OVERVIEW

Texturing and lighting are two of the most crucial factors that affect the aesthetics of a scene. Every object in the film has a texture applied to it, whether this is solely created in 3D Studio Max or use specific maps made in Adobe Photoshop. Textures can be applied at anytime to the models but I tended to do this once the modelling on an object had been finished. I often applied a white material to the finished model before texturing just to see all the different parts of the model with the same colour tone as apposed to the various colours applied when primitives are created in Max. This method is useful to identify any awkward looking polygons or lazy modelling that should be corrected before texturing.

A texture can be an image applied as a map, a flat colour, a multi-layered material etc… The tools for creating materials are available in Max but with the help of image editing software such as Photoshop I was able to ‘paint’ my film how I wanted. Textures can mimic real life surfaces by creating properties such as reflections, refractions, opacity, translucency, glossiness, specularity, self-illumination and adding bump maps or displacement maps. The possibilities are vast and sometimes extremely accurate.

Texturing is especially important when using low polygon objects. Texturing can create artificial geometry that can appear as if its 3D when it is only a rendering trick. This is often used in the design of computer games where scenes are rendered on the fly (rendered instantly, in real-time) and do not use a rendering system. LOD (Level Of Detail) is an important factor in computer game design (where low polygon objects gradually become more detailed as the camera becomes closer to them) and is used with detailed map texturing to create the impression that three dimensional detailed objects are in the scene when they may be a single faced object.

There are two available types of material when creating textures; image maps and procedural maps. I personally use image maps more often but both have their individual merits. Procedural textures rely on mathematical patterns and allow the user to completely redefine its properties to create new and unique materials. They can be used to mimic metal textures very well and can be adapted for almost anything. Unlike image map textures they are 3D in nature so there is enhanced realism with these materials. Image map textures on the other hand are not 3D but bumps maps can be used to create a similar effect. They are wrapped around the object usually with the UVW map modifier applied to the object. All my objects had a UVW map applied and I wrapped most objects with the box option in the UVW modifier option as it adjusts to more awkward shapes. These textures can also be tiled and applied to the object, for example the wooden flooring and rug in the child’s room. Procedural textures do not tend to need wrapping or repositioning because of their volumetric nature.

SOME OF THE PROCEDURAL TEXTURES USED IN THE FILM -----------------------------------------------------

Creating Plastic for the Child’s Bed and Toys To create a material to replicate plastic I used a procedural texture so no image maps were required. I began by opening the material editor in Max and from the ‘shader basic parameters’ drop down window selecting ‘multi-layer’ as the material type. The ambient and diffuse colours were set to blue and locked. Then a under ‘maps’ a fall off map was added to the reflection. To give the impression of plastic the ‘first specular level’ was set to a high figure as was the glossiness. The second specular level was mostly left alone except the ‘second specular level’ was slightly increased.

Creating the Cliff Texture  I decided not to use image maps for the texture of the cliff as it was such a large object and I was concerned about tiling problems. So I created a procedural texture using mainly ‘fall off’ maps. The ‘shader basic parameter’ was set to ‘blinn’. Then fall off maps were added to the diffuse colour and self-illumination, and a noise map added to the bump map (set to 50). On the main page in the material editor the specular level was set to 18 and the glossiness to 25. ‘Self-illumination’ was ticked and set to black.

Creating the Smoke Texture   This seemingly easy texture was actually quite difficult to create. The ‘shader basic parameter’ drop down menu was opened and again set ‘blinn’. A mask map was applied to the self-illumination and a further two gradient ramps added to this. Then the sky image map I created was applied to the opacity and bump map. The opacity map was set to 100 and the bump to 60. On the opening material editor page ‘self-illumination’ was ticked and set to black. The specular level was set to 20 and the glossiness to 10.

SOME OF THE IMAGE MAP TEXTURES USED IN THE FILM -------------------------------------------------------

Creating the Grey Wall Texture  

This map was used many times through out my project. It was often blurred and mapped onto a plane to provide a quick and effective depth of field effect. The base of the texture comes from a photograph of a greasy baking tray I took using a Canon Powershot A70 digital camera. I found that objects such as this were a great starting point for rough corroded metal textures. Once the image was captured it was put into Photoshop, de-saturated and treated with brush strokes to change its appearance to make it less realistic. The texture was made to 2048 x 1536 pixels and applied using a UVW map modifier applied to the object, usually with the box option selected.

Creating the Mushroom Texture

This texture was created entirely in Photoshop. It is used in the last scene of the movie as the camera pans out of the child’s room onto the mushroom hill. I began by creating a work space of 600 x 400 pixels (kept small because of the scale of the mushrooms). Then a red gradient fill was used to colour the base of the texture starting with a deep red and become lighter in the middle. Then the ‘clouds’ filter was applied to a new layer with the same selection of colours. To add the grainy effect the ‘noise’ filter was added to the layer. The distribution of the noise was set to uniform and the monochromatic box was ticked. Then in a new layer white circles were drawn and a radial blur was applied. Finally more noise and clouds were added (with white and grey colours in the palette) to the circles and Gaussian blur was applied to the layer. To create the bump map, the image was ‘copy merged’ and pasted into anew layer. This was then de-saturated and its brightness and contrast increased. In Max the textures were imported as a diffuse and bump map and applied to the mushroom heads using a UVW map with a spherical setting.

Creating the Tree Texture

To create the bark-like rough texture of a tree I used the brushes available in Photoshop. I began by creating a blank work space measuring 1152 x 864 pixels. This was filled with black. In a new layer a light grey colour was created and I used a brush, set to size 40 with opacity of 28%, to etch onto the layer above the black surface. This created the base coat. Then in a new layer, the same brush technique with varying brush sizes, colours (mostly greys) and opacity settings was used to create a thick layer of scratching and dirt. To balance the colours a thicker black brush with a size of 65 and opacity of 48% was used to make the edge of the texture darker. The whole image was then ‘copy merged’ and de-saturated. Then using the brightness/contrast tool the bump map was prepared and both were imported in to 3D Studio Max.

Creating the Wallpaper Texture  

This image map was again created solely in Photoshop. First a1127 x 864 pixel empty work space was created. Then using the selection tool I drew a horizontal rectangle across the page and filled it with a blue colour. This was repeated with a thinner selection below it. To create the red vertical stripes, a new layer was made and a selection was filled with a red colour to form a stripe. This process was repeated until 8 stripes were created. Then the layer was duplicated and the 8 stripes were tiled horizontally. To create the star pattern, the star shaped brush (with opacity of 100%) was used with both red and blue colours and distributed randomly. Then in a new layer a standard brush (with opacity of 40% and a light grey colour) was used to make a dirt effect on top of the wallpaper. A ‘linear dodge’ layer effect was added to lower the intensity of the dirt markings. To add extra depth to the dirt the tree texture (above example) was copied and pasted on top of the image and the ‘darken’ layer effect was applied. Then the complete image was ‘copy merged’, de-saturated and the brightness and contrast increased to make the bump map.