In-Depth Research

Reno gave me a few PDF documents regarding texturing techniques in order to increase my knowledge of texturing.

Source: By Stefan Morrell from CG Society, http://stefan-morrell.cgsociety.org

Above document follows through a set of procedures from step 1 to 22, demonstrating how to texture a robot realistically with photoshop and 3ds Max. This is a good reference of the CG texturing workflow, which made me realise the importance of building up textures in layers and constantly referencing the texture maps in photoshop with the 3D geometry in Maya. I learnt an useful technique of creating the look of aged paint with photoshop from this document, too.

Source: By Leigh van der Byl from CG Society, http://www.onona3D.com or leigh@leighvanderbyl.com

Above document focuses more on the aesthetics of texturing. Basically how to give history and a sense of identity to the object you are texturing. The impact in which time, weather and human touches have on the objects being textured. When was the object created? Where has the object been? What has happened to the object? Who does the object belong to? By answering questions like these, it is not difficult to visualise what the object should look like.

Subtle things like at the edges of the object where it is touched more often should be worn off more so than areas that are less likely to be touched. Despite how obvious this may sound, small details like this is what makes a good texturing artist stand out from another.

Furthermore, analysing the surface properties to determine the amount of reflectivity, refractivity, incandescence, specularity and translucency for example, would help to achieve the optimum look when selecting the textures for particular shaders.

Source: Tutorial 2 September 2008 by Jeroen Maton from CGSociety, http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=4678

This last document discusses more in relation to the actual techniques artists may use when texturing in photoshop. Techniques like using 'unsharp masks' to sharpen the images to get a crispy look on the textures, using 'blend if' to exact certain parts of an image to fuse it together with the base texture via different blend modes and applying a fill layer at the top while paint out certain areas to create the look of dirt or dust layer for example.
Although there are only a few techniques being illustrated in the document above, but just by familiarising myself with the techniques shown above, it has already helped tremendously with my texturing workflow as well as broadening the options of my working method.