied, which is simply a preset Gold material with its colour slightly desaturated. 

Here is an upclose image of the sword with a steel material applied. Specifically, I applied a Smart Material with heavy scratches and imperfections, which helps to add realism to its finish. However, strangely the material on the sword caused issues; In the above image you can see lots of ugly banding ocurring in the material around the edge and inner section of the blade. I cannot say why this is happening, but my guess would suggest it is a result of poor UV unwrapping. 

Instead, I applied a different material to the blade, using a brushed steel smart material instead. Although very minimal, the banding is very obscurred and fits a lot better in my opinion, giving the indication of perhaps being grinded on a whetstone for the purpose of sharpening the blade. I maintained this material for my sword design. 

For the Grip of the Greatsword, I had applied a leather material since this was a realistic piece of material to cover the grip of a sword based on the research done in my dissertation. However, the idea of the leather is that it is wrapped around the grip, which is primarily made of wood (unseen). Currently my material was simply leather across the grip, looking very plain. I wanted to give the impression of the leather material being wrapped around the grip, such as what can be seen in the above image. I decided to refine this. 

Here is my refined version of the grip. Similarily to the previous example image, the grip has a lot of 'grooves' to indicate the leather has been wrapped around the handle. To achieve this, I simply applied a preset stripes texture across the grip of the sword, to get the black lines circling the grip. Next, I applied this texture to the Height channel, so that it would create the impression of depth in the texture, as opposed to being painted on. I was relatively pleased with the finish, and kept it for my final design. On a side note, the leather material in my design is not reflective or shiny like the previous image. The reason for this is that the previous image features a more polished and modern leather material, which would not have been very appropriate for a Medieval design, hence the leather material is very rough and lacks that shininess. 

Here is an instance of the chainmail texture applied to my model, specifically at the tassets of the character (Although the rest of the chainmail in the model uses the same material). Despite the chainmail looking believable, it didn't look realistic at all. It was too shiny and the individual chains were too big, as well as being too uniform, only featuring the occasional bit of rust. I decided to revise this design. 

Here is the refined chainmail design. For this, I used a chainmail material which can be found here on the Substance marketplate for free. The benefit of this material is that it offers lots of customisation, in terms of the ring shape, design, imperfections and more. The chainmail looks darker and less refined than before, already improving the result. It is worth noting that due to the height and normal textures being applied, this looks much improved once rendered. However, my main issue was again in the size of the individual rings of the chainmail, which looked too big to me. 

Here is the final refined version of the chainmail, this time with much smaller individual rings in the chainmail. Note that the texture looks a lot different as I have disabled the height layer for the purpose of better preview in the viewport. The chainmail looks quite battered and varied, with a lot of varying colours of the chains across the material. 

Here is the design when rendered, which clearly looks much better. You can see more of the reflectivity of the metal chains whilst still retaining the varied colours and imperfections in the individual chains. The shadows of the render also help to add realism in this image. Overall the design was quite good and I was pleased with the result. 

However, one main critique I had was a more unavoidable one at this stage; My main issue was how the chainmail texture very abbruptly cuts off at the bottom of the model it is being applied to, as opposed to perhaps being lots of circular ends protruding from the very bottom of the model. Ultimately I was not sure on the best way to both texture and model this particular part of the character, and it created a lot of internal debate on what would work best. I decided a plane for the model and texture would work best of all the ones I was able to think of at the time, and it is hard to say whether this was the right decision at this stage. Though I was too far in production and this design desicion was unfortunately locked in, so I had to proceed with it as best as possible despite my reservations. 

Here is a rendered preview of the character in its current stage, as opposed to a screenshot of the character in the viewport. 

Here is a render showing the feet and greatsword of the character. You can see the brushed steel material looks quite good for the blade of the Greatsword. 

Finally, here is a rendered view from the back of the character, where the same chainmail material has been applied. It is worth noting I was using a HDRI representing studio lighting as a preset within Substance Painter to preview these materials (Since they are PBR materials, they require a source of light to display them). I used studio lighting for the time being as it has lots of harsh and shallow areas of lightning, helping to create contrast and evaluate the textures better, for the purposes of production. At a more refined stage, I will test the materials and textures with a more suitable HDRI. 

Back to the texturing of the character, I wanted to add some small bolts in the design. In the reference image above, you can see these bolts around the top of the Gauntlets. By comparison, you can see a much larger bolt at the part of the gauntlet which covers the hand. The difference being that this bolt allows the large plate to rotate, whereas the other smaller bolts are to bolt the metal plates together, and thus are much more flat. This is why I had added some bolts as models to my character, such as the larger bolt in the image above mentioned just earlier. However, the other smaller bolts would work well as normal textures instead of geometry in the model. Discussed earlier in my blog, these bolts would not be done as geometric detail as they would be too small to justify. This detail is something I wanted to add now. 

Here is how these bolts look in my design when added. Initially I tried using a new layer with only the Normal and Height channels enabled, and painted small dots on the mask of the layer to create 'bolts' in the texture. However, this gave mixed results and looked a bit plain. Instead, I came across the Nails brush in Substance, which applies very small nail puncture marks across the surface. After tweaking the settings of this brush, I was able to get something more of what I wanted. I had to manipulate the material the brush used so that it matched the steel material used on my model too. I am pleased with the result, and it not only adds realism but also helps to lift the visual side of the design by adding some variety and extra detail. I continued adding these 'bolts' across my character. 

Here I have added some to the chestplate and tassets. Also, I have added holes in the strap for the character's belt. The way I did this was by creating a new fill layer and enabling only the height and normal channels. After this, I created a mask so I could then paint on this mask. After adjusting the height value of the layer, I then started painting small dots on the strap to create the indication of holes. This should add a little bit of realism showing the buckle of the belt believably being held within one of the holes of the belt strap. 

Here I have continued to add more of the bolts discussed earlier. 

In addition, I had started experimenting with an ornamental outline across the embossed edges of the character. So far, I have added this across the right shoulder in the image above to see how it would look. Similarily to how I created the holes in the belt strap, I simply did the same for these rivets across the edges. Though instead of dots scattered across, I painted small and thin lines across the entire surface. This did take signifcant time to do so I wanted to test how this looked on one area. I was very pleased with the result, the design looks very ornate and detailled. The main aspect I liked is that it achieved this ornate look whilst also being quite minimal and appropriate for my initial pitch of the design, not being over-done. I definitely was pleased with the look and continued it for the rest of my character. 

Here is one of the elbow plates with lots of design being added. Firstly, bolts have been added around the plating. You can clearly see the difference between the textured ones and the ones with geometry, this is intentional. Secondly, I have continued the rivet pattern across the embossed edges. 

I have also added some nice patterns to the center of the plate, using some alphas to add to the mask of the gold and metal materials used by the character. The floral pattern in the center is an alpha provided by Substance, whereas the spokes around the plate are made by myself, a simple shape which is then nicely spaced across the floral shape in the center. You can see this in the image above in which I had created three variants of the shape for variety. Generally I opted for the third choice most often. 

Here is my main reference for the ornamaental design features of my character. You can see that it has been highly influential in my design, in regards to the gilding, the rivet patterns, the bolts and now the ornate pattern that I have created on the elbow plate, which is similar to the one in the image above. This sort of look was something I was aiming for, but in my own style. There were some details that I did not think fit my design either, such as the symbols on the Stop-rib in its design, something I wanted to avoid. I believe I have been doing a good job at creating a minimal sense of ornate detail in my character and something which fits my initial design pitch. 

I continued adding some of these designs, trying to use them sparingly and in appropriate places. I was personally torn on the design on the Stop-Rib, I couldn't tell whether I thought it was good or if it was too much. However, after getting a peer to take a look, they were fond of the design and it was something I stuck with as a result. 

For the side of the helmet, I used a rather more ornate pattern, based on an image I found online and manipulated myself, creating an alpha from the image. I liked the pattern but did not want to overdo these details in my design, so I simply added one in the corner of the side of the helmet, which I feel works well and fits nicely without overshadowing the rest of the armour. 

Furthermore, I had created a simple ornate pattern on the helmet. This was using the same spokes and floral shape used before on the elbow, but in a different arrangement for variety. 

Here is a close up of one of the straps in my model. I have since refined the strap with an additional design feature around the edges, that being a simple sticthing across the design. I wanted to include this to add a bit more realism in the leather straps, giving a more hand-crafted feel, adding some realism to the design. This was done by using a brush preset within Substance to create these indents and stiched markings across the shape. I implemented this for all the straps in my design for continuity.

I liked the stiching design, and wanted to implement this in other appropriate places, namely other fabrics in my model. The two pieces of clothing in my design were the gloves and the leggings. I created a new layer to add a different variation of stitching, and added it across the gloves and leggings. In the above image you can see the stitching added across the gloves, also featuring a new colour for the fabric material as I felt brown was more fitting than the previous desaturated green I had tried before. The stiching works really well in my opinion, especially because it follows the actual UV seam of the model, helping to detract from any noticable UV seams in the texture and being placed in a more believable place. 

You can also identify more bolts and rivets implemented in the Gauntlet and fingers in the above image. 

Finally, you can see a large blood splatter across the side of the Gauntlet, which can be seen in the above image from a better angle. I wanted to add a few blood splatters across my model for the purpose of adding imperfections. This would help to compliment the story aspect of my character, showing he was recently in a battle. The placement of these splatters was really important to make them seem more believable. Since this Gauntlet is on the arm with the most mobility and holds the Greatsword, it would be believable for the Gauntlet to have become bloodied from in battle. This is a very obvious and noticable splatter, but most of these were intended to be minor and minimal for the majority. 

In order to achieve this, I had aquired two very important assets to help me. The first was the blood material which is being used, which can be found here, again on the Substance market for free use. The other element I needed were alphas to create the shape of the blood splatters. Fortunately I came across a great collection of assets usable within Substance here, which provides a large variety of different alphas. Using the blood material as a fill layer, I simply created a mask and painted the blood splats on using these alphas as the brush shape. 

Here are some more blood splatters. I wanted to keep these quite minimal and sparse. I also used a drier look to the blood material by editing the attributes since the idea was that my knight character wakes up some time after the battle has taken place, so the blood would not be fresh. 

One other addition I have made (noticable in the above image) is that the steel material appears to be slightly lighter than before. I felt the steel colour was a bit dark, and contrasted too heavily with the gilding in the armour. To do this, very simply I created a new fill layer within the folder of the Steel smart material used, and placed it at the very top. In this fill layer, I only had the colour channel active. I set the colour to white, and significantly lowered the opacity. This slightly brightened the overall finish of the steel, helping to reduce this over-contrast in the colour. 

Here are some blood splatters across the sword. I did use quite a lot of splatters here purely because the sword would most likely be the bloodiest part of the character. Again, I tried to keep it to a reasonable amount as to not overdo it. 

After blood splatters, I wanted to add other imperfections, as these would really help to convey the realism of my textures on my model. I tested some different imperfections in the above image, rain droplets and dirty patches. I liked the raindrops but I was not sure if this would work when placed in my scene. I was hoping to add a light rain effect to my scene to connote themes of depression and sadness, and these droplets may not work in tandem with rain actively being present, so I scrapped this detail. 

For documentation purposes, I created the rain by creating a new fill layer. I then adjusted the height values and modified the roughness to be very reflective, whilst disabling the colour and metal channels. From here, I used a spray of dots for the alpha and painted across the entire model to create these little droplets all over, not putting them in places where rain would not likely reach. 

There was a different method I had previously tried to create rain drops, which used particles to simulare rain landing and sliding down the surfaces of my model. However, the rain droplets from this did not follow the same path, going left, right, and all different directions, not suitable at all. Unfortunately I couldnt find a solution to this problem, which is why I used the method discussed earlier instead. 

I was pleased with the addition with muddy and dirty patches across my model, so I kept these in. These were created by adding a smart material for dirt on my model, and tweaking the attributes to get the dirt to appear in patches. Though, I did tidy them up a little by adjusting them in the mask. 

In regards to these muddy patches, I made sure that the feet had the largest amount of muddy imperfections present. This seemed logical considering the feet are the closest entities to the ground, coming in contact with mud and dirt more frequently than the rest of the body, atleast in the case of my character. 

Completed Texturing:

At this point I believed my texturing to be complete. Here are some good quality renders of my finalised textures of the character. 

Front of the character

Full view of blade of Greatsword

Close up of Hilt and Blade of Greatsword

Close up on helmet and upper body of character

Close up on Gauntlet

Shot of back of the character

Close shot of back of the upper body and helmet

Overall, I was very pleased with the design achieved in the textures. I felt I was able to be creative within the boundries of my pitched design, and succeeded in creating something both realistic and visually pleasing. I decided to proceed with importing these textures into Maya. To do this, I simply selected the Arnold preset in the export menu, and exported the textures. I exported both 2k and 4k textures so that I could test them when imported in Maya and see how significant of a difference it makes at different distances. 

Importing into Maya:

To import the textures into Maya, specifically for use with Arnold, it takes some careful setting up of the textures and their colour spaces. Above is an image created by Substance Painter themselves helping users to correctly connect their textures for use in Maya. 

Using this image above as a guide, I was able to connect all the textures correctly. I did not have an Ambient occlusion pass (AO) but to my knowledge this would not be strictly necessary to include. The textures would be connected to an aiStandardSurface material node within the Hypershade menu. Within the texture input nodes, I made sure to enable the UDIM workflow as I had done with the displacement textures before to ensure that the textures loaded correctly into the UV space of the designated 2x3 UV tiles used. Once this was all setup, I applied it to my character. 

2k - Close up

4k - Close up

2k - Far

4k - Far

Above are a couple different test renders of the textures being applied in Maya, comparing both 2k and 4k. I have used the same HDRI as one used before in the final renders done in Substance to give a more accurate comparison. 

In regards to the close up comparisons, 4k has a significant quality increase over 2k, which is to be expected. The details are retained much better when close up, and some of the details are just more refined. For instance, looking at the imperfections and surface texture on the strap of the Back Scabbard, the dirt on the 2k version is pretty poor quality, and not very realistic. By comparison, the 4k version looks way better with a much more defined texture to it. 4k is clearly the resolution to be using at this distance, regardless of the increase in rendering times. 

In regards to the far comparison, the difference in resolution is difficult to spot, especially since the image on this blog is smaller than the full size of the screen. However, there is still a significant increase in quality from 2k to 4k. Some of the high frequency imperfections in the metal and leather straps are still distinguishable from a distance, and overall 4k looks more refined. I am not educated enough on the technical side of rendering to comment on how significant 4k textures will be on rendering times compared to 2k. However, I believe quality should always be prioritised over rendering times if there is a justifiable cause to it. I would argue that - though a small increase - 4k shows a definite increase in quality at a far distance, and this should by itself justify using a 4k texture resolution across the board. Hopefully this is the correct decision in the long run.