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Author Topic: Visualizer Textures Project  (Read 53516 times)

Nexii Malthus

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Visualizer Textures Project
« on: November 12, 2009, 12:20:03 am »

I had recently decided to start a collection of textures to fill in the need of realistic renderings for visualizers. They could be used by artists as well seeking raw material for rendering their pictures of forts or artifacts. The textures are designed with photorealism in mind, as close as to the real thing, even though this is actually fantasy game, it'd seem plain silly to find perfect pure, massive and rare variety crystals around every inch of a vein.

I don't really care about putting licenses in my work, treat mine as Public Domain. Of course attribution is always nice and appreciated, but it isn't necessary.

I'd love some involvement from others, especially those who are into photography and/or geology to take some good hi-res snaps.

What makes an image a useful texture anyways? A good useful texture is something that can be tiled seamlessly, provide a coherent 'average' surface and avoid unusual spots that would destroy the illusion of chaotic random detail when used repetitively over a large surface (Such as terrain). Using many good references/samples you can good average texture of desired material.

List of ideal texture qualities. They are not required but serve as good goals.
- Seamless, can be tiled, mostly for terrain geometry and other large surfaces.
- Good colour palette, the texture doesn't have odd or bad eye catching spots. This is especially obvious when tiled over a dozen repetitions which destroys the illusion of random detail.
- Average material. The surface is what you'd commonly find, instead of being a rare or unique variety.

There are also many different surface types a material/tile could be in DF. This adds a significant amount of probabilities, so we should aim to cover Rough for most cases now. Some can also be ignored entirely, for example Muddy can consist of a "Muddy" overlay texture, rather than creating unique instances of all the textures for a muddy variant. Bold = Desired. Italics = Nice to have. Rest = Best Ignored for now
- Rough
- Smooth
- Engraved
- Muddy / Warm (might glow a bit?) / Damp (drips of water?) / Dry (Grass / Brook )
- Wall vs Floor
- Block / Bar   (constructed wood/rock/metal Blocks and smelted metal Bars)
- Pebbles / Boulder
- Above Ground vs Subterranean
- Inside vs Outside

Geological Interests
- Mineral Crystals?

Technical Interests
- Diffuse
- Transparency
- Normal
- Height
- Specular Colour/Intensity

The Textures
Spoiler: Soil (0/26) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Sedimentary (5/12) (click to show/hide)



Spoiler: Metamorphic (1/6) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Other Stone (4/40) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Ores (6/17) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Gems (0/130?) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Wood (0/25) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Misc (0/7?) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Coverings (0/7?) (click to show/hide)



Changelog:
1. Added changelog.
2. Added Alunite Two & Three
3. Added Bismuthinite. Yeah, it looks like that for the rough and raw metal.
4. Added Cassiterite Rough. Excellent texture, did a good job there.
5. Added Hematite Rough, Magnetite Rough + Rough2, Olivine Rough + Rough2.
6. Hematite Rough (larger version), Rough2 and Shiny2.
7. Larger versions of Magnetite now uploaded.
8. Added Sphalerite.
9. Reworked Doc a bit; added Technical Interests. Entries less ambiguous now.
10. Added Obsidian Rough, Limestone Rough2 and Smooth2.
11. Re-uploaded all textures as large (1024x1024) and perceptually optimized to have a smaller footprint for easier distribution without sacrificing detail. (2MB~ down to 850KB~ for each)
12. Added Chalk, Sandstone, Rock Salt and Limonite.

"6. Adamantine-brilliant looking minerals which have a high index of refraction--diamond" (Website has really excellent info btw!)

Spoiler: Rendered Images (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: December 14, 2009, 12:54:28 pm by Nexii Malthus »
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Draco18s

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Re: Visualizer Textures Project
« Reply #1 on: November 12, 2009, 03:35:46 am »

Let me see what I have.  I recently made/found a texture for (Cotswold) limestone and a generic sort of rough stone wall (its a gray rock of some kind--granite?).  I was looking for a nice texture of red limestone blocks, but was unable to find one.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If you have any good textures that don't tile (or images which would make a good texture, but aren't), send me a PM and I can fix 'em up with the Textureize plugin.
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Draco18s

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Re: Visualizer Textures Project
« Reply #2 on: November 14, 2009, 08:44:43 am »

marble (its tileable)
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Nexii Malthus

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Re: Visualizer Textures Project
« Reply #3 on: November 15, 2009, 01:53:40 am »

Thanks Draco! Added yours.

Reworked the formatting a bit to be a bit more clear.
Added Alunite, Andesite and many others I can't remember right now. Got others done as well such as Calcite and Bismuthinite, but taking a while to upload.

Balathustrius

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Re: Visualizer Textures Project
« Reply #4 on: November 15, 2009, 05:38:22 pm »

This is a cool idea.  Photo textures can be really useful in painting, or for making brushes or textures to build on.  I can't imagine having the attention span to use a different texture for each type of stone, though.
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Outcast Orange

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Re: Visualizer Textures Project
« Reply #5 on: November 15, 2009, 06:22:26 pm »

I'd like to stick some of these in my game once I get the change.
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Nexii Malthus

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Re: Visualizer Textures Project
« Reply #6 on: November 16, 2009, 05:48:28 pm »

I can't imagine having the attention span to use a different texture for each type of stone, though.
It would be unwieldy perhaps, but you don't need to directly use the textures though. I was thinking of the collection rather as an encyclopedia, to understand how the rocky surfaces might look in reality. To understand how the rock has shape, patterns and colours in specific ways. I might have to start another section for mineral crystals though.

Nexii Malthus

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Re: Visualizer Textures Project
« Reply #7 on: November 18, 2009, 07:58:45 am »

5 more textures.

Hematite Rough
Tried to get a Botryoidal hematite surface, which looks okay. It is still a bit odd-ish though.

Magnetite Rough 1 and 2
So I basically had two major layers of a background magnesite and one filled with crystallic forms, so I made a composite. It seems like it might be too overwhelming though, so I offered the much duller background mix as an option.

Olivine Rough 1 and 2
There aren't many differences, but somewhat vaguely similiar story of two layers. This time it has to do with the darker olive looking parts which are apparently peridot gems. I thought it might be better DF canon wise to tune down the peridot appearance, since you don't actually get the peridots. It is a very minor change closeup but seems to have a somewhat larger effect when viewed from an overview.

What's next..
Okay, so to test out my textures I think I am going to create a 3D mockup. I think it would help put together the mission statement without going into a full-on essay, to understand and peel under the skin of what I have been trying to achieve and why.

EDIT: Done mockup
Spoiler: Personal Critique (click to show/hide)
EDIT: Picture moved to main post with other new ones.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2009, 02:10:16 pm by Nexii Malthus »
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Draco18s

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Re: Visualizer Textures Project
« Reply #8 on: November 18, 2009, 09:55:21 am »

What, exactly, are we looking at there?
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Nexii Malthus

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Re: Visualizer Textures Project
« Reply #9 on: November 18, 2009, 10:15:24 am »

Around a corner, staring into a wall, towards what is the first glimpse of a magnetite vein struck by the miners. The white cavern is made up of limestone.

Arkose

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Re: Visualizer Textures Project
« Reply #10 on: November 19, 2009, 09:59:35 pm »

What kind of scale should a texture tile represent? It looks like most of the textures posted so far are about one square foot of rock surface, although in Nexil's mockup it looks like the textures are being stretched out across ~8x8 feet. This seems to work pretty well at making something that can be easily interpreted at-a-glance, but you might get a more 'realistic' appearance by increasing the texture tiling density.

Anyways, this is a pretty cool project.
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Arkose

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Re: Visualizer Textures Project
« Reply #11 on: November 19, 2009, 10:32:04 pm »

I just found a really nice collection of (public domain!) tiling textures:

http://pdtextures.blogspot.com/

I don't think any of them are perfectly realistic representations of any real materials, but several of them would make good stand-ins. Here are ones I'm thinking about:
« Last Edit: November 19, 2009, 10:34:17 pm by Arkose »
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Nexii Malthus

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Re: Visualizer Textures Project
« Reply #12 on: November 22, 2009, 08:04:32 am »

What kind of scale should a texture tile represent? It looks like most of the textures posted so far are about one square foot of rock surface,
Hm well, I sort of did what I thought from my imagination would be one tile in DF. I don't have precise measurements, so its not as realistic as it could be, but I don't exactly have official specifications of the size of a node in DF either. So it is pretty much eyeballing it.


Quote
This seems to work pretty well at making something that can be easily interpreted at-a-glance, but you might get a more 'realistic' appearance by increasing the texture tiling density.
Yeah, but my mockup is -really- messy  :(, I totally carp'd up the tiling. I was trying to cope with my half-assed attempt at it, but it smeared all ugly over the surface. It isn't too far off though from what I had imagined for a 'smooth'd out tunnel though with the limestone.

Thanks for the pdtextures find, they truly aren't realistic, especially malachite for example which from what I have seen has far harder edges, than a cloudy overlay. They do make good placeholders, I'll add them into the main post.

EDIT: I think they may even make much better being mixed up with my textures for tasteful raw noise imagery if I do it right.
« Last Edit: November 22, 2009, 11:33:17 am by Nexii Malthus »
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pbheadtemp

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Re: Visualizer Textures Project
« Reply #13 on: November 22, 2009, 06:17:27 pm »

wow... ... just wow...

If dwarf fortress looked like that... I dont think anyone would ever get any sleep ever again.
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Nexii Malthus

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Re: Visualizer Textures Project
« Reply #14 on: December 02, 2009, 03:23:51 pm »

Bump for changes.

8. Added Sphalerite Rough.
9. Reworked Doc a bit; added Technical Interests. Entries less ambiguous now.
10. Added Obsidian Rough, Limestone Rough2 and Smooth2.
(Yup, smooth limestone looks like that, it has fossils and such in it, totally awesome!)

Also moved some of my 3D renders into the main post of visualization fun.


I'm attempting to find a way to easily generate height and normal maps. But having issues with finding the right tools or technique, any pointers would be awesome, especially if there is some sort of 3D painting tool for this kind of job that I don't know about. (ZBrush had a very awkward interface)
« Last Edit: December 02, 2009, 03:58:18 pm by Nexii Malthus »
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