texturing

[SgWRX]

i'm in a couple day "lull" and decided to work on my parking/asphalt...

 

i suppose there might be some good thoughts in some of the "making of" series... in fact, i could see rendering out a material id or object id pass, then selecting the area in photoshop and compositing in a photo from google image search... BUT...

 

i thought i would try rendering out a uvw unrwap template and painting a texture in photoshop. here is the result. a lot less desireable than i thought haha.

 

i rendered the template for the asphalt. i did one layer filled with noise. another layer for dark spots where cars might be parked a lot,or where cars would drive and thus darken the asphalt. then i grabbed an image of a desert showing dried cracked ground and tried to multiply that over the top. the resulting image size was 6400x1800px roughly.

 

any tips on going this direction? most of my asphalt renders have been simple tileable textures, but they are often flat looking and uninteresting. so i though adding cracks and oilspots drive-lanes etc...

 

thanks!

[Larissa Holderness]

Hello!

 

I recommend going out and taking photos of your own of parking lots and using those textures you get. Right now, I think your texture still looks too 'new' even with all the grunge and muck you added. Older asphalt tends to look a bit more washed out, with rocks and stuff stuck in it, places where pot holes and cracks have been filled in. There also needs to be varying reflections (depending what is on the road). Oil on the ground from cars dripping is somewhat rainbow colored.

 

The lane stripes also need to have the same textures come through - bump mostly.

 

http://www.kalmermemorialservices.com/Parking_Lot.jpg

http://az616578.vo.msecnd.net/files/2016/10/17/636122727431499048-2115701585_parking%20lot%202.jpg

[Scott Schroeder]

Procedural all the way, you can reuse it far more often. Only then once you built up your never been driven on clean asphalt, can you add in the grime and details.

 

http://bertrand-benoit.com/blog/nakagin-photoreal-road-tutorial/

 

Most architects will not want their parking lot looking like the lot at the local crackhouse though.

[SgWRX]

larissa - good idea snag my own photos of parking lots. they would be fairly close to the angle i would generally render.

 

scott - i love that tutorial, i did use some of it for a mentalray render a while back when i first started thinking about focusing on my roads/parking lots. i don't have vray which sucks due to some of the maps and other features! i'm mentalray or iray, or iray+. i definitely have some functionality for procedurals but mixing and composite, for now i have to do in photoshop ha.

[Scott Schroeder]

It really is render engine independent.

 

[Casey Hawley]

A cracked asphalt texture is definitely nice to have in your arsenal, but I recommend just making a few normal asphalts of varying degree of 'grain', yet clean, then adding grime and cracks in post. You have more control this way, especially if you have a nice assortment of grunge brushes.

[Nicolai Bongard]

If you create an asphalt material that is nice and clean and one that is broken up, you could use a vray blend material with either a black and white painted mask or use vertex colors to control where the old/broken asphalt appears.

[SgWRX]

the thing you always run into with using bitmaps is the darn low res artifacts when trying to do something like i showed above. using procedures to blend or mix bitmaps together has always been a big step in the right direction. however, like i said, in the current render engine i'm working with, i don't have that option to blend or mix procedurally. it'll probably come at some point, but for now i'm more or less out of luck. although, i've got an option to create layers and use masks, but it's not exactly what the layering is intended for.

 

so, that said, i stumbled onto an old bookmark i had for an app called - which i'm sure you've all heard of - Filter Forge. I ended up buying it right away, it's different than the demo i tried a few years back and i took to it like a duck to water

 

today i was able to create my own cracked, dimpled, rough concrete material and normal map. i also created a normal map and diffuse map for a concrete warehouse ceiling that was formed with wood frame (so you can see raised cement that seeped through the form, in the shape of planks for a wood floor).

 

i'll tell you, i couldn't be more excited! i'm sure there are others out there, i know there are, but so far so good. ps i also tried a demo from mari. i like that idea a lot too. export a mesh into mari, paint on it and save it out. it's a lot like the 3ds max painter tool, but seems nicer given that it's a stand alone app.

 

thanks for replies. i'm in a funk where i think i really need to concentrate on my materials!

 

pps the idea of adding patch marks and such in post is a good idea. i don't have a whole lot of good grunge brushes yet, just a few. will search for more.

[TomD_Arch]

https://www.poliigon.com/

 

just released a set of road and street textures procedural textures and maps that are really nice. I have a membership and was able to get the majority of the full set with ne months worth of points at my subscription level.

 

Combine those with Bertrand Benoit "making of..." mentioned above and you will be well on your way.