tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200299952023-11-16T13:25:32.633+00:00Self-Imposed GurudomLiving with the shame of a made-up French name and other exploits in storytellingSelf-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-27137103159075619772016-03-28T01:53:00.001+01:002016-03-28T01:53:27.843+01:00Mari 3.0 - Unboxing<br />
I am a texture artist. I work in film. That means for 80% of my work <a href="https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/mari/" target="_blank">Mari</a> is my home. Despite being very well aware that Mari is a commercial product developed and sold for financial gain by <a href="https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/" target="_blank">The Foundry</a>, I still have very strong and warm feelings for Mari. Some software you are forced by circumstances to use at great frustration. Mari is not like that. Mari is home.<br />
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Since Mari 3.0 was announced and later released last year I have been eager to take the next full release for a spin in a real production setting.<br />
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Unboxing videos are all the rage (39,000,000 ones and counting on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=unboxing" target="_blank">YouTube</a>!). Personally I find them pointless, but taking Mari 3.0 for my first drive, I just couldn't help myself. Finally here was an unboxing I had been looking forward to. I am busy working hard, on what will doubtlessly be 2017 biggest summer blockbuster, but throughout the day I noted down my impressions in shorthand scrawl.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRW2bykV5Y4n_JMHTAwt4hVIyrcS8YGv5W1zmLvQ41DDZzioBBUUqsYAYtMkI4dmI7-LXcEb_60oYHiTtA-lBDxD-AH-IixdzJlwg0o8YmfOYDHGKYebSWi0bpvYqLiaQrOgWktg/s1600/20160327_203208.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRW2bykV5Y4n_JMHTAwt4hVIyrcS8YGv5W1zmLvQ41DDZzioBBUUqsYAYtMkI4dmI7-LXcEb_60oYHiTtA-lBDxD-AH-IixdzJlwg0o8YmfOYDHGKYebSWi0bpvYqLiaQrOgWktg/s200/20160327_203208.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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(Before any of this, I of course archived all my Mari 2.6 projects one last time)<br />
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I type <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">mari&</span> in my shell... and... an electric blue Mari logo greets me on the loading screen - I immediately dislike it, simply because that black and yellow logo has meant home for 4+ years.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5j1t2ka4Jeteoz_PsWgdCo8NFcaFKiHv1yrtSG61H4DbcNUE8h6tMeaVDfPxYhxyUQ33oZXRX4QMw96_4Z0WgBEb9RZckIo4vb-guQIsGV52vZkNn9ElyGtOVCLoD3hZXfNQGXg/s1600/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img alt="" border="0" height="60" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5j1t2ka4Jeteoz_PsWgdCo8NFcaFKiHv1yrtSG61H4DbcNUE8h6tMeaVDfPxYhxyUQ33oZXRX4QMw96_4Z0WgBEb9RZckIo4vb-guQIsGV52vZkNn9ElyGtOVCLoD3hZXfNQGXg/s200/maxresdefault.jpg" title="In with the new..." width="200" /></a></div>
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Fearing the worst, I am happy to note that Mari 3.0 immediately accepts my custom layout of palettes across two monitors. I could rearrange my layout in my sleep, but I appreciate the effort to seamlessly pick up, where we left off.<br />
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I open my current asset and Mari starts converting it to the current version. I would say, I sat five minutes as patience was replaced with anxiety waiting for the conversion to finish. I went to the kitchen and fixed myself a green tea. No? Nervous jokes and comparing notes with my fellow texture artists. One had a delivery looming and had switched back to old Mari 2.6. Five more minutes of waiting at my desk and finally Mari comes around. Nervously I inspect all the aspects of my project. Apart from the custom layers from <a href="http://www.jenskafitz.com/development/mari-extension-pack/mari-extension-pack-3-r2/" target="_blank">Ideascale</a>, everything else seems to be operational.<br />
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As for (the indispensable) extension pack from Ideascale? You obviously need to update your installation, or convert old custom procedural layers to paintable layers in an older version of Mari. A nice nod to <a href="http://www.jenskafitz.com/" target="_blank">Jens Kafitz</a>' impressive work is that Mari alerts you to the fact that you need to update your Ideascale node pack.<br />
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Starting to work on my asset, I notice that my color management toolbar across the bottom of my main viewport is gone. Hunting around for it, I find that color management is now a palette. I am not happy about that. Those 3-4 roll-out menus fit nicely into the bottom of my viewport and seems way too little to dedicate a whole palette to. It is certainly not a palette I will dedicate my screen space to on a constant basis. The split point slider is a nice little addition. For me as a texture artist, I work with a limited number of color spaces and a LUT is something handed down from above, so I don't really need to compare different LUTs or color spaces - I can tell the difference between sRGB and Linear blindfolded with both hands tied on my back. I don't really need a split point slider to help me tell the difference.<br />
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That said, I think it is a great idea. I do a lot of A B testing and comparisons switching between channels and switching layers on and off. A split point slider there would be an amazing function to clearly make out the differences and spot changes.<br />
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On the projection palette I am pleased to note that, again, my elaborate projection settings have been kept intact.<br />
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Mari's ambient occlusion is notoriously... low tech... so reading about the new baking tools in Mari 3.0 I had high hopes for the AO bake - something I use on pretty much every asset I touch, in one form or another. It doesn't seem that much better to me? I am surprised by this to the point, where I am wondering whether I have missed a trick? Maybe I am not doing it right?<br />
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Another thing I use constantly in my work is the 1-6 hot keys for zooming on selected components from different angles. In Mari 3.0 1-6 now zooms weirdly on not the entire selection but a single part of it. I have still not determined the logic behind what is going on there.<br />
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In the Export menu for channels, Export Current Channel Flattened is now number one in the roll out instead of two. Damn my muscle memory. That is going to take some time getting used to.<br />
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The thing I have been most excited about in this Mari release are the new nodes and the ability to get under the hood with node graphs. We already work very much in a node graph based fashion with other The Foundry products such as <a href="https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/katana/" target="_blank">Katana</a> and <a href="https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/nuke/" target="_blank">Nuke</a>. It seems a very straight forward step forward.<br />
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However on a busy day, where you are mindful of your time and deliveries etc. I didn't have time to dedicate more than 5-8 mouse clicks to check out the new palette etc. I already try to cover as much ground as I can procedurally before starting painting. Many effects I produce over and over again, like dust, value and color variations, generic dirt in corner and cracks and the effects of the sun bleaching outdoor assets. I am very excited to find out more about nodes and start building a library of these effects and exporting them as gizmos.<br />
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That was my first day in Mari 3.0 - of course I am anxious get back tomorrow morning and start peeling back more layers of what Mari 3.0 offers. For starters, I really need to get that 1-6 hot key navigation sorted out...<br />
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<br />Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-17160771632458918752016-02-14T00:41:00.000+00:002016-03-27T20:04:25.744+01:00Lessons in Life: AffirmationsCan you write and determine the script of your life? Can you choose what kind of person you will be?<br />
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I want to talk about mental programming. A computer can be programmed to do what you want it to do; Simple instructions, which a machine will carry out to the best of its ability. What about our brains? The most powerful computer ever devised. How do we program it?<br />
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I know how it is often negatively programmed. Ever heard the saying 'garbage in, garbage out?' I know the child, who is told over and over by its parent, that it is stupid, will be believe so, and <i>be so</i>. We even tell ourselves these things. I may tell myself that I am clumsy, and sure enough, my hands follow suit, starts trembling and dropping things inexplicably.<br />
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(For more about this, look up the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect" target="_blank">Pygmalion effect</a> - Harvard study from the 1960s: The essence is, expect the worst or best and you will get it.)<br />
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All the back chatter in our minds reinforce this. You get something wrong, and there pops up a voice "You idiot!" No doubt reinforcing and deeply entrenching existing negative programming.<br />
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How about reversing it? Can all the negative programming be disassembled and replaced by positive programming, which reinforces helpful and beneficial back chatter in the mind or beliefs about ourselves?<br />
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Why not give it a shot?<br />
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On the 14th of December 2011, I started writing affirmations to myself. Over the preceding months I had noted down what the negative voices in my head were consistently telling me. I took those things and turned them on their head and made them into statements. I added statements relating to my personal and career goals. The first shot was less than half a page in my journal. Over time as things have come to my attention and I have felt the need to be more specific in certain areas, my daily affirmations have grown. They now weigh in at around a full page and a half in my A5 sized journal.<br />
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A year later, I have completely eliminated all the negative voices in my head. You don't know what a lovely weight off your mind that is. Goodness knows, this life throws enough garbage at you. For you yourself to also lend strength to that and undermine yourself, that is just a great and needless injustice.<br />
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Writing this can often feel like a chore. But at the same time, I am also not quite myself, until I have done so. I feel unfocused and my thoughts are scattered. It is a bit like a mental shower. Showering cleans you. A single shower does no miracles for you. But over time the healthy habit of showering will keep you free of sicknesses and other problems. Or like paper. A single sheet has no strength, but as you layer sheet on top of sheet, day after day, the strength of the bundle of papers grows. You can punch through a single sheet of paper, but try punching through a phone book! There has been one or two days where I did not write my affirmations. Then I wrote twice the next day. Obviously this is not an exact science, but if I have told myself X times a day so-and-so negative thing, I would like to beat it back with at least the same amount of times - and whatever you can add on top, will now take us away from damage control territory and into a place where we start building ourselves up.<br />
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I write my affirmations on the train on my way to work. As you are literally opening up to your deepest desires and the things most important to you, it can feel a bit awkward with strangers sitting next to you; You feel emotionally naked. What if they helped themselves to a peek? But what I write may be deeply personal for me, but it is not harmful to others nor anything to be ashamed of.<br />
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The affirmations I write, and thus choose to program myself with, represent both dreams, goals and a to-do list; There are things I wish to achieve, things I want to remind myself to keep on keeping on with, things I generally want to aspire to and things I want to steer well clear off.<br />
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This is what I write every single day.<br />
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<i>I am Marque Pierre. I am a brilliant artist. I am a brilliant writer. I am a brilliant storyteller. I am worthy and deserving to be the director. My gifts make the world richer.</i><br />
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Before anything else, I was an artist. It was my first conscious memory. But you can lose your way. In recent years, for a long time, I have spent a lot of time admiring other artists and storytellers - while dismissing my own efforts. Slowly, slowly over time you start daring to dream, that maybe one day your own efforts would be good enough to fuel and direct the needs of a production; That you could be the leader and guiding light creatively. It feels good to think such thoughts, instead of shooting yourself down: "No, I would never be good enough for this..."<br />
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<i>I am a brilliant husband. I am a mild and patient father. I protect and teach my family. I am always approachable to my family. My family is happy.</i><br />
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I want to be. I love my family. For them I try to be my best every day.<br />
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<i>I am a handsome man. I am insanely strong. I am happy with myself. I love being Marque Pierre.</i><br />
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A tough one to write, as a stranger may, or may not, enter your personal space. But definitely something that has benefited me to accept. It feels good being at peace with yourself. I added the "strong" stuff after a spell of intensive pull-up exercises. I found that my mind kept telling me that I couldn't do them, even if I knew that I should be able to. It is draining fighting yourself like that. Got to get rid of such negative beliefs.<br />
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<i>I am famous for my kindness. People admire my joy. I speak with mildness and discretion. My gratitude makes me happy. My surroundings are refreshed by my company. Jeg har mere overskud end Bassen selv.</i><br />
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These sentences were added during a particularly trying time at work. I felt myself growing more and more bitter, and I had to start pushing back on that. Instead of bitter and sharp, I'd like to be refreshing for my surroundings. The last sentence, I really only could write in my native Danish. Even if English is my adopted language, there are still words that can't really be translated to my satisfaction. "Overskud" means surplus. It is often used in Danish for a surplus of energy and confidence; when nothing can faze you; you are just ready for it all. The sentence reads: "I have more 'surplus' than even Bassen himself." Bassen was the nickname of the grandfather of my friend. In his youth he was a master salesman and throughout his life, by far the most positive person I have ever met; A gentle giant and a true inspiration for handling any difficult situation with ease.<br />
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<i>I am full of confidence, libido, lust for life, energy and power. Every wish, dream and goal I have, come true. I can see clearly into the future, and everything I set out to do, becomes a success.</i><br />
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Yes, please. Of these things, you can never have enough.<br />
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<i>My work excites me. I can't wait to start on my work. I work fast and efficiently. People are instantly impressed by [my work]. I make more money than I can spend. I am well on my way now.</i><br />
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When I work, I want to hit the day hard. I work in a field, which is incredibly competitive; a field which is very hard to break into. I never want to forget how grateful I am, and should be, to be where I am. No matter how glamorous it was at first working in the film industry, everything eventually becomes common place. But I have worked too hard and overcome too many obstacles to be where I am today, to throw it away on complacency, so I need this reminder.<br />
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<i>I love my talents. I love my art style. I create only to thrill myself.</i><br />
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Do you ever look at other people in your profession and wish you had their talent and not your own? Pointless. I'd love to be Pete Docter, but I'd be a crap Pete Docter. I have a genuine chance to be the world's best ever Marque Pierre. You are you, make the best of that. It will never change. I remember reading an interview with Director Andrew Stanton from Pixar, where he mentioned some other film makers that he admired. He said something to the effect of, these film makers were busy making things, which were cool to themselves, and that made their work interesting to others as well. As opposed to wasting your time trying to second-guess, what others would think is cool and making something half-baked that neither you nor others would enjoy.<br />
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<i>I concentrate easily and deeply for long durations of time. I avoid all distractions and I am amazingly productive.</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061339202/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1459105152&sr=8-1&keywords=flow+book" target="_blank">Flow</a>, sweet flow. Flow is the sweetest drug of them all. If I can increase my ability to sink into flow and stay clear of distractions and procrastination, then that deserves a place in my daily affirmations.<br />
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<i>I enjoy learning new skills. I learn fast and intuitively. </i><br />
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Learning brand new skills is hard. Your old skills are calling you; Whispering in your ear, how easy it would be to forget all this newfangled nonsense and just revert back to your old ways, while you are tearing your hair out trying to navigate a new system which makes no sense. Lovely.<br />
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<i>I have a lot of friends who are brilliant artists and creators in their own right. We inspire each other and actively contribute to each others' success. </i><br />
<i><br /></i><a href="https://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/island.html" target="_blank">No man is an island</a>. Nor am I. Creating is often a solitary exercise, but to share these things with your peers and friends brings so much joy. 'Iron sharpens iron, likewise one man sharpens another man's face', says the Bible (<a href="https://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books/proverbs/27/#v20027017" target="_blank">Proverbs 27:17</a>). I always want and need more of such friends.<br />
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<i>I can actively shape my life to become exactly what I want and need it to be. My life is great and I am enjoying every moment of it! <u>This</u> is the best day of my life!</i><br />
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Here comes the grand finale: To firmly establish that you can shape your life into exactly what you want it to be. The penultimate sentence was for a long time, the conclusion to my daily affirmations, which is why it ends on an exclamation mark. I find that when I write the very last sentence, I force my mind to come up with plausible reasons why today indeed could be a very, very good day. Those thoughts are a lovely way to start the day.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Post Script</span></h4>
After a particularly trying time at work, I found myself peppering my affirmations with a new sentence. I was in a position, where I found myself constantly doubting my own abilities and judgments. Things that really <i>should </i>work, just didn't work. So you start feeling like an idiot. Already working as an artist is hard at the best of times - you constantly see flaws in your work; never have enough time to realize your vision; and your mistakes are being sharply pointed out by your peers and supervisors. Yep, it is not for the faint of heart.<br />
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So I added this sentence: "Jeg er god nok, som jeg er."I write this in Danish, my mother tongue, to make sure it will hit home as deeply as it can. The sentence means, "I am good enough, the way I am." For an artist, and a working artist at that, to get to that point of simply accepting yourself and trusting, that you are enough - just the way you are - is to be at peace.<br />
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What about you? Who do you want to become? What life do you want to script for yourself? Write it down. Every day.Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0Rue Clark, Montréal, QC, Canada45.5318631 -73.613992345.4428721 -73.7753538 45.6208541 -73.452630800000009tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-37038557051657650612015-07-29T19:14:00.002+01:002015-07-29T19:14:28.659+01:00Production Proven Shortcuts: Display Borders in Maya<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-4392061451567611138" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 16.3349990844727px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 528px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.3349990844727px; line-height: 1.4;">Ever been handed an asset looking something like this?</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk6Xr8cNFAZ3eTHvoOSI7GcTPLO2tMuE45yWiKAIrzpFv0OxNZDReO9fUKCu4E7y6znAP5don8sF6PTQ0VbDaswU1mqYX8ceFCi-AQXPaSPxsmzxCEkRlzmlf6YHSnURSR9pbtQQ/s1600/Maya0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk6Xr8cNFAZ3eTHvoOSI7GcTPLO2tMuE45yWiKAIrzpFv0OxNZDReO9fUKCu4E7y6znAP5don8sF6PTQ0VbDaswU1mqYX8ceFCi-AQXPaSPxsmzxCEkRlzmlf6YHSnURSR9pbtQQ/s320/Maya0.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouraud_shading" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Gouraud shading</a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> obviously gives away, that there is something not quite right with the mesh. We got a funny border running along some of the faces on the sphere.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS8QHH0mNGd_OSYEpdxsp2DNeFunoqsnkaH1ptjZgTZIEMPmOZZtLStk-ZZIRximR9BHRNVNj9BPhl8DmGpYfZgf7DPqD1uyXJaSrc90Y9Nsdjo1_VQZetDRj-syp-NEazRCL5Cw/s1600/Maya2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS8QHH0mNGd_OSYEpdxsp2DNeFunoqsnkaH1ptjZgTZIEMPmOZZtLStk-ZZIRximR9BHRNVNj9BPhl8DmGpYfZgf7DPqD1uyXJaSrc90Y9Nsdjo1_VQZetDRj-syp-NEazRCL5Cw/s320/Maya2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Outliner shows us that the sphere is indeed a single mesh, not a combination of intersecting meshes... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hmmm. What is your next step for trouble shooting this?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I would normally make sure all the normals are softened. Differences in normals across the surface make such edges in the Gouraud shading, and it is quite a common problem.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So we select all the faces and pick Soften Edge under the Normals menu.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXJkoymjr3o_8v1f9OKOeTJk4malwi7IEnwRxDujwcWiOBIWdodR5druogcZ-dY3G5aDd5ns9RdayjfhGr9YddzgyEj32JXjl0sZM91UEfQSdV8QoYMynZ2nJxHB9yKHJIOCDegg/s1600/Maya3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXJkoymjr3o_8v1f9OKOeTJk4malwi7IEnwRxDujwcWiOBIWdodR5druogcZ-dY3G5aDd5ns9RdayjfhGr9YddzgyEj32JXjl0sZM91UEfQSdV8QoYMynZ2nJxHB9yKHJIOCDegg/s320/Maya3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No joy still. Now, may I introduce you to the humble check box for Display Borders (under Mesh Component Display in the Attribute Editor)?</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQDB4siRqzWhtCj4_06h_Y477YvG4OIeCsFKEvFa0HiEEUFtCcfSxdxAHGJCxZ3WKdolnNPW802s4w8iswDfp-9JpB7GXF9xPxgtkcKBALogY0ffiE5nVnA2pO7v_bYsOSvZA0ow/s1600/Maya4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQDB4siRqzWhtCj4_06h_Y477YvG4OIeCsFKEvFa0HiEEUFtCcfSxdxAHGJCxZ3WKdolnNPW802s4w8iswDfp-9JpB7GXF9xPxgtkcKBALogY0ffiE5nVnA2pO7v_bYsOSvZA0ow/s320/Maya4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />Checking that (and setting the value higher than the default 1), will immediately show any borders in the mesh. In this case, we see that the problem is that our geometry has been combined by two pieces of geometry fitting each other perfectly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maybe these parts of the geometry once came from the same mesh, was separated for various reasons and then combined back together.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In any case, we have double vertices along the (now) visible border. So instead of it being a problem with normals, it is a vertex problem, which we can fix by merging the vertices sitting in the same space.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since the Display Borders option is so fast and simple, I will push that a step higher up on my list of trouble shooting steps, before I start checking normals. This little corner of Maya was pointed out to me by a colleague, after I had been swearing fruitlessly at the normals for an hour.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nifty to cut a few corners.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /><i>Did you find this useful? Leave me a comment, share the post via your favourite social media or drop me an email about things you'd like to see covered.</i></span></span>Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-22960516810211410192015-07-10T18:44:00.001+01:002015-07-10T18:44:54.913+01:00Notes from the Underground<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-4392061451567611138" itemprop="description articleBody">
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"Writing is the only way I have to explain my own life to myself." </span></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: medium;">- Pat Conroy</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I am told Beethoven filled scores of journals during his life. Apparently they ended in a room somewhere, never to be looked at again. But Beethoven believed that even if his writing was never read again, just the process of writing it down, would help anchor it in his memory.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsYVFFa8ubO7K582r4R4N-_ux4N5PJZdirRLNSt1cjA94mP0PX-lHBQs4f5-_QNKfe_07gLzQGcquP1WEJBoqP-P1vCdgpiN7M9fQB6BrxZJ2sEPslrT8g0noMsNGytC8GVQUD2Q/s1600/Beethoven_journal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsYVFFa8ubO7K582r4R4N-_ux4N5PJZdirRLNSt1cjA94mP0PX-lHBQs4f5-_QNKfe_07gLzQGcquP1WEJBoqP-P1vCdgpiN7M9fQB6BrxZJ2sEPslrT8g0noMsNGytC8GVQUD2Q/s1600/Beethoven_journal.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">One of Beethoven's many journals</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In addition to anchoring, I also find that jotting your ramblings down in a journal helps free up mental processing cycles - as you are not trying to juggle a million unfinished thoughts in your head; Then there is the process of forcing yourself to explain yourself as you write and the wonderful clarity you gain from looking at your thoughts from the outside in; And of course the useful benefits of being able to painlessly look up what you wrote as and when you need to. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">To this end I keep an assortment of journals grouped into various broad topics.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzhTHXxE3rmJjMHKa3Jpm91Dt2iXY2c-YflGWHouIPO8aIRptOG5PIM0MeAIpcnWfrS3KpwuxS0IfG8Yz0zo8GxGN3_L1JcWvHTeKOEJ_L7gATnKh5jMYX9OSYI2CjAN15Yv5PEA/s1600/Other_journals.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzhTHXxE3rmJjMHKa3Jpm91Dt2iXY2c-YflGWHouIPO8aIRptOG5PIM0MeAIpcnWfrS3KpwuxS0IfG8Yz0zo8GxGN3_L1JcWvHTeKOEJ_L7gATnKh5jMYX9OSYI2CjAN15Yv5PEA/s320/Other_journals.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Various journals focused on other topics</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">... and have done so for years and years. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOPIAZQ_qkBzreocYIoiUGVDVdScRNtlmPR-DnBvv-XzHmctjrDppsHovfLnsUb0UIp9aQHhIa4EzTfkjJtjNMu6e4VHOznVaCO9V-krID9H4sDdUJMYXyUfNWYZQeoOStgXKthA/s1600/old_journals.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOPIAZQ_qkBzreocYIoiUGVDVdScRNtlmPR-DnBvv-XzHmctjrDppsHovfLnsUb0UIp9aQHhIa4EzTfkjJtjNMu6e4VHOznVaCO9V-krID9H4sDdUJMYXyUfNWYZQeoOStgXKthA/s320/old_journals.jpg" width="286" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of my older journals</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But this post is about a special journal of mine.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiseXqznTTi0nX7G_u1uAFrIxQclXRgu2-QRnnc2zsmjEBcdpsVIhPEdY_EY46ZDimoWM8Yu_dHMlHelKrj7AeKM6QCszauVUvjklt2Nro8NRAG6NtQsV-dG1_0BH8NQp6MJml7g/s1600/the_master_journal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiseXqznTTi0nX7G_u1uAFrIxQclXRgu2-QRnnc2zsmjEBcdpsVIhPEdY_EY46ZDimoWM8Yu_dHMlHelKrj7AeKM6QCszauVUvjklt2Nro8NRAG6NtQsV-dG1_0BH8NQp6MJml7g/s320/the_master_journal.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Master Journal</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anybody who has worked with me, have picked this book up from my desk and inquired about its nature. This is the book I write all the things I learn about 3D, VFX and art - either through courses, own observations or things taught by more experienced colleagues.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6fMrboAC7jzUBpMQ3yqKjSzUweq-abMDkCPaMTCM7LDfkJowBg1AbfYO5NzC58dcWD2DYDJJdTnbnP-5jv2SfNT6pgMHJvTlfHwWcwtfDHglDOBuhU35jwlkLUXxfZPPK0HTBXQ/s1600/master_journal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6fMrboAC7jzUBpMQ3yqKjSzUweq-abMDkCPaMTCM7LDfkJowBg1AbfYO5NzC58dcWD2DYDJJdTnbnP-5jv2SfNT6pgMHJvTlfHwWcwtfDHglDOBuhU35jwlkLUXxfZPPK0HTBXQ/s640/master_journal.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of my many, many pages of scribbles</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Obviously, this book is absolutely key to my work, but beyond that I have never given it too much thought. Then one day my Executive Producer picks it up, leafs through the pages and exclaims, "One day Marque will publish this book and become and a millionaire!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nobody becomes a millionaire from publishing books on 3D and VFX, but I appreciated the compliment all the same. What is more it gave me the idea, that perhaps others could benefit from these bits and pieces I have collected over the years?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do we need yet another tome on VFX and 3D? I think <a href="http://www.cgsociety.org/training/" target="_blank">CGWorkshops</a>, <a href="http://www.digitaltutors.com/11/index.php" target="_blank">Digital Tutors</a>, <a href="http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/" target="_blank">Gnomon Workshops</a> and <a href="https://cmivfx.com/store" target="_blank">cmiVFX</a> are all doing a splendid job teaching a lot of useful techniques and getting people a good grounding in various software packages. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But to be perfectly honest, what I find in a lot of courses and training materials may be great for teaching a beginner the basics, but 90% of it I rarely use in day-to-day productions. However in the trenches of actual productions, what is very valuable, are clever little workarounds, that save you time or simplify the work you need to do turn a shot around. These are the kind of things, which I definitely note down in my journal for safe keeping.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So if they help me, they can help others too. I will not "publish my notebook and become a millionaire", but I <i>will</i> share these bits and piece which I have found valuable as short blog posts. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think I will call them Production Proven Shortcuts. That's what they are to me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>Did you find this useful? Leave me a comment, share the post via your favourite social media or drop me an email about things you'd like to see covered.</i></span></span></span><br />
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Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-53757504964797736602014-01-16T16:35:00.000+00:002014-01-16T16:35:16.730+00:00MARI: Distressed painted metal texture from scratch - Part 3<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-4392061451567611138" itemprop="description articleBody">
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"Start with what is known, and what is hidden will be revealed." - Rembrandt van Rijn</span></h4>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">We'll take Rembrandt's wisdom and the approach of building up our textures <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/mari-distressed-painted-metal-from.html" target="_blank">layer by layer</a>
in order create the last of the secondary maps (bump) we need for the
jerry can. For the first part of this tutorial, which looks at the
diffuse colour maps for our jerry can, please go to <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/mari-distressed-painted-metal-from.html">http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/mari-distressed-painted-metal-from.html</a></span><span style="font-size: small;"> and for the second part, which covers the spec maps, please see <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/mari-distressed-painted-metal-texture.html" target="_blank">http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/mari-distressed-painted-metal-texture.html</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Imperfection is key to successfully achieving the ilusion of
realism and avoiding that computer generated look, and as such wear and
tear is an important consideration for a texture artist. Which brings us
to the bump maps. </span>When people use the word "texture" outside of CGI, the meaning they refer to is pretty much what we use a bump map to illustrate: The texture of a surface, in terms of bumpiness, roughness and other smaller topographic details in the surface. </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
bump map adds lovely details, which are mostly only visible when the object is fairly close to the camera. It helps us to break up specular highlights and many other things. In a bump map 50% grey means that the surface is smooth and has neither indentations nor protrusions. White means details that protrudes out from the surface and black of course means details are recesses upon the surface</span>. </span> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Anyway,
let's put together the bump map for the jerry can, using what
we already have of information in the diffuse map.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">To
this end duplicate the Diffuse channel and use the duplicate
for our bump map. In the Channel palette, right click on the Diffuse
channel. Select Copy from the menu. Right click in the empty space on
the Channel palette and select Paste from the menu. Now we have a
duplicate of the Diffuse channel. Double-click on the new channel named
"Diffuse Copy" and rename it to something suitable, like Bump or BMP.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">First things first. When I paint secondary maps I set my Mari viewport to 50 percent grey. This allows me to visually gauge how far I am from my 50 percent grey midpoint. Beats bringing out the Color Picker all the time (although that certainly is useful to double-check values with). So right click on any empty and unused part of your Mari viewport. Select Display Properties.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmCPj5ZVPJHy0MyifHDrRkZ9qZJud1RDuiZGkzn8YlILeMxU4jQ39nfbO7KKERXfdjpG3_izRSufOMCb1zR7RulqbWAZsQPf5LD0BtBK5u40LU-Fry6LJMFOVk_BawU9COUH4dHw/s1600/right_click_menu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmCPj5ZVPJHy0MyifHDrRkZ9qZJud1RDuiZGkzn8YlILeMxU4jQ39nfbO7KKERXfdjpG3_izRSufOMCb1zR7RulqbWAZsQPf5LD0BtBK5u40LU-Fry6LJMFOVk_BawU9COUH4dHw/s320/right_click_menu.jpg" height="320" width="110" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"> Under Display Properties, under Background we have two colour swatches, which combined can create a gradient in the background of your viewport. Click each of them (Top and Bottom) and select a 50% grey, and hit Ok.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl9-5acBBnyyqoErdj0IhtXX9VtYUEqlBMmykmvfdiPOknmLuaf0xAx2XVR8yQSQcTLtWTQBkhFRE4Qx7G0kNtzRX8fG8QYS8Mi2xuNQ_HeeDJ1QrFyn8Zrp0BI4EyXOa9JorUDw/s1600/display_properties.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl9-5acBBnyyqoErdj0IhtXX9VtYUEqlBMmykmvfdiPOknmLuaf0xAx2XVR8yQSQcTLtWTQBkhFRE4Qx7G0kNtzRX8fG8QYS8Mi2xuNQ_HeeDJ1QrFyn8Zrp0BI4EyXOa9JorUDw/s320/display_properties.jpg" height="320" width="312" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">If you work in flat lighting mode (F1) then you will always be able to quickly compare the values of your bump map against the even grey background of the viewport. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Building our layers, we want to work from a 50% grey bottom layer - which in a bump map would represent a perfectly even surface. That wil be our starting point, upon which we will add dents, scratches and all the other goodness a bump map allows us to portray. So start by adding a Procedural Layer - Basic - Color and set it to 50% grey. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">So a 50% grey object set on a similarly coloured background, and your viewport should look like the right side (the flat lighting) of this image:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl89x5_oZRZgDZnZYxD0aYge62sA92h-ErMXEfUQDikkKmTVqf9W7AdExg32Ft8WlQo4_wqk2QDbxs3AvLqso5jjQxZFt3BrclbmFYO9gAxlyIeeU7I5VEW7UPjXwH2kpNaxHrIg/s1600/50grey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl89x5_oZRZgDZnZYxD0aYge62sA92h-ErMXEfUQDikkKmTVqf9W7AdExg32Ft8WlQo4_wqk2QDbxs3AvLqso5jjQxZFt3BrclbmFYO9gAxlyIeeU7I5VEW7UPjXwH2kpNaxHrIg/s320/50grey.jpg" height="223" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Let's start adding in our details from the creation of our colour map. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The first thing we want to use is the paint on the metal. That paint would sit slightly higher than the underlying metal itself. More specifically, as the green paint layer was a procedural basic color layer masked out in places, we need to use the mask. So right click on the mask symbol and then Layer Mask - Make Mask Stack. This turns our mask into a proper layer, which we can copy and add other layers to in a regular layer stack style. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcXhxLU80LEH6fr7as4Z1jlej5m2idRrPBaFs9_pReaGixE5pnqjduOJ-giV7ftga4VaNGUpVMajfdvk095Cw-4kqS6Og3jxydZPx2eK887OE0SvCMPVOFzoQ4hu3eMtU1E7_xFg/s1600/make_mask.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcXhxLU80LEH6fr7as4Z1jlej5m2idRrPBaFs9_pReaGixE5pnqjduOJ-giV7ftga4VaNGUpVMajfdvk095Cw-4kqS6Og3jxydZPx2eK887OE0SvCMPVOFzoQ4hu3eMtU1E7_xFg/s1600/make_mask.jpg" height="320" width="142" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">Also it changes the icon from the mask icon to the mask stack icon:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj6RoCkP4IqKoBK6UoTolPOMD9z6kgywWV-glAocYD0PTAcHQ8gfsQCpqN7LbBGcdJJpAi9D2BjZ7cmRi140yQYD4xbnQqGrEL2-uSwJbGva_Rofo5jZPNMls25XE788BOdEsryQ/s1600/mask_to_stack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj6RoCkP4IqKoBK6UoTolPOMD9z6kgywWV-glAocYD0PTAcHQ8gfsQCpqN7LbBGcdJJpAi9D2BjZ7cmRi140yQYD4xbnQqGrEL2-uSwJbGva_Rofo5jZPNMls25XE788BOdEsryQ/s1600/mask_to_stack.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Now, if you click on the new mask stack icon, a new layer window will open. Select the layer there in and copy it (right clicking on it, will give you a copy, paste etc. menu). Paste it into our bump channel above the 50% grey procedural colour layer. Create a layer group for it and drag our mask layer into the group. Now change the blend mode for the layer group to Multiply and the opacity to something like that 0.3. This is what my bump map looks like so far:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB9EOyyCDkmJSVOloKuClbEI0uklzcrSSDEizS3yApYD6OYPfd6tvjtJyWGQ3_mmhKQBwu9kY1pLDCU6iLVzc3NF5zB_8hGn5Up5Hexo6nlHEp7CGvecru8wAG9ZwarvsGfWmf_w/s1600/bump_paint.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB9EOyyCDkmJSVOloKuClbEI0uklzcrSSDEizS3yApYD6OYPfd6tvjtJyWGQ3_mmhKQBwu9kY1pLDCU6iLVzc3NF5zB_8hGn5Up5Hexo6nlHEp7CGvecru8wAG9ZwarvsGfWmf_w/s1600/bump_paint.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">In summary, what we have done here is creating a difference in height between the paint on the can and the aluminum underneath. Notice that the rubber spout is darker all over. This comes from our original mask, which of course masked away the paint from the rubber spout. In any case, we can leave it for now, as bumps very much work off differences in values. Globally on the spout we right now have a darker value, but the values of the details we will add on top of this darker value will still have the correct differences anyway. Kinda like adding 2 to 0 or 2 to 2, both will give a value which has increased with 2. That is how I see it. Does that make sense?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Moving on...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Move your aluminum base layer to sit on top of what we have so far. Change the blend mode to Overlay and the opacity to something like 0.25. What that does it gently add a bit of variation to our jerry can. Obviously a used jerry can is not completely smooth even on the big swathes of painted metal. We need to break those surfaces up ever so slightly, and preferably in an organic way. Our aluminum base will do this nicely.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR-JtAJi7B4E-LCQZAD9XgRVeccoxM6EQEAXaUh3P1HBXgXO8-eWaUeMvYWGgUQ81VLfM_hVydp2yOHSNuBqLiWPWnjFxU2FBKMc7_4ZeYDcxjaqkmYrMafU2T90bEwiDXpMBElw/s1600/bump_generic_noise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR-JtAJi7B4E-LCQZAD9XgRVeccoxM6EQEAXaUh3P1HBXgXO8-eWaUeMvYWGgUQ81VLfM_hVydp2yOHSNuBqLiWPWnjFxU2FBKMc7_4ZeYDcxjaqkmYrMafU2T90bEwiDXpMBElw/s1600/bump_generic_noise.jpg" height="210" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">Just as we want to break up the even spaces on the metal, so we also need to add a bit of similar detail to our rubber spout. Let's see what we can reuse of existing layers on the spout.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Your rubber base and rubber detail layers could be useful here. I took the rubber base layer and changed the blendmode to Multiply and lowered the opacity all the way down to 0.043. The rubber details layer I used with the blendmode of Color Dodge and an opacity of 0.07. So only adding these details in very, very lightly, but enough to break up the rubber spout, so it will not look like smooth porcelain etc. Here is what I got so far:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj35UTPU1Sdc0B0UcbXzg27BJJB1Jv1Z5j0gFp8vDgevZRnV1OMgBI6VygSFD0qHoBLGX7pFaYjYbW_oxFRvEZLHEgzzzYeD37s3dO7B0CRsTh2dllOUTWzIT1GP0vws2OBiuEctw/s1600/bump_rubber_detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj35UTPU1Sdc0B0UcbXzg27BJJB1Jv1Z5j0gFp8vDgevZRnV1OMgBI6VygSFD0qHoBLGX7pFaYjYbW_oxFRvEZLHEgzzzYeD37s3dO7B0CRsTh2dllOUTWzIT1GP0vws2OBiuEctw/s1600/bump_rubber_detail.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Remember our general dirt layer? We used a nice concrete texture to help paint it. As an object becomes dirty, that dirt will also add to the shape or roughness of the object. Drive your shiny new car through a muddy field, and what was previously smooth painted metal will now have bumpy mud on it. On a much smaller scale, we will use that dirt layer to add the bumps corresponding to the information in the colour map. Of this needs to be on a very small scale. Turn on that dirt layer and change the blend mode to Hard Light (as we want both the light and the dark information). I dialed my opacity all the way down to 0.043. You can barely see these details with the naked eye (unless you got a swanky 4K monitor), but with bump maps, little scratches can quickly end up looking like massive gouges in the render, so subtlety is imperative. Here is my bump map at this point:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrFUN6JuqGxRwGE1opGsxrmVIc3p-VnEK-zFLraP-_t4qv0ZbeW-Jb7onGAv1EWM9aOf8I6Nx_ptee6quYI5Fz3eruWGENwm5aehfS5VEQ62-LFvdzKXwG-4Ys3zOiAemZGsLn7A/s1600/bump_dirt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrFUN6JuqGxRwGE1opGsxrmVIc3p-VnEK-zFLraP-_t4qv0ZbeW-Jb7onGAv1EWM9aOf8I6Nx_ptee6quYI5Fz3eruWGENwm5aehfS5VEQ62-LFvdzKXwG-4Ys3zOiAemZGsLn7A/s1600/bump_dirt.jpg" height="210" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Speaking of bump maps and scratches, let's move on to this more meaty subject. For the scratches on the can, I want to both use the general scratches we painted and also use a higher contrast version of those. With the higher contrast scratches I want to create a smaller number of more pronounced scratches. So we need to copy our scratches layer and place it in a new layer group. Add on top of the scratches layer in there an adjustment layer - contrast. Adjust your contrast to fit. Here are my scratches post contrast adjustment on their own:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiult-Ff5i5pt1H2ZCekd6MMOc9CpyfdLS2eV-TCA7aSqrrhunaP5DJtz4nmESFXJ6Ft3zzYaiu4jx5mY64phdmIFRwH_up4UX4Ad6XmQ0iGPZJeFStpIMVUxO_5AQi57Tvdn_Dw/s1600/bump_scratches_high_contrast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiult-Ff5i5pt1H2ZCekd6MMOc9CpyfdLS2eV-TCA7aSqrrhunaP5DJtz4nmESFXJ6Ft3zzYaiu4jx5mY64phdmIFRwH_up4UX4Ad6XmQ0iGPZJeFStpIMVUxO_5AQi57Tvdn_Dw/s1600/bump_scratches_high_contrast.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Then change the blend mode of the layer group to Soft Light and the opacity to something like 0.2. Put together with the other layers, this is what it should look like:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_YQBVIUm97YlXfTgQ8yzHe2yT_ejGR39cV84e4JQ1FZXhVnqtLHDRmxw7CHOuoid3dSBl484mrCtvUqJSmjkQlD3Vddtuwq74Kop50EaDTYvlEVuOlT2GHFk93ms4FR6pg0WCCw/s1600/bump_scratches_high_contrast2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_YQBVIUm97YlXfTgQ8yzHe2yT_ejGR39cV84e4JQ1FZXhVnqtLHDRmxw7CHOuoid3dSBl484mrCtvUqJSmjkQlD3Vddtuwq74Kop50EaDTYvlEVuOlT2GHFk93ms4FR6pg0WCCw/s1600/bump_scratches_high_contrast2.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">That is a nice subtle start to our scratches. Let's turn it up a notch. So if we go back to our original scratch layer, here we will get the majority of the information, which will drive our scratches' bumps. To make sure the bigger details of the texture come out, I changed the blend mode to Hard Mix and took the opacity down to 0.3. In close up, it looks like this:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlN_WiDAYQkQe2VpbT-IDtHxFLgxGTR56wwpKFCz22ZurVpYxCe-rNMBT9xHXrCgboexHeSVDa4rQ0se085MHJ3yNlLbQylD4GFv4bka113utoxYWNixqSL2o7MsZCcG_oAp-uGQ/s1600/bump_scratches_close.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlN_WiDAYQkQe2VpbT-IDtHxFLgxGTR56wwpKFCz22ZurVpYxCe-rNMBT9xHXrCgboexHeSVDa4rQ0se085MHJ3yNlLbQylD4GFv4bka113utoxYWNixqSL2o7MsZCcG_oAp-uGQ/s1600/bump_scratches_close.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"> All told, this is my jerry can so far:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1tklEtT-jeCzMlf50oBnnxnNbfgCqBXcxbAI_ubnR43VVw4y6kCnvTrioW8A9Lf3ZFya_s1kCdiJuJT-4bIxUkSDfRPeDSAUY330nhvg-fibZBjwiFxnmPKVihtqFvEORmOsNmw/s1600/bump_scratches.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1tklEtT-jeCzMlf50oBnnxnNbfgCqBXcxbAI_ubnR43VVw4y6kCnvTrioW8A9Lf3ZFya_s1kCdiJuJT-4bIxUkSDfRPeDSAUY330nhvg-fibZBjwiFxnmPKVihtqFvEORmOsNmw/s1600/bump_scratches.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Let's bring in the rust details. Make a layer group for your rust layer, and add an adjustment layer - HSV on top, crank the saturation down to 0. Or you could also add an adjustment layer - Luminosity, which does the same job, or if you are an enemy of non-destructive editing, you could run a filter on your rust layer (Hue or Luminosity for example). You get the point... So with our rust detail all converted to greyscale, change the blend mode of the rust layer group to Color Burn and the opacity to something like 0.236. Now our rust details will have a suitably bumpy surface.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9pobuIa-wHgP_7bfZHjYt2DkOZsvEM76YKXUKrZ1l2U7EYtito0rLNmKLbJzvlBNVZsBkL302HGkytj1t0y6tZWT8NuTt4T3mwGqHofW2tfF1AxxpYFoCZ8-pmLZq990lIrMkBA/s1600/bump_rust.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9pobuIa-wHgP_7bfZHjYt2DkOZsvEM76YKXUKrZ1l2U7EYtito0rLNmKLbJzvlBNVZsBkL302HGkytj1t0y6tZWT8NuTt4T3mwGqHofW2tfF1AxxpYFoCZ8-pmLZq990lIrMkBA/s1600/bump_rust.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Actually. I am still not happy with the way the rust is portrayed bump-wise. I want something more grainy. Rust has that crystalized kind of surface. I am thinking, generate some noise and overlay with the rust bumps we already have to get that grainy feel. Create a layer group and add a procedural layer - Noise - Cellular. Depending on your overall rust look, the noise needs to be quite small. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcH2cGe1GrQzgnVCf1mHHnhXUmy4r5uuFLYh9Xa-_Qz3_F79lEDT6zpNlJ353VSoxbyk5XNCu9DNT4UH-h4Evpc3rTEMEZLzHC6e549ZvgAIX7grUae3nUujCDqocW3gtm9im9wg/s1600/bump_noise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcH2cGe1GrQzgnVCf1mHHnhXUmy4r5uuFLYh9Xa-_Qz3_F79lEDT6zpNlJ353VSoxbyk5XNCu9DNT4UH-h4Evpc3rTEMEZLzHC6e549ZvgAIX7grUae3nUujCDqocW3gtm9im9wg/s1600/bump_noise.jpg" height="210" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">Add a layer mask to the rust noise detail layer group and set it to hide all. What I did next was to take a rust texture and using the paint through tool and an organic brush, I painted into the mask where I wanted this noise detail on top of my rust. Here is what I painted onto my layer mask:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQoi-fJ-WbScp5b8Y19-6DVlJCILxZFhwOO67qWauL5rjhJr10W8NNcte6wwOUVFh6i96PRZzuVcb7eZS-VySeKyDxtvj9xs8vi_XunJ-TeqwN3HKQNoalwRlpyvgnym1GlWFTig/s1600/bump_rust_noise_mask.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQoi-fJ-WbScp5b8Y19-6DVlJCILxZFhwOO67qWauL5rjhJr10W8NNcte6wwOUVFh6i96PRZzuVcb7eZS-VySeKyDxtvj9xs8vi_XunJ-TeqwN3HKQNoalwRlpyvgnym1GlWFTig/s1600/bump_rust_noise_mask.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">Change the blend mode of the layer group to Multiply and take the opacity down to something like 0.227. Up close you can see (compare with the rust bump close up above) the added detail provided by the noise layer:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl_dYESQUeFV04bGKoW3WbWDQlZ6ixzlBCy8F-s9XF5-y1dkJPmok2eoK5AHCsN91CcsQ-2J512-h5d6viuGpf4Bj352tJmMWmrIE232I6nGrq3OWR2uLZedKzWjkszm2KCQmaqg/s1600/bump_rust_noise_close_up.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl_dYESQUeFV04bGKoW3WbWDQlZ6ixzlBCy8F-s9XF5-y1dkJPmok2eoK5AHCsN91CcsQ-2J512-h5d6viuGpf4Bj352tJmMWmrIE232I6nGrq3OWR2uLZedKzWjkszm2KCQmaqg/s1600/bump_rust_noise_close_up.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">That takes my bump map to its final stage:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDWOURyVDUoZ1_WdeMnC5_wauNwSdAFcYsvmWNuHF22SDJcPjGOEit76yihGC0eq0CThQfcaH7bWHraR8nrdEIsJTxOi6epUeaRijW_g90YR7clQAjyzOKQQScx9hAYggLEWtzSg/s1600/bump_final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDWOURyVDUoZ1_WdeMnC5_wauNwSdAFcYsvmWNuHF22SDJcPjGOEit76yihGC0eq0CThQfcaH7bWHraR8nrdEIsJTxOi6epUeaRijW_g90YR7clQAjyzOKQQScx9hAYggLEWtzSg/s1600/bump_final.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">Which rendered out, contributed to this look:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In my final instalment of this mini-series, I will go over setting up our shaders and lighting.</span> Then I am looking forward to seeing your renders of this simple Mari texturing project.</span></span><br />
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Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0London, UK51.511213899999987 -0.1198243999999704151.195100899999986 -0.7652713999999704 51.827326899999989 0.52562260000002958tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-43920614515676111382013-12-13T17:31:00.001+00:002014-01-17T20:00:44.487+00:00MARI: Distressed painted metal texture from scratch - Part 2<h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;">"Start with what is known, and what is hidden will be revealed." - Rembrandt van Rijn</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"> </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">We'll take Rembrandt's wisdom and the approach of building up our textures <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/mari-distressed-painted-metal-from.html" target="_blank">layer by layer</a> in order create the secondary maps (bump and specular) we need for the jerry can. For the first part of this tutorial, which looks at the diffuse colour maps for our jerry can, please go to <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/mari-distressed-painted-metal-from.html">http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/mari-distressed-painted-metal-from.html</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">The spec map is often considered the most-valuable-player of all the texture maps. When objects are so far away from the camera, that the diffuse map cannot be made out anymore, you can usually still see the effects of the spec map. The opposite end of that spectrum would probably be bump maps, which are the first to go as the camera pulls away from a model. The spec map will simply put control how shiny our object appears; how much of the light that hits the object is reflected back. Black equals the light-eating power of a black hole, where white equals the mirror shine of chrome.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Anyway, let's start putting together the spec map for the jerry can, using what we already have of information in the diffuse map.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">To this end we will duplicate the Diffuse channel and use the duplicate for our spec map. In the Channel palette, right click on the Diffuse channel. Select Copy from the menu. Right click in the empty space on the Channel palette and select Paste from the menu. Now we have a duplicate of the Diffuse channel. Double-click on the new channel named "Diffuse Copy" and rename it to something suitable, like Spec.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXIKSER0RLNUEwgMoY5dV3l9fQCWgm_MTrDvozolAg5bRGFCjo85j9_fPDuU9rTeila4iLQB6eTfUDuhR1xJa7ePSj8MM5vZMZAtHuAkEawYwWBz10znwtdrb_YZApisXcCR8i4g/s1600/copy_channel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXIKSER0RLNUEwgMoY5dV3l9fQCWgm_MTrDvozolAg5bRGFCjo85j9_fPDuU9rTeila4iLQB6eTfUDuhR1xJa7ePSj8MM5vZMZAtHuAkEawYwWBz10znwtdrb_YZApisXcCR8i4g/s320/copy_channel.jpg" height="320" width="191" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">In the Layers palette for the new Spec channel, add an HSV adjustment layer as the top-most layer of the stack. Take saturation slider all the way down to 0, and now our duplicated diffuse channel is all greyscale as a spec map needs to be.Turn off the visibility (click on the little eyeball icon next to each layer) of all the layers in the channel, and then we will bring them in as need be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Add a procedural layer (Basic - Color), set the colour to black (don't use complete black, or white in your textures, it messes up the shader math); put 0.114 in each of the RGB channels.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ekiFqXQYiXX6FaNqpn1rs0BPxn8gJpD5sz0ZTqI8Xi51iq99XkNFpiMP_nugAUVnXCNsx5D0SDNVoT0SRN0CodrKjxvNTquT0JjBMtgaKMIO_7Hv85d0LOR9ikDiNwD-qR98NA/s1600/spec01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ekiFqXQYiXX6FaNqpn1rs0BPxn8gJpD5sz0ZTqI8Xi51iq99XkNFpiMP_nugAUVnXCNsx5D0SDNVoT0SRN0CodrKjxvNTquT0JjBMtgaKMIO_7Hv85d0LOR9ikDiNwD-qR98NA/s320/spec01.jpg" height="187" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This "black" will be a base for the rubber spout of the jerry can. So why don't you add an empty layer group and drag the procedural color layer into the group. Add a layer mask to the group by selecting the group, right clicking on it and selecting layer mask - add mask. Whether you go for Reveal All or Hide All, paint with pure white or black in your layer mask, so only the spout is affected by the procedural color layer. For good measure, I have added a white color layer underneath to help our spout to stand out.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Other than the procedural layer with the black colour, which we have just inserted at the bottom, your lowest layer should be your aluminum base layer. We need that. Click on the eyeball left of the layer in the layers palette to toggle its visibility on. The aluminum texture will both give a nice neutral base to build upon as well as lot of organic details and variation, which suits a metal can. So far, so good.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlqN83bD1yTFaXaW_Zb6EALPp2bPvXOLaumyKosbsskrpvLPt_Hi7jvT7JddS7B1xVQ84jZAjdEMNUbNeNQAPQXw52ZaLf6OfCRuPY3tfYfroC-U0wPrfZPLEKTWiY6M7-z9goSQ/s1600/spec_alu_base.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlqN83bD1yTFaXaW_Zb6EALPp2bPvXOLaumyKosbsskrpvLPt_Hi7jvT7JddS7B1xVQ84jZAjdEMNUbNeNQAPQXw52ZaLf6OfCRuPY3tfYfroC-U0wPrfZPLEKTWiY6M7-z9goSQ/s320/spec_alu_base.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Next I want to add a touch of ambient occlusion. In corners dirt and dust will gather automatically due to inaccesability, which makes it more unlikely to get wiped off by regular use. Most kinds of ordinary dust and dirt will lower the shininess of a surface, so using ambient occlusion to make these areas darker works well (darker is less reflective or shiny in our spec map, mind you). A tiny touch will do.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Click on the Add Procedural Layer button in the layers palette. Select Geometry - Ambient Occlusion. Set the blend mode of the layer to Multiply and the opacity to 0.150. If you don't have something like this...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwpgjZ-oXxAPAcIV_FBBMGolB0oummB_zp9dSrYjyF1NdmExc0_q7Jo2nfTgps8Q1BcoXn5zNR4wJ8XlEGqUsXT6usrdRLRvZOE2RdB5fdHjQX_s7bcd7cVXb6GWLm2wAhIIHcGQ/s1600/spec_ao.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwpgjZ-oXxAPAcIV_FBBMGolB0oummB_zp9dSrYjyF1NdmExc0_q7Jo2nfTgps8Q1BcoXn5zNR4wJ8XlEGqUsXT6usrdRLRvZOE2RdB5fdHjQX_s7bcd7cVXb6GWLm2wAhIIHcGQ/s320/spec_ao.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">... it might be because you haven't calculated your ambient occlusion yet. In that case, select your jerry can as an object. Go to the Objects menu and select Ambient Occlusion. Mari will calculate for a while, and then you will have your lovely ambient occlusion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Remember your Dirt layer? Turn that back on (click on the eyeball to the left of the layer name). This is what I have:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrHG9AOQ3u34f_bcpOuHfjovzs3Mw8HmvqIhF20t_SSEHQzJS8Gs0RjTXZ7Oouot4VzG6MDwWYxz_uOp8hVwN5lD5gPceOzH9APrE-6N4sTQQ6w2iS2ZJJDOXid11pMo1GfIW-9Q/s1600/spec_dirt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrHG9AOQ3u34f_bcpOuHfjovzs3Mw8HmvqIhF20t_SSEHQzJS8Gs0RjTXZ7Oouot4VzG6MDwWYxz_uOp8hVwN5lD5gPceOzH9APrE-6N4sTQQ6w2iS2ZJJDOXid11pMo1GfIW-9Q/s320/spec_dirt.jpg" height="210" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Next we want to bring the scratches back into play. If memory serves, the scratches layer from the diffuse map was set to Hard Light blend mode and 0.798 opacity. That should do nicely for the purpose of the spec map as well, so turn the layer's visibility back on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWi5EnmVlSLNl5jYU51tJp6zuDGP_h5bt8NxY_XCDWyEuWWOO6BvWteTsqzQjiQUDIr6RemFqqyeez24XGvCfoS8hDnQHuq3RJR2Q3Pmv60VvVrt_8YrnD0XKPcb4CXcnMCi6IxQ/s1600/spec_scratches.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWi5EnmVlSLNl5jYU51tJp6zuDGP_h5bt8NxY_XCDWyEuWWOO6BvWteTsqzQjiQUDIr6RemFqqyeez24XGvCfoS8hDnQHuq3RJR2Q3Pmv60VvVrt_8YrnD0XKPcb4CXcnMCi6IxQ/s320/spec_scratches.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The spills we added from down the front from the spout and to the base of the can also need to be in the spec map. However, they were set to Vivid Light blend mode before and 0.552 opacity. Change the blend mode of the Spills layer to Overlay and crank the opacity up to 1.0. Which should look something like this.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnemcI7mabYVMRBKPWR25-Hx-medvU4xSgepxjuZiI_hlaUKXSAyZRxaPTVJBeMpi1FGajlkS8eiQVpScnUtEgTFzs7GW_WCV0iYBp-HCO7N92pOhNGVLntVOI1M0dSMdPnAl2_Q/s1600/spec_spills.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnemcI7mabYVMRBKPWR25-Hx-medvU4xSgepxjuZiI_hlaUKXSAyZRxaPTVJBeMpi1FGajlkS8eiQVpScnUtEgTFzs7GW_WCV0iYBp-HCO7N92pOhNGVLntVOI1M0dSMdPnAl2_Q/s320/spec_spills.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">Lovely.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Onto our Dust_broad group. Therein we painted a broad and generic dust layer, masked by Ambient Occlusion. Turn the visibility of the Dust_broad layer group on. We should be able to use the blend mode (Overlay) and opacity as is. So far, so good:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-yT7k0LugtOWBwqiauSTZzTOd8FCEzm7ZRrqVj7FcXBeGpFnaHerUSR4tUnW9WO69ooKvgzSl0P4X8TaVPwGFlQUP2Dyl0LQ7cj3LN8blCMaMQebNTmAydRIv4qd0gVy9T49bSg/s1600/spec_dust_broad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-yT7k0LugtOWBwqiauSTZzTOd8FCEzm7ZRrqVj7FcXBeGpFnaHerUSR4tUnW9WO69ooKvgzSl0P4X8TaVPwGFlQUP2Dyl0LQ7cj3LN8blCMaMQebNTmAydRIv4qd0gVy9T49bSg/s320/spec_dust_broad.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">We also have the Dust_detail layer group, where we added more specific dust around the base of the spout etc. Turn on the visibility of the Dust_detail layer group and make sure the blend mode is set to Overlay and full opacity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7GPdJt-mQpr-xNKBtB0A9ef7zNfrvEy7OHF0HGXWHcU0A4CK95KihpXDVg_6T1eJ0WnmS8dfT1tZagEfvkce2M2xegw9FrJ6K0MoCF-5TIogEYlwSCt2axrWzA6-NZENF49RD-Q/s1600/spec_dust_detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7GPdJt-mQpr-xNKBtB0A9ef7zNfrvEy7OHF0HGXWHcU0A4CK95KihpXDVg_6T1eJ0WnmS8dfT1tZagEfvkce2M2xegw9FrJ6K0MoCF-5TIogEYlwSCt2axrWzA6-NZENF49RD-Q/s320/spec_dust_detail.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I am looking at our spec map and I would like the scratches to be more pronounced. As light moves across the jerry can, the scratches would be a very distinctive feature. Aluminum has a dull glow, as the surface is oxidized over time, also you have the paint, which obscures metal, but where the scratches are, the aluminum will be naked and in some places freshly scratched - revealing the full extent of its shininess in places. Copy the Scratches layer (Right click on the Scratches layer and select Copy and then right click again and select Paste). We still want all the light and dark information of those scratches cranked up to full effect, so blend mode should still be Hard Light. I further took the opacity up to a full 1.0. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFKlF2voWdWXWkOrOLoE-uR3_l8NSb7obqM5qivWRol-vu4kpd-99SV1NPpGsiIK4ZuaB0QknwI1LDF_37bpjW0vO9i2Bm_TJtxLNrJS6VS1RAjmZsFF-_2CKwg1bEYYkkAD8yOQ/s1600/spec_scratches_extra.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFKlF2voWdWXWkOrOLoE-uR3_l8NSb7obqM5qivWRol-vu4kpd-99SV1NPpGsiIK4ZuaB0QknwI1LDF_37bpjW0vO9i2Bm_TJtxLNrJS6VS1RAjmZsFF-_2CKwg1bEYYkkAD8yOQ/s320/spec_scratches_extra.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">So that is the scratches. How about rust? How does rust affect specularity? In my experience, rust dramatically dulls the reflectivity of metal. What is least shiny thing you know? From where I am sitting, the carpet underneath my feet has next to no reflection. Rust is pretty close to that. Do a quick google search for rust and you will see that there are a lot of different types of rust, which again would mean a lot of different looks of rust. Of course it not completely diffuse, but close, and so we aim for darkness where we have our rusty patches.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Our rust layer was set to multiply. Turn on the visibility and crank up the darkness it leaves by changing blend mode to Color Burn. It should look something like this...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs_rtOvvd94JBSKNEFy3JLRVmg4rqrZJysalp_b3H2ix_HOngLi2FqGwFsCD7IDAtJKnUeZCyoFZSU6bLx2p_W3H2nW71ZHLSRoD491HK0NUglkA8KqXxKKNxjFOZXur9c3cTkKQ/s1600/spec_rust.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs_rtOvvd94JBSKNEFy3JLRVmg4rqrZJysalp_b3H2ix_HOngLi2FqGwFsCD7IDAtJKnUeZCyoFZSU6bLx2p_W3H2nW71ZHLSRoD491HK0NUglkA8KqXxKKNxjFOZXur9c3cTkKQ/s320/spec_rust.jpg" height="210" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Zooming close in on the rust, I love the grainy details. Rust is never very even in its colour, density and distribution. That should correspond nicely with the crystalline quality of the surface of rust.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1u_pRyGZCUYmjpf083g3WQ2rq7Atts5JAHhdsoGC2bB8vUDF2xJaDGJS6hyphenhyphensHprpMUB4jSFI0FLXWUI63DC5wqERYSuN_nXCo5OA2w6bMmWG7CJw-ux3S6VlgxGi_TcrgeBo4_g/s1600/spec_rust_detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1u_pRyGZCUYmjpf083g3WQ2rq7Atts5JAHhdsoGC2bB8vUDF2xJaDGJS6hyphenhyphensHprpMUB4jSFI0FLXWUI63DC5wqERYSuN_nXCo5OA2w6bMmWG7CJw-ux3S6VlgxGi_TcrgeBo4_g/s320/spec_rust_detail.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The very last addition to our spec map will be our grime layer. Turn the visibility of the Grime group on and change the blend mode to Color Burn. I want this layer group to help create break-up and variation of the larger metal surfaces, so we need Color Burn's increase of contrast to help with that. Change the opacity to something in the range of 0.25, which gives us our finished spec map:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmrFonEoYqFaHUNliYVg1AL6vMI3P2qHibrgGc4-u1bChb_kDwosa60uCKpuSPngm30RQWeTBYPTYSwLqxeoC7x3H4VJZV-2ud0EPiiK4jq-epmNAWb3Ommzba9_FnYTUZQr0Hhg/s1600/spec_grime.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmrFonEoYqFaHUNliYVg1AL6vMI3P2qHibrgGc4-u1bChb_kDwosa60uCKpuSPngm30RQWeTBYPTYSwLqxeoC7x3H4VJZV-2ud0EPiiK4jq-epmNAWb3Ommzba9_FnYTUZQr0Hhg/s320/spec_grime.jpg" height="210" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now that we are done, going back over the project, a few things could be improved. Perhaps we could add just a touch of noise to the rubber spout base, to further break up the base (apart from what we have done with the layers of dirt, dust etc.). We could also make a differentiation between the exposed metal and the painted metal.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">In general it is worth noting most, if not all, of what you need for your spec map, you should already have in some shape or form in your diffuse (colour) map. Also, a spec maps best friend is variation. So if you have large stretches of the same material on your geometry, make sure you consciously look to break it up in your spec map. Unless your object is fresh from the factory, this is a really key point. On a show I worked on, we had a number of spaceships, which needed to appear relatively clean and sci-fi'ey, but as a result the colour maps were struggling a bit to convey the needed realism - solution? Quietly make your spec maps absolutely filthy...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What is left now, is just to create a bump map and setting up our shaders and lighting.</span> That will be the topic of the last two posts in this mini-series. Then you should have a render looking more or less like mine:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEMcR1S0wehL0Qkgpx4riWLgX8ApiOyOIB_FULf6-fmqwnTBwrqOpe-1YbgDHV2DVrb2NJ5GPABQaLqIo5_lP1nyhXKZBMOk6PnQdQfYjTd91IOho7A90MJk4guY8ft8OXhHOFaQ/s1600/shotName___masterLayer___v000.0140.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEMcR1S0wehL0Qkgpx4riWLgX8ApiOyOIB_FULf6-fmqwnTBwrqOpe-1YbgDHV2DVrb2NJ5GPABQaLqIo5_lP1nyhXKZBMOk6PnQdQfYjTd91IOho7A90MJk4guY8ft8OXhHOFaQ/s320/shotName___masterLayer___v000.0140.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This tutorial continues with an overview of creating a bump map for our jerry can <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/mari-distressed-painted-metal-texture.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>Did you find
this useful? Leave me a comment, share the post via your favourite
social media or drop me an email about things you'd like to see covered.</i></span> </span>Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-87892514637884789892013-11-02T14:47:00.000+00:002013-11-02T14:47:25.958+00:00/Shameless Plug/Ladies and gentlemen of the public,<br />
<br />
Could I please prey on your patience and good nature for a moment:<br />
<br />
Remember the stylized KFC commercial, I was using as an example for cartoony texture painting? <br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/mari-walk-on-wild-side-stylized-texture.html" target="_blank">Of course you do.</a><br />
<br />
<br />
That short is nominated for an award by <a href="http://www.animaecaribe.com/index.php" target="_blank">Animae Caribe</a>. Could I ask you, please, to direct your browsers to <a href="http://www.animaecaribe.com/vote-commercial?">http://www.animaecaribe.com/vote-commercial?</a>and vote for "KFC 40th Anniversary"? <br />
<br />
I would be eternally grateful and happy to reciprocate with a solid favour, whenever you need one.<br />
<br />
Thank you kindly!Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-7772397336127951162013-10-11T15:38:00.000+01:002013-10-16T07:55:10.338+01:00MARI: A walk on the wild side - stylized texture paintingI think the one tool, that made Mari what it is to texture painters today, is the Paint Through tool. Secondly, you could mention the ability to handle hitherto impossibly large amounts of image data with ease. Seldomly does the basic Paint tool get to be front and centre to what we do as texture artists. I call myself a Texture Painter. I paint in my spare time. Oh yes. Brushes, canvas and paint in tubes. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuxCIaczUa0" target="_blank">No school, like the old school</a>. But that has little to do with 98% of the work you can find today as a texture artist. Sadly.<br />
<br />
Recently I was approached to paint textures on an animated short celebrating <a href="http://kfc-tt.com/about-us/" target="_blank">KFC</a>'s 40 year anniversary on Trinidad & Tobago. Yes, paint textures. Not project photos. Being a huge fan of <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131074/redefining_cartoony_game_art.php#!" target="_blank">stylized</a> cartoon animation, I leapt at the chance. For this particular project Producer <a href="http://tt.linkedin.com/pub/nicholas-maxwell/16/959/238" target="_blank">Nicholas Maxwell</a> and Director <a href="http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/adrian-nurse/11/492/622" target="_blank">Adrian Nurse</a> wanted something stylized and painterly with visible brush strokes. A point of reference was the excellent <a href="http://steakollective.net/meetbuck/" target="_blank">Meet Buck</a> by the <a href="http://steakollective.net/" target="_blank">Steak Kollective</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFmIt0rbS_8Km0378-uc8Oq-hc9P2yrLfiiBAvv_TsmzY81tHMknUyp-RTUR3xtMDiuyi_5JRacmJ2ABuix48hJz0ZqxbJTsKEdYB3opvCOifhUblrhCEDdvZHb95A17AZQ6cVIQ/s1600/meet_buck02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFmIt0rbS_8Km0378-uc8Oq-hc9P2yrLfiiBAvv_TsmzY81tHMknUyp-RTUR3xtMDiuyi_5JRacmJ2ABuix48hJz0ZqxbJTsKEdYB3opvCOifhUblrhCEDdvZHb95A17AZQ6cVIQ/s320/meet_buck02.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEAH7GR0PSzGI7ZV8OtCJXtUPfMd9Ky8CEpzuWg-ahJW0BV2gWIhDGeeJag1XjdieUMN51dU9Ayd59A6TLq8kcUT1mDI-xHP4eohRdmERpNluJVLZ9n13p0oR9A8osx6tlbLImLg/s1600/meet_buck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEAH7GR0PSzGI7ZV8OtCJXtUPfMd9Ky8CEpzuWg-ahJW0BV2gWIhDGeeJag1XjdieUMN51dU9Ayd59A6TLq8kcUT1mDI-xHP4eohRdmERpNluJVLZ9n13p0oR9A8osx6tlbLImLg/s320/meet_buck.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Analyzing the look of Meet Buck a few things stood out. Comparing the two projects, we were not going to have exactly the same lighting setup, but in terms of textures there were a couple of things we could run with; I deduced the following basic rules, which served as a guide to unify the look of the textures in our short:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>First pick a base colour - the local colour of the object</li>
<li>Take that base colour and change it into two variations: One slightly lighter and one slightly darker - both with a slight change in hue as well. These two will serve to break up the base colour, add visual interest and take it towards that painterly look. To that end, it is important that these two colours are so different (both in terms of hue and value) that the brush strokes can be seen, but not so different that the brush strokes will appear noisy or jarring.</li>
<li>Use a brush on reduced opacity, in order to build up your brush strokes as you go. This allows you to get a lot of mileage out of the relatively few colours you work with. (My go-to brush was basically feltTip from the basic brushes tab set on 0.350 opacity.) By mileage I mean that instead of adding the necessary variations in colour and value to your textures, which is needed to add richness to that organic painterly look, by picking umpteen different colours to paint with, adding brush strokes on top of brush strokes for different combinations of opacity, will give you those levels of variation you need.</li>
</ul>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfPPU1aUiePCLJ5khSbP2zGh1gKA8z4jX2JLt_5_Kh_P9zvekKuwbNgAA1B8dhKoTuBSoeLyLZTNxGFANIyp-Y0PDKkhZVfO_1vN-QMfFGCtAggM3VCox5qQF7hJCFK11p0DLFXg/s1600/felt_tip_brush.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfPPU1aUiePCLJ5khSbP2zGh1gKA8z4jX2JLt_5_Kh_P9zvekKuwbNgAA1B8dhKoTuBSoeLyLZTNxGFANIyp-Y0PDKkhZVfO_1vN-QMfFGCtAggM3VCox5qQF7hJCFK11p0DLFXg/s320/felt_tip_brush.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<ul>
<li>We needed to paint a fair bit of light and shade into the textures. Working again from the base colour you pick a colour of a slightly different hue and a good bit lighter or darker. These are used to paint in light and shade, as well as in places help shape the model by suggesting details in the geometry.</li>
<li>In addition to this, on the face of hero characters you want to add the
classic golden (from forehead down to eyebrows), red (from eyebrows to
tip of the nose) and blue (from bottom of the nose to the chin) zones of
the face. </li>
<li>Finally, as this animation would include the actual likeness of the KFC founder <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Sanders" target="_blank">Colonel Harland Sanders</a>, we couldn't quite push the style as far as Meet Buck. </li>
</ul>
Repeating these five steps created a tight recipe, where assets could be turned around fast and with a uniform look. <br />
<br />
This little story consists of a young boy and his father over the course of the 40 years KFC has existed on Trinidad & Tobago. They grow and age together, with local historic events from the past 40 years in Trinidad & Tobago as backdrop. The animated short was split into a 15 seconds teaser and a 45 seconds full short.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3nQf_WRrlavQ8nEBRpozAkCIpymGobEgw-3hlbSGZvpQvsm9VMMo23ccLKIHPCIvZmo2P7Pd0YQloCAghVWjparkTo69UvY9B9OvqQf9RSAmt4cOo1rEpwki65JIgvDEq5Bv18A/s1600/kfc1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3nQf_WRrlavQ8nEBRpozAkCIpymGobEgw-3hlbSGZvpQvsm9VMMo23ccLKIHPCIvZmo2P7Pd0YQloCAghVWjparkTo69UvY9B9OvqQf9RSAmt4cOo1rEpwki65JIgvDEq5Bv18A/s320/kfc1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiofpuBukgH41ouFCn45mRvpan3a9wqT-7u8-kZ_Bdr4E9TvIfT3yAzw86vUCp_iVtnsDQqHxmiX590m_SGJEwbr3-nRkzFFL8uXxIA7wYUmWT1IaOfI9LkZ0tAs40m5lTO032hsQ/s1600/kfc2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiofpuBukgH41ouFCn45mRvpan3a9wqT-7u8-kZ_Bdr4E9TvIfT3yAzw86vUCp_iVtnsDQqHxmiX590m_SGJEwbr3-nRkzFFL8uXxIA7wYUmWT1IaOfI9LkZ0tAs40m5lTO032hsQ/s320/kfc2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Before we dive into how the individual textures were made, I have to give credit to all the rest of the team, from the brilliant backgrounds from <a href="http://www.victorgeorgiev.co.uk/" target="_blank">Victor Georgiev</a>, and the animators breathing life into the characters, to the lighting and shading by <a href="http://www.vanessathieffry.net/#!" target="_blank">Vanessa Thieffry</a> and the compositing by Adrian Nurse.<br />
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Since this is a story about fried chicken, let's start with a drumstick prop. Sharing my work in progress with another long-time <a href="http://www.caponeart.com/" target="_blank">texture artist</a> we marvelled at the opportunity to paint a piece of fried chicken; Doesn't happen every day. Or ever, to most texture artists.<br />
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So you start by blocking out the colour of the drumstick. This colour was sampled from a photo reference of a fried piece of chicken. Simple.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3GNauUXr7epOpD-yD7FycIPx7CcILb0IxXH3EZCIdmG0frqMYa1ILPZvBGXS7B0nA6iLksrWKMwq21S5UyVUKygY991xu3DZSzNgjdtE-rfQTgVS6hJSZiKVSKZ_zMOnom_Culg/s1600/KFC_drumstick_blocking_in.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3GNauUXr7epOpD-yD7FycIPx7CcILb0IxXH3EZCIdmG0frqMYa1ILPZvBGXS7B0nA6iLksrWKMwq21S5UyVUKygY991xu3DZSzNgjdtE-rfQTgVS6hJSZiKVSKZ_zMOnom_Culg/s320/KFC_drumstick_blocking_in.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Then you bring in a darker variation of your base colour and add some variations to the base. At first you literally just lay down random brush strokes to break up the base. Once the first few brush strokes have been put down, you can do more conscious ones. It may not look like much so far, but keep the faith and follow the recipe and we'll get there.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7VBM-7NgoCKaJDy9Wi3b7De3f9onBwTLnDQ6kK9WXw24M60H8Iu8g1jaVyxrwe2HkvLD9t_jQqNcOOrkLoPdgjnEScvRZdT5G_tnj5d8u_Fjb5ODPxnuF_cWDkfBjKtHg-nyWCQ/s1600/KFC_drumstick_brush_dark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7VBM-7NgoCKaJDy9Wi3b7De3f9onBwTLnDQ6kK9WXw24M60H8Iu8g1jaVyxrwe2HkvLD9t_jQqNcOOrkLoPdgjnEScvRZdT5G_tnj5d8u_Fjb5ODPxnuF_cWDkfBjKtHg-nyWCQ/s320/KFC_drumstick_brush_dark.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Then you add a colour lighter than the base, again for variation, and again your first strokes will be randomly placed. There are no blend modes or opacity changes involved. Just each colour on a separate layer and lower opacity (between 0.2 and 0.3) on your brush. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR5tzTD_qH175r2EynLsUVVqI1Ea0BUTI-0jAAgCYg-orEoNy7iLoTobbQltPe52OVj_5AL9WeakvCIcKbVDP2tvl4gU2qYVPXuHbZ37_U7EZ48i2rxLwHyaZr-ACINw_MxfhjeA/s1600/KFC_drumstick_brush_light.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR5tzTD_qH175r2EynLsUVVqI1Ea0BUTI-0jAAgCYg-orEoNy7iLoTobbQltPe52OVj_5AL9WeakvCIcKbVDP2tvl4gU2qYVPXuHbZ37_U7EZ48i2rxLwHyaZr-ACINw_MxfhjeA/s320/KFC_drumstick_brush_light.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Now we have a nicely varied base. Time to help shape the drumstick a bit. For clarity, this is the mesh with full lighting:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSD2bu_ptX4F9ipdXiqfzgEsQHc3FDg9nImbzhiW1mcq0NIgd39MG1ocLZovTlTWFAzKXol1MWZMB24CiaEdrAcFL64e-FjF9VlFjUCoLwdPHbfqBf2-veihGKAKCf5udJ5cNlqQ/s1600/KFC_drumstick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSD2bu_ptX4F9ipdXiqfzgEsQHc3FDg9nImbzhiW1mcq0NIgd39MG1ocLZovTlTWFAzKXol1MWZMB24CiaEdrAcFL64e-FjF9VlFjUCoLwdPHbfqBf2-veihGKAKCf5udJ5cNlqQ/s320/KFC_drumstick.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
First you pick a lighter colour and paint in the peaks of the geometry:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZOA8dBGh7-pammeG7qJUcL8CTV3V_ufy3HpLR7IEg0IA3swNLFwA5EfazC26etDU25hr-c2JuijByLzvIhwt1PbyJrG6vPLD7vYYYm7lM0kLiXREwMaPxFYAKrwfGzmvPuXcSvg/s1600/KFC_drumstick_light.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZOA8dBGh7-pammeG7qJUcL8CTV3V_ufy3HpLR7IEg0IA3swNLFwA5EfazC26etDU25hr-c2JuijByLzvIhwt1PbyJrG6vPLD7vYYYm7lM0kLiXREwMaPxFYAKrwfGzmvPuXcSvg/s320/KFC_drumstick_light.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Then all that is needed to finish up is a darker colour to paint in the recesses of the drumstick.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6bkDsRUxOJNxTHzt_mtQrYpgO_A4MU5AZyfD3IoW2PCAF6wy9yMziQRlMFLycoBw05XNaUvCd_7Jah6KT4fQl6qryVp1NwsyZX0mR0YJ1fDcXpsrW50DYBex7VbDIC1pOoKnpcA/s1600/KFC_drumstick_dark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6bkDsRUxOJNxTHzt_mtQrYpgO_A4MU5AZyfD3IoW2PCAF6wy9yMziQRlMFLycoBw05XNaUvCd_7Jah6KT4fQl6qryVp1NwsyZX0mR0YJ1fDcXpsrW50DYBex7VbDIC1pOoKnpcA/s320/KFC_drumstick_dark.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Finished... One piece of crispy fried stylized chicken. Enjoy!<br />
<br />
To recap, please note that I have changed the hue of the colours I work with on each layer. That as well as the lower opacity brush, I think are the key parts to building that variety which is needed to sell a painterly look.<br />
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Let's try this on for size on a character. Here is the mesh of the (youngest version of the) father character:<br />
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So you start by blocking in the colours (please excuse the intersecting mesh in the eyebrows):<br />
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Then we add lighter brush strokes to break up the base. Notice again their fairly random placement.<br />
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Similarly with darker brush strokes. Here I have in places used the darker brush strokes to shape the model a bit.<br />
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Adding in stripes to the shirt (a basic HSV adjustment layer with a mask, shifting both hue, value and saturation to fit) and stitches to the jeans (simple paintable layer with no blend mode nor opacity changes).<br />
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Next I am adding blue colour variation to the "blue" portion of the face (see above). This layer is set to 0.100 opacity, but still normal blend mode.<br />
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Similarly adding red colour variation. This layer is set to 0.150 opacity and Overlay blend mode.<br />
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Finally the golden colour variation on a layer with Overlay blend mode and 0.300 opacity.<br />
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Before I continued with my formula, I needed to add a bit of detailing to the lips:<br />
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Then we start shaping the model with the painted light.<br />
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And similarly with painted darkness.<br />
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At this point I wanted to bring the lips out a bit more. So an HSV adjustment layer with a layer mask did the trick.<br />
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Finally a touch of Ambient Occlusion to help further bring out the shape of the model.<br />
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At this point the client asked for changes in the value of the father's skin tone, so the final textures ended up like this:<br />
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And here is the father in all his lit, rendered and composited glory:<br />
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By far the hardest asset to get right, was also the most important: Colonel Harland Sanders from KFC. It was daunting to get his likeness right, but at the same time keeping him true to the art style of the rest of the film. Regardless, I set out determined to see how far my "recipe" could take me with the Colonel.<br />
<br />
I was helped greatly by the model (please excuse the intersecting polygons in various places). Already a good likeness was there:<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So I blocked in the colours. How do you paint a white shirt inside a white suit? Pure white is of course anathema to texture artists. I decided on playing with very light pinks, blue and <span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">crèmes
</span> to create the illusion of the white suit.</span><br />
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For this model, I thought I would need some additional colour variation in his skin. Please again note the seemingly random brush strokes. Yes, there <i>is</i> such a thing as 'happy mistakes'!<br />
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<br />
Then comes the light brush strokes for variation of the base colour.<br />
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<br />
And the dark ones...<br />
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Then I begin to shape the colours of his face. First I add blue from beneath the tip of his nose down to his chin. This layer is Overlay blend mode with 0.150 opacity. Easy does it; we only need a hint of blue.<br />
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Next is a bit red across his cheeks, nose and ears where you have a lot of blood vessels close to the skin. I am using Soft Light and 0.250 opacity on this layer.<br />
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And finally a touch of gold across his forehead. Overlay with 0.200 opacity.<br />
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In my reference photos of the Colonel, I noticed that he had a fair bit of pink across his cheeks and nose, as older white people often do. To wit, I added a layer with some extra pink goodness for the Colonel. This sits on a normal paintable layer with no changes to blend mode nor opacity.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAUJMRzK3xDohMhmSbFkJBa-pJowY_0vbvrDOTI9IRwKI0Ahe2N_qLJiNj4mLWU_czw8Twc3cs8PId-XOvTb2aV2U2aXfL9YDc57JuezyBRmmsOJraRwJRn8awFCVuxrDPBNWK8w/s1600/KFC_colonel_skin_pink.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAUJMRzK3xDohMhmSbFkJBa-pJowY_0vbvrDOTI9IRwKI0Ahe2N_qLJiNj4mLWU_czw8Twc3cs8PId-XOvTb2aV2U2aXfL9YDc57JuezyBRmmsOJraRwJRn8awFCVuxrDPBNWK8w/s320/KFC_colonel_skin_pink.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Now it is time to separate the men from the boys. Painting light into the textures will very much determine whether the final textures will look like the Colonel or just some overworked mess.<br />
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Similarly the painting in shade very much brings out the features of the Colonel. It was a fine line to not overdo the dark lines - on one hand he needed to look like the aging Colonel, on the other hand he could quickly start looking like a bad rubber Halloween mask.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipk2PTPpS_ApwPLrX_6bFwOMirw_SIeEnpcGByzmbF-f01ntkX9jtUAl8tdAMa8JOHpLzOFJCdjetdleHU7_Az6BcY_PVSN7dMsgevwuihtv1T2oWwrlTXyocQ1QwYwP3XAm0OyA/s1600/KFC_colonel_dark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipk2PTPpS_ApwPLrX_6bFwOMirw_SIeEnpcGByzmbF-f01ntkX9jtUAl8tdAMa8JOHpLzOFJCdjetdleHU7_Az6BcY_PVSN7dMsgevwuihtv1T2oWwrlTXyocQ1QwYwP3XAm0OyA/s320/KFC_colonel_dark.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Finally a touch (0.200 opacity with Multiply blend mode) of Ambient Occlusion to round him off and tie everything nicely together.<br />
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Here is the Colonel with the concept art and reference photos I used.<br />
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And in all his rendered glory...<br />
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All told, I am pretty happy with the outcome. Any texture painting geeks who want to inspect the flats? Okay then. Here is the Colonel's face:<br />
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and his trousers, shoes and hair:<br />
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You can view the 15 second teaser <a href="https://vimeo.com/70511188" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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When we started on this project, I had some doubts whether Mari would be the best suited tool for a job like this. I knew that the Steak Kollective guys had used Photoshop for the textures for Meet Buck. I have always admired the very painterly output you can get from <a href="http://www.corel.com/corel/product/index.jsp?pid=prod5090087&cid=catalog20038&segid=10000006&storeKey=us&languageCode=en" target="_blank">Painter</a>, with its excellent ability to mimic real world art materials and surfaces. However Mari was more than up for the task. Mari was clearly created for VFX use, but in my opinion its toolset goes much further than that. <br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Did you find
this useful? Leave me a comment, share the post via your favourite
social media or drop me an email about things you'd like to see covered.</i></span>Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-84262869480040893212013-10-09T14:04:00.002+01:002014-01-17T19:59:01.247+00:00MARI: Distressed painted metal texture from scratch - Part 1<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Start with what is known, and what is hidden will be revealed." - Rembrandt van Rijn</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">That right there, is pretty much my artistic modus operandi. You may not know all the steps needed to achieve a finished look, or indeed very many of them, but start with what you know, and what is still needed, will become clearer and clearer as you go. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Pretty much what the flexibility of a layer system allows us to do - adding in different ingredients in various amounts till you have the desired look.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/mari/" target="_blank">Mari</a> started out with a "layers" style system back in the day, where layers were called "channels", but still had blend modes, opacity and masking options, just as we know layers originally from <a href="http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshop.html%E2%80%8E" target="_blank">Photoshop</a> (Layers were introduced in 1994 in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop_version_history" target="_blank">Photoshop 3.0</a>). From Mari 2.0 and onwards layers are indeed called layers, and channels now refer to something different. My example file here was originally made with Mari 1.5, so please excuse the slightly different interface. The layer system in Mari 2.0 now more than matches what Photoshop can offer on that feature - particularly for texture painters! Layers in Mari now is chokeful of goodness like procedurals, adjustments of all kinds and masks, which can be small layer stacks themselves. Add to that one of my favourite features: <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/mari-removing-strong-details-in-tiled.html" target="_blank">Advanced Blend Modes</a>!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But for this demonstration, the basic functionality of the layers setup will do sufficiently. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The subject here is an old jerrycan. This gives us the distinctively differement materials painted metal and a rubber hose to play with. I found it modelled and UV'ed nicely on <a href="http://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/vehicle/other/jerrycan" target="_blank">CGTrader</a>. Go grab your own if you want to follow along in this little paint by numbers session.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6VhxVTjQAELdaJ5ntCz4udxnYhyTjiy2AwgW6mBFZADZM7Ilgla2SULhkHHBIGTvTTJQT-SSJG9rmS7q1Zv14JgdC9lJax1dtybziiqh71WTyc8ClEub5djwwXSs_2oGa_aR4dw/s1600/jerrycan01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6VhxVTjQAELdaJ5ntCz4udxnYhyTjiy2AwgW6mBFZADZM7Ilgla2SULhkHHBIGTvTTJQT-SSJG9rmS7q1Zv14JgdC9lJax1dtybziiqh71WTyc8ClEub5djwwXSs_2oGa_aR4dw/s320/jerrycan01.jpg" height="320" width="263" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">When I am painting hardsurface textures, I know there are a lot of material properties which will be common to most objects. Obviously there will be a surface colour (maybe it is a paint layer); maybe some of that will have been scratched off to reveal the material underneath (in this case a metal like aluminum or steel); If the paint has been in contact with strong sunlight, it will be bleached and lose saturation and increase in value; The paint can have been applied unevenly, resulting in differences and small details in the paint layer; Depending on the type of object, it can have any number of different types of stains; Ordinary dirt will gather in corners, scratches and other places; Dust will also gather where the object is not regularly touched, and in places where it will stick to a liquid for example.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This is by no means an exhaustive list, but as you consider an object, think carefully about how it has been made, how it is being used, where it lives and what substances it gets in touch with on a regular basis - and how each of those affect its colour, shine, bumpiness and other attributes. I literally write down a list of attributes and cross them off as I go. If I am at a loss to where to take an asset, when I start, when I have ticked off all of the attributes on my list, I will either be finished or have a very, very good idea of what last few steps are needed to take me home. Which is basically what the Rembrandt quote above means.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As this is a wellworn painted jerrycan, we'll start with an aluminum base. I used this aluminum base texture from <a href="http://cgtextures.com/texview.php?id=57525&PHPSESSID=ju869ahv3dj8u0evri1g3j1kp2" target="_blank">CGTextures</a>: </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSJOLqiqJTzhXY5Pgbs7f69OywUjlwtNXOmdF3m8CNW982-EiJzXA89_T4GVr3TCCZuTG0nLfe8mD29OV66jHUJf-ihXlcp4-R5blqkK8QKXX45z0EETRsPUOsgHJdrJgMwpsatA/s1600/alu_superstar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSJOLqiqJTzhXY5Pgbs7f69OywUjlwtNXOmdF3m8CNW982-EiJzXA89_T4GVr3TCCZuTG0nLfe8mD29OV66jHUJf-ihXlcp4-R5blqkK8QKXX45z0EETRsPUOsgHJdrJgMwpsatA/s320/alu_superstar.jpg" height="228" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This particular aluminum texture deserves some kind of Most Valuable Player award. I have come across it in many, many texture artists' Image Manager. Even if it doesn't tile, it a very useful image. It has enough details to make it interesting and not enough strong details to make it jarring. As it is a white metal, it can be used as a base for a lot of different metals. And finally it resides on the very popular site <a href="http://cgtextures.com/" target="_blank">CGTextures</a>. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So my bottommost layer consists of this aluminum base. In UV view I did a quick Paint Through job with Repeat turned on to cover the entire object. Then I painted out the seams in Ortho view - also using the Paint Through tool and our chosen aluminum texture. So far, so good:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH8a69OVgOOtNd74ZZwkUFe45bSCqe6czlWx7bpTYnW0UvL2e08peifPsgUa2rA9pNcsEmxYMOQ0cckFTxhy0wPEsp6okxlaLNNjNLi0MZ5EWtklVl2AgX8-d3Kmoep1bKrUR2gg/s1600/alu_base.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH8a69OVgOOtNd74ZZwkUFe45bSCqe6czlWx7bpTYnW0UvL2e08peifPsgUa2rA9pNcsEmxYMOQ0cckFTxhy0wPEsp6okxlaLNNjNLi0MZ5EWtklVl2AgX8-d3Kmoep1bKrUR2gg/s320/alu_base.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Next we need some paint on our model. Add a procedural layer with a Color Constant. Pick a suitable colour for your paint (I went with an olive drab green). A word of caution here: In our minds colours are always more saturated than they actually are. You may think that a fire engine is perfectly red, with 100% saturation. I dare you, grab a photo of such a fire engine and sample the colour with your Color Picker. See? Not even close.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Right click on your layer and add a Layer Mask for the selected layer, which you set to Reveal All. Now with the Layer Mask selected still, choose the Paint tool, set your paint colour to black and pick a suitably organic brush to paint scratches with. You want to paint in all the places where the paint has worn off the can (as well as the rubber hose, where no paint should be found). Picking a suitable brush - or combinations of brushes - is half the work. To help you get that flaky look of peeling paint, you could enlist the services of the brilliant Fractal Noise Mask. Find it under the Projection palette. First tick Mask Preview Enabled in Projection Settings, so you can see what your settings will look like before you start painting. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHMBO3XxQCnWm5vgtbqjMKPPtDMVbh-iIfxy06mfo1lxmCF0efjz_kCC1EmIy0FErAT3YNyC6oX4ZBQB0Xl71LACf28rfjDW8rMtgXLbW-Srjcw9SP4rcLCdEwTkIhcASK-B_Lvg/s1600/mask_preview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHMBO3XxQCnWm5vgtbqjMKPPtDMVbh-iIfxy06mfo1lxmCF0efjz_kCC1EmIy0FErAT3YNyC6oX4ZBQB0Xl71LACf28rfjDW8rMtgXLbW-Srjcw9SP4rcLCdEwTkIhcASK-B_Lvg/s320/mask_preview.jpg" height="90" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Then turn on Fractal Noise Mask a bit further down, crank the Mask Amount up to 1.0 and set the size to something suitably small like 0.059 or smaller still. Feel free to play with the Roughness and the other settings till you have a look you like.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHcflYuS3lijkG9lpuxEdxrk1Fsl3Tp36wXbAH1YTS2JGEpbrPYh3JdYdniwGejJnTifkK37Rc6kn9MkL-5U8WcODNUeLv_-m5Fs10ba0fxHarGA4Q1qzav9W1K3M0B2JDc_PNjg/s1600/fractal_noise_mask.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHcflYuS3lijkG9lpuxEdxrk1Fsl3Tp36wXbAH1YTS2JGEpbrPYh3JdYdniwGejJnTifkK37Rc6kn9MkL-5U8WcODNUeLv_-m5Fs10ba0fxHarGA4Q1qzav9W1K3M0B2JDc_PNjg/s320/fractal_noise_mask.jpg" height="185" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">When you now start painting in the places where the paint has been worn off, please consider the use and shape of the jerrycan: Where will it be worn the most? Feel free to carefully study old jerrycans with a Google image search. Here is my can. Maybe a tad overdone in places.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4N7C1Nq4valfJRuzHFxv21tC2FDpGp1KBmc7EdYGvAtvqYbqHIdO-7FdxZYVBi923JE0uqtixoHqtllCylDUTMOR0oKbtYqcnMYIl_lXo9J5uoHHfaU1RGsLgnkF3vGmwsvBwqA/s1600/paint.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4N7C1Nq4valfJRuzHFxv21tC2FDpGp1KBmc7EdYGvAtvqYbqHIdO-7FdxZYVBi923JE0uqtixoHqtllCylDUTMOR0oKbtYqcnMYIl_lXo9J5uoHHfaU1RGsLgnkF3vGmwsvBwqA/s320/paint.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But green paint doesn't stay exactly the same shade of green for very long. We need to get some different details into the green paint to make it more believable; Break it up and create some variation. So pick the colour of your paint and change its value and saturation a bit. Grab your Paint tool and pick a good broken up and organic brush. I used primarily the Iguanadon brush (under Brad's New Brushes when you hit K). But you want to use a few different brushes at reduced opacities to make sure we don't get too obvious patterns. This is what I have (flat lighting):</span></span> <br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_kmHaSv_7owhda3A0Pm18emTQ_fqwAA3g33ymABMk20aJv54bAViseq22wYAL5B8N7fZOmb8-mcQew2UTYYyle3UG7KglLJ1UGpusPKZvUuvgJXvgbLr0ZFJc5fbaxEsZ_83B0Q/s1600/paint_break_up.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_kmHaSv_7owhda3A0Pm18emTQ_fqwAA3g33ymABMk20aJv54bAViseq22wYAL5B8N7fZOmb8-mcQew2UTYYyle3UG7KglLJ1UGpusPKZvUuvgJXvgbLr0ZFJc5fbaxEsZ_83B0Q/s320/paint_break_up.jpg" height="242" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> And with full lighting:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCLYh2rX06HXtKCTC1CMYRZm56u8ogjeByVSQyzr52YFEE5vY1Tr-6k_iH-8jzot-IkmNETjr9y9FqTC9fCkbPfSDdybGd6pAmzJjoDyUXlue_FMvzrVGuua2Lf2tEPB7dtabzHQ/s1600/paint_break_up_lit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCLYh2rX06HXtKCTC1CMYRZm56u8ogjeByVSQyzr52YFEE5vY1Tr-6k_iH-8jzot-IkmNETjr9y9FqTC9fCkbPfSDdybGd6pAmzJjoDyUXlue_FMvzrVGuua2Lf2tEPB7dtabzHQ/s320/paint_break_up_lit.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I should mention that when I painted this in Mari 1.5, I used the Layer Mask controlling where the green paint goes to also control what parts could have the added green paint variation, by inverting it. With Mari 2.0 (and beyond) a much more elegant and neat way of doing all of that is to place these two green paint layers in a Group and then put the Layer Mask on the Group. That Layer Mask is the one where you paint in where the paint has chipped off the jerrycan.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">While we are still detailing the paint work of the jerrycan, why not paint in a decal to both give it some visual interest and further tell the story that this is a military object. I prepared a few stencil style decals in another paint package: </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Hmpdhmuk-24RA2OLmNPbLDBzjb13JrBr2MxYSLfiudRuvS67UaW6yyxi6x_Lk8B8YXYGp8HMdlyeqDwOLBXeZsNsNyk0DKSYin4FmXRNczWOTcQ-zqI5lXUf8wl0xH2S9JLC8g/s1600/stencils+copy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Hmpdhmuk-24RA2OLmNPbLDBzjb13JrBr2MxYSLfiudRuvS67UaW6yyxi6x_Lk8B8YXYGp8HMdlyeqDwOLBXeZsNsNyk0DKSYin4FmXRNczWOTcQ-zqI5lXUf8wl0xH2S9JLC8g/s320/stencils+copy.png" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Notice the blurred edges. If these stencils are being sprayed on in a quick and dirty fashion, no way would that spray paint be sharp and crisp on the edges.</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Stamping the decal images with the Paint Through tool onto a layer above the green paint layers is very simple. But as a former Lead of mine always used to say, 'you have to <i>work in</i> your brush strokes!' What that means is, it would ruin the illusion if we just let these stencils sit undisturbed on top of the paint layers. That layer of spray paint would start getting worn away very quickly - if it even was 100% opacity to begin with. So use the Paint tool, set the Painting Mode to Clear (or if you want the gold star for non-destructive workflow do so by giving the Layer a Layer Mask and painting into that with black) and pick a soft brush with low opacity. Here are my decals after a little bit of work (in flat lighting and on a 50% grey background for clarity):</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhde5jWQRyzGRNpIOz5mBnXXfi7Dgv-Xqc9-qFPxZD7lJcNiEZO8uKqimt38uUdMVjtrQdePjlTTGnipWQnUjCkbVa23rvV8hu12rt18Nw8k8W0O4F8MMuE6Da43ZW1YCI1adfBQ/s1600/decals_flat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhde5jWQRyzGRNpIOz5mBnXXfi7Dgv-Xqc9-qFPxZD7lJcNiEZO8uKqimt38uUdMVjtrQdePjlTTGnipWQnUjCkbVa23rvV8hu12rt18Nw8k8W0O4F8MMuE6Da43ZW1YCI1adfBQ/s320/decals_flat.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">All told, that takes our layer stack up to something like this:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9xNSJ4vBT_2PX0a5Ib4jSmE-5uEdQTCZvifCRN8VRxX2pwfWLfc0S7w2I9uGp2X_mryP9oybMTU4FIx3gLAmB6Cqyrs1Xj1hmOvXCUfoGKQFX4sosFeX4zAAQQf1Ixpb_jgrLTQ/s1600/decals.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9xNSJ4vBT_2PX0a5Ib4jSmE-5uEdQTCZvifCRN8VRxX2pwfWLfc0S7w2I9uGp2X_mryP9oybMTU4FIx3gLAmB6Cqyrs1Xj1hmOvXCUfoGKQFX4sosFeX4zAAQQf1Ixpb_jgrLTQ/s320/decals.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">My next layer contains a mild bit of Ambient Occlusion (AO). This I use to simulate the dirt which imperceptibly will gather in cracks and corners on an object like this. I don't expect a jerrycan would be treated with much care and attention. If used for gasoline or oil it would probably never be washed carefully. So dirt will gather in cracks, where the general actions of use and wear will not remove it. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Generally, you want to be careful with Ambient Occlusion in your textures, as it bakes in lighting information into the textures - which really should be the domain of the shader and lighting to add such details. But in reality, you do find a small number of instances where texture artists (and lighters for that matter) talk about "helping the shader along" with things like Ambient Occlusion and painting lighter edges on assets for example. But perhaps that is a topic for a different day. For now, let's just state that Ambient Occlusion rendered out as masks can be massively helpful for a number of things.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">To generate Ambient Occlusion for use in your textures, select your object (if you don't already have it selected), go to the Objects menu and select Ambient Occlusion. This will get Mari to start calculating the Ambient Occlusion. Then add a procedural layer (Geometry - Ambient Occlusion) and change the blend mode to Multiply and opacity to something like 0.350. If you want a gold star, throw on a Layer Mask and break up the AO to add variety.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This is what my layer stack looks like so far (with flat lighting):</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKEtvaSYhuN82sKcfmiHt0FTLUPHFgAHYtNFVCDBub49hDC-YAu9N-n_D5itmfkIcRR1N9ZpN-O-mzJAvYga0a5GvpzH_xa08qWuzMRSfr1EEA8CGxCt2jI9PXjJbmbrlnarsB_Q/s1600/ao_flat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKEtvaSYhuN82sKcfmiHt0FTLUPHFgAHYtNFVCDBub49hDC-YAu9N-n_D5itmfkIcRR1N9ZpN-O-mzJAvYga0a5GvpzH_xa08qWuzMRSfr1EEA8CGxCt2jI9PXjJbmbrlnarsB_Q/s320/ao_flat.jpg" height="242" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And with full lighting:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSyRbKnr1asA89x0mjrwyPZwR4UPqGt5UScFZ24vjC8-Ms52sn8j081hBeqWffCU5UOrLfwG3ey4aAHgCKUlRd_IYtMgPrlYskl3H-3nWrGpVibtSVCw_oT7QJlRZd6eUKmNr5fQ/s1600/ao_lit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSyRbKnr1asA89x0mjrwyPZwR4UPqGt5UScFZ24vjC8-Ms52sn8j081hBeqWffCU5UOrLfwG3ey4aAHgCKUlRd_IYtMgPrlYskl3H-3nWrGpVibtSVCw_oT7QJlRZd6eUKmNr5fQ/s320/ao_lit.jpg" height="242" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Before we go any further with the can itselft, we really need to do give the rubber hose some care and attention. Select the rubber hose part of the jerrycan with your Select tool set to Faces (you can use Smart Selection Mode if you like, but due to the way this model has its UVs laid out, you will not get all of the faces in one go). Add another layer for the base of the rubber hose. Fill that layer with a dark grey (You never want to use complete black nor complete white, as they mess up shader math. I am no shader mathematician, but think about it, how do you multiply with either 0 or 1 - if the range of the possible results can only be between 0 and 1? Those values are no good.). I used 0.234 0.228 0.215 (RGB values):</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7enKff4mjF4Yac5-ziPAU0F4NjvVStk1DU3i4PCKCMQqCL-X-kiUNqH3dRuv-ehOLEy9xIfO6hmWm2x-_dvr-43lJRyP547GzDEh1Ym4MZS4h-mpu3uA59OLwMJ0Udu8CUHBHNw/s1600/rubber_base05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7enKff4mjF4Yac5-ziPAU0F4NjvVStk1DU3i4PCKCMQqCL-X-kiUNqH3dRuv-ehOLEy9xIfO6hmWm2x-_dvr-43lJRyP547GzDEh1Ym4MZS4h-mpu3uA59OLwMJ0Udu8CUHBHNw/s320/rubber_base05.jpg" height="230" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Too flat. We need some detail in there. Pick a lighter colour (I used 0.153 0.156 0.157 in RGB values), and with your Paint tool and a nice broken up brush (could be crackSplat from the Hard Surface Brushes tab) set on low opacity (0.3 or there abouts) add in some variation to our rubber base. The aim is variation in the colour along the lines of a mottled pattern:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKKup4Dg4wM1yTz23C4XVZLGNApvrQWwwMp2ymiWQ5yPAmbkN2kmWs37uDJ-C8SV5MvnzfQQDJ_nHoeH7gAqcdM_-0TJmnVbskpJwQ1cEP6zk57LtDRFlysOiY8z-V-w8ICWKNeg/s1600/rubber_base04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKKup4Dg4wM1yTz23C4XVZLGNApvrQWwwMp2ymiWQ5yPAmbkN2kmWs37uDJ-C8SV5MvnzfQQDJ_nHoeH7gAqcdM_-0TJmnVbskpJwQ1cEP6zk57LtDRFlysOiY8z-V-w8ICWKNeg/s320/rubber_base04.jpg" height="241" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Better. Now let's use the wonderfully organic pattern of the aluminum base underneath. Change the blend mode of your rubber base layer to Multiply. Okay, that is looking decidedly a lot more like a black rubber hose:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho53hdqRdIiLla3PfU_POtHVbQgcqV742FAmW0-aED1Twa71q6g0vfr2pYpsOJwBvL0vczMz-ZqlB-mUk4ymQKlN3IcM7ccMFkBNrr04ZgSyyu-1ONbxEbo8W4214bmpcSSzjH1Q/s1600/rubber_base.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho53hdqRdIiLla3PfU_POtHVbQgcqV742FAmW0-aED1Twa71q6g0vfr2pYpsOJwBvL0vczMz-ZqlB-mUk4ymQKlN3IcM7ccMFkBNrr04ZgSyyu-1ONbxEbo8W4214bmpcSSzjH1Q/s320/rubber_base.jpg" height="242" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But we can do better still. We need more detail to sell the look of rubber. Add another layer to sit above the rubber base. Grab yourself a concrete texture from <a href="http://cgtextures.com/" target="_blank">CGTextures</a> or <a href="http://www.texturepilot.com/" target="_blank">Texture Pilot</a>. Then using the Paint Through tool and a broken up brush (like crackSplat) to paint some of the concrete onto your layer like this:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPVE4g1M8b2oY2K8Tn91bJGtmBdE5q7TY5NgbOqRdMM8W5BHzZkwcE0FNsuyo7NNtgilwkSpEXTGrbTSUJRZhHWOz-RZxQhTwQRB7pALV1eKYeFnp1uo-5dBpy20M1ZG2QMnP5Zw/s1600/rubber_details01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPVE4g1M8b2oY2K8Tn91bJGtmBdE5q7TY5NgbOqRdMM8W5BHzZkwcE0FNsuyo7NNtgilwkSpEXTGrbTSUJRZhHWOz-RZxQhTwQRB7pALV1eKYeFnp1uo-5dBpy20M1ZG2QMnP5Zw/s320/rubber_details01.jpg" height="162" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now change the blend mode of your rubber details layer to Color Dodge and the opacity to something around 0.537. This is what my stack looks like so far:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkxOAsZ-gfXDqbyMY1Q4xUe31DYyuyWn_inhEb_MQfAhB6PjCAJGYOU8la8VTSXNUmifUF_XKMUNjhD8SWIvgQd8Re1paALv3l9Sb8tf8R1qZt3L5plUG1TbO1HVqT9Ce4ceYSFw/s1600/rubber_details02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkxOAsZ-gfXDqbyMY1Q4xUe31DYyuyWn_inhEb_MQfAhB6PjCAJGYOU8la8VTSXNUmifUF_XKMUNjhD8SWIvgQd8Re1paALv3l9Sb8tf8R1qZt3L5plUG1TbO1HVqT9Ce4ceYSFw/s320/rubber_details02.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">That will do as a nice rubber base for now.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Remember that nice concrete texture from before? We need to employ that again to add some general dirt to our jerrycan. Add another layer and set the blend mode to Overlay and the opacity to something in the vicinity of 0.266 (these values are not set in stone, so feel free to play around with them, to match the concrete texture you are using and the look you are going for.). Now using the Paint Through tool and a brush like Linear (found under the Basic Brushes tab when you hit the hotkey K) use your concrete texture to paint more varied and detailed dirt onto your can. I should point out, as a matter of course, that you want to have your Edge Mask switched on, to avoid streaky paint on your edges (find it in your Projection palette): </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSYswCUtcaT6Nc-pIYDwtxZKw67EpmL5FPjYwT-B-Bz3srt1IkhPaDKDbMt-3Ohki640aokvchCA5M_QBWvnE3Q3suFh8tDnIStojYwyw_-Tn3NJNX-4uwaX_Ik6to1jDwepREEg/s1600/edge_mask.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSYswCUtcaT6Nc-pIYDwtxZKw67EpmL5FPjYwT-B-Bz3srt1IkhPaDKDbMt-3Ohki640aokvchCA5M_QBWvnE3Q3suFh8tDnIStojYwyw_-Tn3NJNX-4uwaX_Ik6to1jDwepREEg/s320/edge_mask.jpg" height="320" width="286" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This is what I have so far: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzzR3_6m78cH8un3YVVz2VGkohswh2ebnyTqAwKRfCgac59EKkps1mAM4uLkMUTNDp78LPvnwW6i8I92cqBpjiKT3l63HbAio9NvFhMCVxnNQNGmmAJCOXZgbmrXelSnX8h1M4kQ/s1600/dirt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzzR3_6m78cH8un3YVVz2VGkohswh2ebnyTqAwKRfCgac59EKkps1mAM4uLkMUTNDp78LPvnwW6i8I92cqBpjiKT3l63HbAio9NvFhMCVxnNQNGmmAJCOXZgbmrXelSnX8h1M4kQ/s320/dirt.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">A little bit of dirty details, which sits nicely on top of the paint and decal layers.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This jerrycan is meant to have taken a fair bit of abuse. Metal like aluminum naturally gets scratched under such circumstances - particularly on the edges and corners of the object. Hunt down a couple of suitable metal scratch textures. This is what I used:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGpBVerV_t5oOK7Qc04yujQ2z4PT7IwJlTPdxOuoowbOyHqIcNptMn5rRwHCLvePpvFzPdskRjbSNwsam3_5S70oNNglF6doltc8qfKdtJSM0y7KvnWuJuP1qkWzxr665Qmo1jQQ/s1600/scratches_textures.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGpBVerV_t5oOK7Qc04yujQ2z4PT7IwJlTPdxOuoowbOyHqIcNptMn5rRwHCLvePpvFzPdskRjbSNwsam3_5S70oNNglF6doltc8qfKdtJSM0y7KvnWuJuP1qkWzxr665Qmo1jQQ/s320/scratches_textures.jpg" height="138" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Adding a new layer on top of your layer stack, use the Paint Through tool to paint these beautiful scratches onto the edges of the model. Something along these lines (here set against a 50% grey background for the sake of clarity):</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD9lLazyXufj4Ct8EVvr59WzCDVI9_LZZP_MWBRh0NwsLm33yLhNnF0s_ISr5ZrF1T7Pb6GcWXqjGymTUC0Wipj2Jv0vA2MtNfm51t6FX4QiW9bwXXavn0Nx3hyphenhyphenZ6kLjY65FBBZg/s1600/scratches.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD9lLazyXufj4Ct8EVvr59WzCDVI9_LZZP_MWBRh0NwsLm33yLhNnF0s_ISr5ZrF1T7Pb6GcWXqjGymTUC0Wipj2Jv0vA2MtNfm51t6FX4QiW9bwXXavn0Nx3hyphenhyphenZ6kLjY65FBBZg/s320/scratches.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If we then change the blend mode of the Layer to Hard Light and lower the opacity to around 0.8 (I used 0.798 to be precise - but again that depends on the texture photos you have at your disposal and the look you want), the jerrycan should look like this:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlH7UKKPB6EOEFIDKhHmZ6xlyAQlG7Y5bLoGZPbmuIahlbZYcU8goys09qouXEsFZvBCquhnz0llYTFptCSfRaxi_8IJPc62t6mfrlG3wspL_orf9onUHn_Ed9ew3VU3Dp60tzjg/s1600/scratches2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlH7UKKPB6EOEFIDKhHmZ6xlyAQlG7Y5bLoGZPbmuIahlbZYcU8goys09qouXEsFZvBCquhnz0llYTFptCSfRaxi_8IJPc62t6mfrlG3wspL_orf9onUHn_Ed9ew3VU3Dp60tzjg/s320/scratches2.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So... how about all those exposed areas of metal? They would rust over time. We need some rust to add to the beauty of this object. Find yourself some suitable images to sample rust from. Here are mine:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDP0H_mvPefSiQDQK62rgOZv-2zI0KhdRMy1ZHOBlgGtHySm3cqkiYAVdKAzGWK0SEbsSKGDMS37e6kp1MfASgquRAzcyGuwXN1dhk5KUoe-dPNlO_UfWogUhWkcS4OHye4KELWQ/s1600/rust_textures.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDP0H_mvPefSiQDQK62rgOZv-2zI0KhdRMy1ZHOBlgGtHySm3cqkiYAVdKAzGWK0SEbsSKGDMS37e6kp1MfASgquRAzcyGuwXN1dhk5KUoe-dPNlO_UfWogUhWkcS4OHye4KELWQ/s320/rust_textures.jpg" height="138" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Add a layer for your rust and give it a Layer Mask (set to Reveal All for now). Using the Paint Through tool paint the rust onto your can where the paint is peeled back and has exposed the metal underneath. You are only as good as your reference, so do have a look at how and where rust gathers on similar objects.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfusaGDl7wLFENsEieZhY7NSEMvMQO3ggZHAFMMNwqU5KdeA9gf8jeawssfg1E9lhmZUhHfE0hyphenhyphen0Kk0VB1G_CIN7sMxCbhcXWEuWFIDWa4iwXpkBlLPrHL0qkqxjc6sy2QMBPC9g/s1600/rust01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfusaGDl7wLFENsEieZhY7NSEMvMQO3ggZHAFMMNwqU5KdeA9gf8jeawssfg1E9lhmZUhHfE0hyphenhyphen0Kk0VB1G_CIN7sMxCbhcXWEuWFIDWa4iwXpkBlLPrHL0qkqxjc6sy2QMBPC9g/s320/rust01.jpg" height="242" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Should you wish to, you can paint into the Layer Mask to help fine tune the speckled look of rust. Finally, change the blend mode of your rust layer to Multiply, and you should have something looking along these lines:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk_jYMPU7loRXTN8q-_Gm79tznU69af1LdnGnEOo-sR6inq6TX1MhGoHDgBjc-xskXmCSVHcskrOv60LzOsYQS5-wz4hULALIC20QdB5kTpRFl8fcmTsV0S6aDrW6aW3bTUPfOEA/s1600/rust02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk_jYMPU7loRXTN8q-_Gm79tznU69af1LdnGnEOo-sR6inq6TX1MhGoHDgBjc-xskXmCSVHcskrOv60LzOsYQS5-wz4hULALIC20QdB5kTpRFl8fcmTsV0S6aDrW6aW3bTUPfOEA/s320/rust02.jpg" height="242" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What other details do we need? If this can is used for gasoline, it would be reasonable to imagine that some of the gasoline would spill and drip onto the can from time to time. Such a stain would again attract dust and other dirt, which would stick to the gasoline drips. Let's try and create a stain like that. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Add another layer for our spills. Find a suitable texture with streaky stains on. This is what I used:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6utJWTjif8geA4yfUJOD8J992wbHi2MGOBJhJ4YlaSq-vpBTHqeGvhBUXB0RbZNxrp74rGcVkMC8HU7CBu8_GJdlRuuTf8e2vhxDxBhjIU0ns3fyPZ0KF8mkESOH8ex-RWsOtVg/s1600/spills_texture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6utJWTjif8geA4yfUJOD8J992wbHi2MGOBJhJ4YlaSq-vpBTHqeGvhBUXB0RbZNxrp74rGcVkMC8HU7CBu8_GJdlRuuTf8e2vhxDxBhjIU0ns3fyPZ0KF8mkESOH8ex-RWsOtVg/s320/spills_texture.jpg" height="249" width="320" /> </a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Nice organic streak details with variety in colour and value. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDuTyDqlT66BxXxf_Cp7m7FLlS5-RZh_hmX_LubpBt7xCkEIXfBuCH-vzOjkkV6Lh82MvDhpWWZ2YxooRqY-Gbdj1rqSuad8RhwVA-2iTBWQFPYULr4mwu2ZcM-lWqiwIlZxGIHA/s1600/spills01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDuTyDqlT66BxXxf_Cp7m7FLlS5-RZh_hmX_LubpBt7xCkEIXfBuCH-vzOjkkV6Lh82MvDhpWWZ2YxooRqY-Gbdj1rqSuad8RhwVA-2iTBWQFPYULr4mwu2ZcM-lWqiwIlZxGIHA/s320/spills01.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Using the Paint Through tool, paint in nice long streaks starting from where the rubber hose is attached to the spout. Change the blend mode of the layer to Vivid Light and your opacity to something that suits the spill texture. I have used an opacity of 0.552 in this image: </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoKg_N_Bo5mnTGxLO3ZOmznNiKbFvXWLejp0km004VnX1hPgvY0TEn0aCduNgCHex1GzQCpczG5pjPxA7UQcUeBtnWZ_uFQ4C_T_zF5npZkBPBD6TK23A22x14addk7jy7id7a0A/s1600/spills02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoKg_N_Bo5mnTGxLO3ZOmznNiKbFvXWLejp0km004VnX1hPgvY0TEn0aCduNgCHex1GzQCpczG5pjPxA7UQcUeBtnWZ_uFQ4C_T_zF5npZkBPBD6TK23A22x14addk7jy7id7a0A/s320/spills02.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Remember I mentioned that AO rendered out can be used advantageously for various masks? Now I want to add a subtle layer of dust to our can. For that I will need our AO inverted. Add a Group Layer. You could name the group Dust for example. Add another Group Layer and drag it inside the Dust group. This new Group you could name Dust_broad. Add an ordinary paint layer and drag it into the Dust_broad Group. Select the Dust Group and add a Layer Mask. Right click on the little Layer Mask icon (which should be glowing orange) find the Make Mask Stack command. This will change our little orange friend from a sphere inside of a square to three horizontal lines sitting in a neat little stack. If you again click that new icon, it will open up a palette with the mask as a layer stack. In that palette add a procedural layer (Geometry - Ambient Occlusion). If you have already calculated the AO, by selecting your model and then selecting Ambient Occlusion from the Objects menu, then you can skip this step. On top of the procedural AO layer, add an Adjustment Layer - Invert. Now we have a inverted AO as a mask. This specifically means that we have a mask, which will allow us to paint only in the crevices of the model. Exactly the place where dust collects over time. So pick a dust colour. I used a grey brown (RGB: 0.371 0.328 0.276). Select the Paint tool and pick a broken up brush like crackSplat or oldShipyard (under the Brad's New Brushes tab) and start painting in dust on your paint layer inside the Dust_broad group. With the help of the layer mask, you should have something like this:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2v2VDl5vDUQP6Tt55e9FYjm45CGlgNUevBM7xcRS4_AQYvEvPimF6vRX16F7XZ5NiIj1COBkXTbpKw8rkF3y0GbSm6eghqLum51n8UZ7iVsKiB9wC9F9EOMBy1ntt234_mRZ_mQ/s1600/dust_broad_masked.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2v2VDl5vDUQP6Tt55e9FYjm45CGlgNUevBM7xcRS4_AQYvEvPimF6vRX16F7XZ5NiIj1COBkXTbpKw8rkF3y0GbSm6eghqLum51n8UZ7iVsKiB9wC9F9EOMBy1ntt234_mRZ_mQ/s320/dust_broad_masked.jpg" height="201" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you change the blend mode of your Dust group to Overlay and the opacity of the Dust_broad group to around 0.570, you should have something like this:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMiUDtlXlUMxXBaWzw9TwGQ2a1CSoM3nLXTuABHXxYwQPcOdLqbqxOlE_p0E-bZHpXcZiF37ksAP0sc00zDQiy1j3e0V_-9oFlexsBmHzdHCGSNaNLCkeC4GZ7BXkBOKOsBRqyJQ/s1600/dust_broad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMiUDtlXlUMxXBaWzw9TwGQ2a1CSoM3nLXTuABHXxYwQPcOdLqbqxOlE_p0E-bZHpXcZiF37ksAP0sc00zDQiy1j3e0V_-9oFlexsBmHzdHCGSNaNLCkeC4GZ7BXkBOKOsBRqyJQ/s320/dust_broad.jpg" height="242" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So much for general dust. I still want to add some more specific dust where I know it would gather particularly: Inside the nooks and crannies in the handle, around the edge of the spout and the cross indentation on the side of the can for example. So add another paintable layer and another group layer. Rename the group layer to Dust_detail. Drag the paintable layer inside the Dust_detail group, and again drag the Dust_detail group inside the Dust group. Pick a dusty colour. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd4m0rBpJN9TgS1muqC_-Jlek3kvlXfImU-A4GDoDmyOKdQWGaEGMBeKw9Jk_4JEkxQLKfb6YZWSKhZxKq3zFS8JTE7ZBs3uz4Mvl9jbWaiSqh3o_A7z_jaSs_WMSCaNVzW7Pjew/s1600/dust04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd4m0rBpJN9TgS1muqC_-Jlek3kvlXfImU-A4GDoDmyOKdQWGaEGMBeKw9Jk_4JEkxQLKfb6YZWSKhZxKq3zFS8JTE7ZBs3uz4Mvl9jbWaiSqh3o_A7z_jaSs_WMSCaNVzW7Pjew/s320/dust04.jpg" height="320" width="292" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Grab your Paint tool and one of the broken up brushes I suggested before, lower the opacity of the brush to around 0.500 and start painting. Here is my dust layer:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLhpEMfWMD3RV9NYJI7cwOrPyl3LBl-G0j6FtiTqN6WTRJSFZ-K9cxszfiS2UXiFBu76tRD9-cLNL-d8aI1V019wxBXwpYFXa6S1yxMVtSnBU6XHm57cibr23nxffItzPyHOgQ0g/s1600/dust01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLhpEMfWMD3RV9NYJI7cwOrPyl3LBl-G0j6FtiTqN6WTRJSFZ-K9cxszfiS2UXiFBu76tRD9-cLNL-d8aI1V019wxBXwpYFXa6S1yxMVtSnBU6XHm57cibr23nxffItzPyHOgQ0g/s320/dust01.jpg" height="242" width="320" /> </a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I want to give it a slightly grainier look. I could have employed the Fractal Noise Mask set on a really small size for this, but instead I am going to use a filter. Filters menu - Add Noise. Don't tick the Grayscale box - we don't mind the extra bits of colour variation. Set the size to something suitably small like so: </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJmg799DY00qzwWO1hj_Y0_2xvqMIHJW8M91LCi7meyGH-s6VJI5jslixoSUtjGHkTFbLcjfeVmuS-EVHKtY-WbyOPaZVkih_tZLfCL1390N7YhRqFyNmQIELizGadhguyQVcN0g/s1600/dust03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJmg799DY00qzwWO1hj_Y0_2xvqMIHJW8M91LCi7meyGH-s6VJI5jslixoSUtjGHkTFbLcjfeVmuS-EVHKtY-WbyOPaZVkih_tZLfCL1390N7YhRqFyNmQIELizGadhguyQVcN0g/s320/dust03.jpg" height="182" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Apply that filter to your Current Paint Target (which should be the dust layer you have selected). </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You should have something looking like this:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9AWGVFj8K4vhIJ_aiGv5HnzkmdDN5q9AXJOXhob-mjCUepD3EZRcQtj8lkS3Yl9F1EdO6igj2gFAN1lKUti2TxNnZdOLMEdXTG-j941yzvqPcy9adqjVcwM75PYSuvHUjRiQJLA/s1600/dust02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9AWGVFj8K4vhIJ_aiGv5HnzkmdDN5q9AXJOXhob-mjCUepD3EZRcQtj8lkS3Yl9F1EdO6igj2gFAN1lKUti2TxNnZdOLMEdXTG-j941yzvqPcy9adqjVcwM75PYSuvHUjRiQJLA/s320/dust02.jpg" height="242" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We are about done here. I still think that this beat up jerrycan could do with a bit more grime to match the level of abuse it has suffered in general. I think the green paint is still too even. Apart from the colour differences we put in earlier, paint will assimilate stains over time, which will bleed into the paint, changing the colour, value and saturation. I used this texture to add grime:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZXD-b2FhoHeWE_meGtP_ZIaAB1Rt-yp-suJ0Q8HVjS6yPkO_6kYmcpWmJTOnlbDPxLOIqmDAxK_ZF2bvllTbmpFt652Y3k1ufJ7HeBeJlny583vyVh7uxdMN_Sy-h4Zq3gaWFuw/s1600/grime_texture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZXD-b2FhoHeWE_meGtP_ZIaAB1Rt-yp-suJ0Q8HVjS6yPkO_6kYmcpWmJTOnlbDPxLOIqmDAxK_ZF2bvllTbmpFt652Y3k1ufJ7HeBeJlny583vyVh7uxdMN_Sy-h4Zq3gaWFuw/s320/grime_texture.jpg" height="250" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Add another paintable layer to your stack, add a group layer and drag your paintable layer into the group. We could rename this group to something like Grime. Roll out the trusty Paint Through tool. Cover your model with the texture, keeping in mind the size of the details relative to the size of the object. This is what my grime layer looked like:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgusHbAEpwAzjnsgg0auefZqQcfHZs-WnS_s257uDZkM3xJfHuEqK8Rc3kqhWLd_Ahf1hfheVbjMzxnt-0bZrsWs-PGL-LSFrMk1-zP6SriGkqnsowPOQYsjbMphZg9TuQ-iSTBXA/s1600/grime_base.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgusHbAEpwAzjnsgg0auefZqQcfHZs-WnS_s257uDZkM3xJfHuEqK8Rc3kqhWLd_Ahf1hfheVbjMzxnt-0bZrsWs-PGL-LSFrMk1-zP6SriGkqnsowPOQYsjbMphZg9TuQ-iSTBXA/s320/grime_base.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Gold star for adding variety to the grime layer by a layer mask and painting a bit of variation opacity wise. In general I am happy with this layer. Only I wanted to take a bit of saturation out of the grime, so in my Grime Group, I have added an Adjustment Layer (HSV), which allows me to turn the saturation down a bit. Changing the blend mode of the Grime group to Overlay and the opacity to 0.650 gives us something like this:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8T5nLJHTGZpr2U1cy6xAcsdJrYXZhpKX3slxd5UuS61RLGV4lACxLpfL4dzQPXy1QO1tj6DBFgeB1Fj4kJCww7FTjeW0HhVEEaAitGYepB4LQLN0x0uL2q5lOPMqoeizUxvcOFg/s1600/grime_final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8T5nLJHTGZpr2U1cy6xAcsdJrYXZhpKX3slxd5UuS61RLGV4lACxLpfL4dzQPXy1QO1tj6DBFgeB1Fj4kJCww7FTjeW0HhVEEaAitGYepB4LQLN0x0uL2q5lOPMqoeizUxvcOFg/s320/grime_final.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Duly rendered out the jerrycan looks like this:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvahmCqk6JAWceM7RKZeJp79aEECZ1UomDr7ES0v_B-tmqzc9SW42hW5UqnY7I0N6sSVqiiFD1030qsXR8zNaZuM0fl8w0K5meCz2SIAN5m8bfSB1KsZewOQxCtEjCkQ2j0_EjYw/s1600/shotName___masterLayer___v000.0144.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvahmCqk6JAWceM7RKZeJp79aEECZ1UomDr7ES0v_B-tmqzc9SW42hW5UqnY7I0N6sSVqiiFD1030qsXR8zNaZuM0fl8w0K5meCz2SIAN5m8bfSB1KsZewOQxCtEjCkQ2j0_EjYw/s320/shotName___masterLayer___v000.0144.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Naturally we still need to create a bump map and a spec map, but these secondary maps will be the topic for another post.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">At the end of any project, it is worthwhile to look back and go over the steps you took. There is still a lot of things you could add to, or subtract from this colour map. Personally, I think I could have been more subtle with the peeled off paint; The green paint is maybe a tad oversaturated in places etc. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There are no revolutionary new techniques in this workflow; This is a pretty standard and straight forward bread and butter approach for a texture artist. But in order to return to Rembrandt, the powerful and flexible layer system of Mari, allows us to keep adding in details until everything has been revealed.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">This tutorial </span>continues with a look creating spec maps for our jerry can <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/mari-distressed-painted-metal-texture.html" target="_blank">here</a>. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Did you find
this useful? Leave me a comment, share the post via your favourite
social media or drop me an email about things you'd like to see covered.</i></span>Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-2506930511250855962013-09-21T23:21:00.000+01:002013-09-21T23:21:52.620+01:00MARI: Removing strong details in tiled base textures<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">When you put together a base texture, you want it to be a good neutral representation of the given surface, perhaps even with a bit of interesting details. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But those details are a double edged sword, as they will also quickly show up as repeating patterns - giving away that this is not a custom painted texture, but a tiled texture.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What to do? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You could just manually cover your object with the Paint Through tool, using only the more neutral parts of your base texture map. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I like to keep things procedural as far as I can - it just gives way more flexibility for fast and painless editing and changes down the line. Also it can be a lot quickler to work this way. Let me show you a couple of nifty things you can do with <a href="http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/mari/" target="_blank">MARI's 2.0</a> layers:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Enter our base texture, which has been tiled 15 times in both directions. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7bLEJfI24zCnsth5OfJrK-K32QDEUjcw-XawWyO2r47B5JYqWMUQnEaNqACtsfXbYtsGqlTli9rVqEuD8zFuCnfFBGpAfht2xLofeop4G-hXLT7jT0ny7Irirtl4Vd09mawl0jQ/s1600/copper1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7bLEJfI24zCnsth5OfJrK-K32QDEUjcw-XawWyO2r47B5JYqWMUQnEaNqACtsfXbYtsGqlTli9rVqEuD8zFuCnfFBGpAfht2xLofeop4G-hXLT7jT0ny7Irirtl4Vd09mawl0jQ/s320/copper1.png" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">That gives us something looking like this:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4gLNoQRxZohPOI_bgo7VrqgXS9c06SnnYgRpfZ58KmQIuIpYGZrjwqdN52seNIaYSHng-_CeOmCWFnUBe8Q_1V2MlmIdaJkPQ3Gs5M7QXJ1JY901exoy82HAQoLP-bsbUr-f2mw/s1600/copper2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4gLNoQRxZohPOI_bgo7VrqgXS9c06SnnYgRpfZ58KmQIuIpYGZrjwqdN52seNIaYSHng-_CeOmCWFnUBe8Q_1V2MlmIdaJkPQ3Gs5M7QXJ1JY901exoy82HAQoLP-bsbUr-f2mw/s320/copper2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A nice place to start for a copper object. However, it does have some pretty conspicuous black details. We need to remove a few of them to make sure the texture is not appearing so obviously repeating.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There are a couple of simple things we can do, before we have to dive into the nitty-gritty of carefully painting each one out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Add another layer with our tiled copper texture, this time tiling it and rotating it differently (this one is set to 12 times repeats in both directions). This is to make sure that although it is the same texture, it will not sit exactly the same place on top of the other one.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6MBIBSmeS6f3geU0_Vkh4l6SRPWJM4zN6aRiLvO04h7H7DXBHIdk4MJ27fV685ADH0Nb2qyUrFDhYFaUlTaiZZm8wZirCu5wMsCatMTz5NJbo98xqbXbOBeQdaoHonegndIvJYg/s1600/copper3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6MBIBSmeS6f3geU0_Vkh4l6SRPWJM4zN6aRiLvO04h7H7DXBHIdk4MJ27fV685ADH0Nb2qyUrFDhYFaUlTaiZZm8wZirCu5wMsCatMTz5NJbo98xqbXbOBeQdaoHonegndIvJYg/s320/copper3.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Right click on the layer and add a Layer Mask for the layer. Set this one to Hide All. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Having selected the Layer Mask (it <i>should </i>still be selected after you have added it, but if you have since clicked on other layers etc. it might have become unselected. If so click on it to select it, and it will glow orange, like in the photo) for your new tiled texture, select the Paint tool, pick a brush with soft edges, like Linear, and choose bright white as the colour to paint with.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So far we can not see the layer with the new tiled copper texture. But by painting on the layer mask, for that layer, with white, we will reveal the additional copper texture, where we want it to cover the black details in the layer below. The idea here is that, as we have changed the tiling and rotation of the same texture, we might use different parts of the texture to cover the areas of it, that we don't want.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In that way we can get rid of some of the black details, we don't want.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3swb8XWrqdQyK7b5JFZJezDEuVMrPkd00cZFsWXY4zMUsqumckR2H4_A3caVCTRL7usCLC24HqPeED9qtpwUfRcZmHHctPSEDLn7fvxunKYprWDzlmLjEDpYlO4UQJ721PQG8Eg/s1600/copper4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3swb8XWrqdQyK7b5JFZJezDEuVMrPkd00cZFsWXY4zMUsqumckR2H4_A3caVCTRL7usCLC24HqPeED9qtpwUfRcZmHHctPSEDLn7fvxunKYprWDzlmLjEDpYlO4UQJ721PQG8Eg/s320/copper4.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">However, you are of course at the mercy of whether or not there will be a suitably neutral patch in the texture in the layer above to cover where there are disturbing details. This may, or may not be the case.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So what else can we do? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Add another procedural layer on top, this time a Color Constant. Using the Color Picker, sample a representative neutral copper colour and set the colour of the Color layer to that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBibrmhat-0BB7DMHP3PynAhIKhkD54cmb6I5IVhJ-H-ucpV8zyyLainG8VFZ6YaBfwXtaP4O6ZS3nYU1AM4EUcQpBX4pePzpQUhKwA_dhArZR40JRSOai-_gYR-rj69AMtgMV4A/s1600/copper5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBibrmhat-0BB7DMHP3PynAhIKhkD54cmb6I5IVhJ-H-ucpV8zyyLainG8VFZ6YaBfwXtaP4O6ZS3nYU1AM4EUcQpBX4pePzpQUhKwA_dhArZR40JRSOai-_gYR-rj69AMtgMV4A/s320/copper5.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Change blend mode
to Lighten, and then the layer will only cover pixels darker than the
neutral copper colour you have selected for it. It might bleed out too
much the details of the copper base texture underneath so experiment
with opacity till you have something that works.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now we have taken those big black details in the texture down to a manageable level:</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyNbKB8ZjFTHdt4byK92oJbhekMR_Ww_hY3easR7_KSoT3GzjfZFj_MINGqsicQcyIJZgtx6SYWRDAmF-E8LU6pKaQ2y6tPKy0OvTCACl-3OHg2UdXNrh4l3Z1UU-MZOX-ArUrKg/s1600/copper6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyNbKB8ZjFTHdt4byK92oJbhekMR_Ww_hY3easR7_KSoT3GzjfZFj_MINGqsicQcyIJZgtx6SYWRDAmF-E8LU6pKaQ2y6tPKy0OvTCACl-3OHg2UdXNrh4l3Z1UU-MZOX-ArUrKg/s320/copper6.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Let us just go through a variation here.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The above copper texture was a base and as such used the Normal blend mode. What if you use other blend modes which affect the layers below them? Then we need to change the approach slightly.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Here is a nice noisy texture that I am using as an Overlay to add details to my layers below it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4vFNZtzE-gY7CDUEjabj0sSKiWKxtXHOWn45lEW0UJcNeDlMGGvVpYcz573sMMkhT3GBQ0PzfGtpA-SSipB4e0_APLjOpB_oSGZZQ3oNxgkYW-HwJD2sZDOZ5plw4EihZ7qbksQ/s1600/noise1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4vFNZtzE-gY7CDUEjabj0sSKiWKxtXHOWn45lEW0UJcNeDlMGGvVpYcz573sMMkhT3GBQ0PzfGtpA-SSipB4e0_APLjOpB_oSGZZQ3oNxgkYW-HwJD2sZDOZ5plw4EihZ7qbksQ/s320/noise1.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The problem is, if you have an Overlay layer and you are painting out details using another layer above it, also set to Overlay, you will get really dark patches where you mask in details from the layer above. Like this...</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGs-jfMvt2pipL4Bk4_Af7BQQSzWqAMxHCm03AKFsCw0dr-nx9Wdqzub9S1sZMhXF0M0DgrMLNCB3VTqSt42zKXt7XJAh-518bdTD19IrjfeSD5h1qk3DYDKofY3669lyUbPXWBw/s1600/noise3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGs-jfMvt2pipL4Bk4_Af7BQQSzWqAMxHCm03AKFsCw0dr-nx9Wdqzub9S1sZMhXF0M0DgrMLNCB3VTqSt42zKXt7XJAh-518bdTD19IrjfeSD5h1qk3DYDKofY3669lyUbPXWBw/s320/noise3.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Fortunately <a href="http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/articles/2013/03/14/494/mari-layers-tutorials/#mask" target="_blank">MARI's</a> new layer groups come to the rescue here. You add a group, place the two tiled textures inside the group - each set with Normal blend mode - and then let the Group have the work of carrying out the Overlay blend mode. Like so:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjijnk8bBGxCF-_8WuisdyB15-IgQDLw2yeAaCMXiB_6Ue2T8zpJFhyphenhyphen9tvo56LmfC7BC5AUToBqod40GRnHjg1R4t8YVkdLMlpMRbIqLJF1JzhvifGcECPQg5d6mCYkOziYOWMh8w/s1600/noise2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjijnk8bBGxCF-_8WuisdyB15-IgQDLw2yeAaCMXiB_6Ue2T8zpJFhyphenhyphen9tvo56LmfC7BC5AUToBqod40GRnHjg1R4t8YVkdLMlpMRbIqLJF1JzhvifGcECPQg5d6mCYkOziYOWMh8w/s320/noise2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Result:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHDzXfcAuJJtV6Wtc_T0lMt4sBCLumOkYly4uUyZtSf8QaHd7vxsbjlxSausCEKTaSmQRnKKSTjgUMA28iuO9Vc2UjnpD_m8OQN2mIK1TuLZgJHE36WzAitsM-qPInvp0YC7SlNw/s1600/noise4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHDzXfcAuJJtV6Wtc_T0lMt4sBCLumOkYly4uUyZtSf8QaHd7vxsbjlxSausCEKTaSmQRnKKSTjgUMA28iuO9Vc2UjnpD_m8OQN2mIK1TuLZgJHE36WzAitsM-qPInvp0YC7SlNw/s320/noise4.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Pretty good, and definitely very quickly and easily. What about picking a neutral middle colour like we did before? Okay, but let's take it up a notch.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So we pick a neutral colour, and add that as a new procedural Color Constant layer. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaLSZHY34nupI1-j4F7vn3HGQZbTVoCbH0LrEepi-JN_kIupdYZRc4boPnEWS2X8z8mMQgVXAIdIeimdkePl5-NyFZBKbulc1R0lcrbjMKBwbaWXU-1Kf56QtV6oLrqdsRrKY_qQ/s1600/noise5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaLSZHY34nupI1-j4F7vn3HGQZbTVoCbH0LrEepi-JN_kIupdYZRc4boPnEWS2X8z8mMQgVXAIdIeimdkePl5-NyFZBKbulc1R0lcrbjMKBwbaWXU-1Kf56QtV6oLrqdsRrKY_qQ/s320/noise5.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Set the blend mode of the layer to Lighten and experiment a bit with the opacity. This will cover everything darker than the colour we have picked for our procedural layer. This approach <i>can </i>be a bit heavy handed, and produce great areas now coloured with our chosen colour. You can lose a lot of interesting detail this way.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I have anxiously been waiting for the day when <a href="http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/" target="_blank">The Foundry</a> will allow me to select colours, the same way I am able to do so in <a href="http://www.adobe.com/photoshop" target="_blank">Photoshop</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This brings us to one of my absolute favourites of the many new features in <a href="http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/mari/" target="_blank">MARI 2.0</a>: <b>Advanced Blend Modes!</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">No fear. This is not exactly selecting colours in a layer, like you would in <a href="http://www.adobe.com/photoshop" target="_blank">Photoshop</a>, but it allows me to affect particular colours just as if I had.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Notice the little green triangle next to your opacity slider (marked with a red rectangle below)? Go on click it. It will open the Aladdin's cave that Advanced Blend modes truly are.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_QIZLGRnzL5QAbLWT4SvCS6WoPgrKqsSgAMLqwXhQKMzfafp9kik800XMWUMAjD1CnDiDw-5bAlXJCxDwNLDPfL91aCpG5pnDDIyamMureYOSHHOJ3KW4lJ4kR8YUH0Pf8bXS9Q/s1600/noise6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_QIZLGRnzL5QAbLWT4SvCS6WoPgrKqsSgAMLqwXhQKMzfafp9kik800XMWUMAjD1CnDiDw-5bAlXJCxDwNLDPfL91aCpG5pnDDIyamMureYOSHHOJ3KW4lJ4kR8YUH0Pf8bXS9Q/s320/noise6.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">First you need to change Blending from Basic to Advanced. Doing so gives you access to the Curves style controls for both your selected layer and the layer below it. In this case we only really want to affect the black spots in the layer below, so manipulating the curves for that layer (marked by the green rectangle) we pick what values of the layer below we want to affect with our Color Constant - in this case the darker values. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The results are absolutely wonderful!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ZZ82XaQ2GT1Md-HdsrQ0MCjzcBsYezGBeaS1DGmQ4krScDAXBkXVd4Fq6ErkIsmfElD52bkCf9s_FYTscIMDTJK5jEc-Fv9XCGu5OUU3OttFxLtpkrj5j_BqT9IU1t4g4odCcQ/s1600/noise7.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="95" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ZZ82XaQ2GT1Md-HdsrQ0MCjzcBsYezGBeaS1DGmQ4krScDAXBkXVd4Fq6ErkIsmfElD52bkCf9s_FYTscIMDTJK5jEc-Fv9XCGu5OUU3OttFxLtpkrj5j_BqT9IU1t4g4odCcQ/s320/noise7.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Smooth as a baby's... something. Oh MARI, how I love you. Let me count the ways!</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Did you find
this useful? Leave me a comment, share the post via your favourite
social media or drop me an email about things you'd like to see covered.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, UK51.760006999999987 -0.01504199999999400551.720698999999989 -0.095722999999994007 51.799314999999986 0.065639000000006tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-40170281145764860122013-09-13T22:39:00.001+01:002013-09-21T14:06:14.477+01:00MARI: Distressed edges of bricks in bump map<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You are working on a brick wall.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">All the bricks are individually modelled. Lovely.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">VFX Supervisor then decides that he wants all the edges of all the bricks all worn, torn and distressed in the bump map. Sells the illusion, it does. Takes a year to go over every single brick painting it in, it does.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Here is what you do:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Grab a few good rock textures from <a href="http://www.texturepilot.com/" target="_blank">Texture Pilot</a> or the like. Bring them into <a href="http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/mari/" target="_blank">MARI's</a> image manager and desaturate the texture images (Filters - Hue). Crank up the contrast a bit, adjusting the levels for example (Filters - Levels):</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl1Ha8WCBgHRnTxKgjadraiXqtH2ghuhF3QUhiVCeXZqSjAJlk46PcxwQetmWG7WPO0z7DuwzR2sl6Igy-pINMV7Qwu7ABgibYZO5f8wrObt_LChJ_EzIAR31Da1fOhkupUqTkHg/s1600/Rocks.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl1Ha8WCBgHRnTxKgjadraiXqtH2ghuhF3QUhiVCeXZqSjAJlk46PcxwQetmWG7WPO0z7DuwzR2sl6Igy-pINMV7Qwu7ABgibYZO5f8wrObt_LChJ_EzIAR31Da1fOhkupUqTkHg/s400/Rocks.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Add a new layer to your Bump map channel and set it to multiply blend mode.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Select <a href="http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/mari/" target="_blank">MARI's</a> Paint Through tool, using your greyscale rock texture and pick a brush, with reasonably soft edges, like Linear.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD73conb4BiCeB-40o37qjxEJBZs6ASCtSty7ibgCljMUDBlNqeotBKLLIoDhR9R95pHlJrZwb88bK_cMr0dlwQyhAHE5L9H4ha2luo37XApgFjeLwPOiyqO7e7-PkkLF3koLx4Q/s1600/brush.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD73conb4BiCeB-40o37qjxEJBZs6ASCtSty7ibgCljMUDBlNqeotBKLLIoDhR9R95pHlJrZwb88bK_cMr0dlwQyhAHE5L9H4ha2luo37XApgFjeLwPOiyqO7e7-PkkLF3koLx4Q/s1600/brush.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now, using the Paint Through tool, you can quickly trace the edges of the bricks with the rock texture, which gives lovely organic and believable cracked edges on your bump map.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As quickly as you can trace the edges (use the structure of the wall to bundle your tasks together, so you work all the horizontal lines first and then vertical lines, for example) you'll go from this:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjttGpJJBpOAekaOfet3tcwoSR8qDA9u4yvm_I_r3pYVncHb4u8vZvuMWiuecyEbZLwuqHg8GqSD1fAotewzkruquQRlxWp7ZwWtCtqWJUtPs-ZUHuXSzUcsSvhjbDHEQ07-KLz-g/s1600/bricks_before.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjttGpJJBpOAekaOfet3tcwoSR8qDA9u4yvm_I_r3pYVncHb4u8vZvuMWiuecyEbZLwuqHg8GqSD1fAotewzkruquQRlxWp7ZwWtCtqWJUtPs-ZUHuXSzUcsSvhjbDHEQ07-KLz-g/s320/bricks_before.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">... to this:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsZgD4IgIfQR-b_8-jomhvOH5TB8CjjYmwAcz_fHnJdv36OMPrGeyF3Byktp49VqN_-jFZf7bH804NVgUsNn5WQRJp-wcpsrY_5RFQCTWP9uaILaItxYhRjrcdzUy3aFR-82T01A/s1600/bricks_after.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsZgD4IgIfQR-b_8-jomhvOH5TB8CjjYmwAcz_fHnJdv36OMPrGeyF3Byktp49VqN_-jFZf7bH804NVgUsNn5WQRJp-wcpsrY_5RFQCTWP9uaILaItxYhRjrcdzUy3aFR-82T01A/s320/bricks_after.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Job done! </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Did you find
this useful? Leave me a comment, share the post via your favourite
social media or drop me an email about things you'd like to see covered.</i></span>Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-3162748414533273722013-07-23T14:54:00.001+01:002013-07-23T15:17:04.747+01:00MARI: Precise Selecting of Multitudes of Polygons<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am sure you love carefully selecting polygon by single polygon.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am also sure you have muttered curses under your breath, as you accidentally select the wrong ones, forcing you to undo and break your rhythm.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Accidentally picking the wrong polygons tend to make us pick the polygons, one by one, in the centre of them, where the pointer is far away from the edges of the polygons we don't need.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Sv8vxi5HUCyBx-Ed6DTjjGVET2GjB0C4c37QTi7uvUhf8chacBl_b0igosQdPqeG-g5ZQYXn1yBrljs-xSzsd-bq2w286IwXtGRgsO1fLHAQjVVcBRctmctWCz3AdDkEdLUxCw/s1600/safe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Sv8vxi5HUCyBx-Ed6DTjjGVET2GjB0C4c37QTi7uvUhf8chacBl_b0igosQdPqeG-g5ZQYXn1yBrljs-xSzsd-bq2w286IwXtGRgsO1fLHAQjVVcBRctmctWCz3AdDkEdLUxCw/s400/safe.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Safe and slow it may be, but certainly not always the smartest and quickest way.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What I do instead, is that I focus on the vertices instead. I jump from spot to spot, where I can marquee select multiple vertices, allowing me to grab a whole slate of the polygons I want, in one go.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjtWJ4jq1R10TNH6VnrOGl1gqEbIeW7DWWV46qjfVEUazSVu0S3cRpQzciPajtPjduKJf9F0Uar5hbQ7QoAMLWwUU5PKT9V2jnaUEq3BL4BurJa6gD_UpyR5T8BV4qj_5LlzFtWg/s1600/vertices.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjtWJ4jq1R10TNH6VnrOGl1gqEbIeW7DWWV46qjfVEUazSVu0S3cRpQzciPajtPjduKJf9F0Uar5hbQ7QoAMLWwUU5PKT9V2jnaUEq3BL4BurJa6gD_UpyR5T8BV4qj_5LlzFtWg/s400/vertices.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The result, is in this case, was precisely selecting 8 polygons in one go. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs_kT5uITXhOS-RJGCxIwLsqRaLM4KnJ8E8TdBibDqcmw3x54KY8jsyd9niHSRwIwMe-WTYw3KGi4Qslp_UzUcaItkXtQjujDMc4orWj7LEvHOs56W79azLXj4Pill-qIupH4BHA/s1600/result.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs_kT5uITXhOS-RJGCxIwLsqRaLM4KnJ8E8TdBibDqcmw3x54KY8jsyd9niHSRwIwMe-WTYw3KGi4Qslp_UzUcaItkXtQjujDMc4orWj7LEvHOs56W79azLXj4Pill-qIupH4BHA/s400/result.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With use, you develop a rhythm of quickly scanning for the useful vertices, zooming up close, marquee select, zooming out again and moving to the next spot. A million times faster than carefully picking single polygons - which means getting it over faster, so we can get to the good bits:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Painting!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Did you find this useful? Leave me a comment, share the post via your favourite social media or drop me an email about things you'd like to see covered.</i></span>Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-47807639248569848422013-06-29T12:55:00.003+01:002013-07-23T14:28:02.891+01:00Story Learnings - The Incredibly Addictive Power of Breaking Bad<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Not since the days of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077051/?ref_=sr_4" target="_blank">Matador</a> have I found myself so helplessly captivated by a TV series. I am of course talking about <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0319213/" target="_blank">Vince Gilligan's</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903747/?ref_=sr_1" target="_blank">Breaking Bad</a>.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0x2WXgQNk1uG08q2qhfkZUma1RlRk5a3MD1nOhy43UyXDcskV830IGWminWjLciMr1Wul03tBr4ApxI4bRMNQIaKpqSZBX4-AxWZVkcZ78rbgcgnlgkGoJ1JOp3N66fnrW4JwSQ/s1024/walter-white-bryan-cranston-heisenberg-breaking-bad-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0x2WXgQNk1uG08q2qhfkZUma1RlRk5a3MD1nOhy43UyXDcskV830IGWminWjLciMr1Wul03tBr4ApxI4bRMNQIaKpqSZBX4-AxWZVkcZ78rbgcgnlgkGoJ1JOp3N66fnrW4JwSQ/s400/walter-white-bryan-cranston-heisenberg-breaking-bad-.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Sure <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0411008/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">LOST</a> had its captivating moments of mystique in beginning, but once it dawned on me, that the <a href="https://twitter.com/DamonLindelof" target="_blank">creators</a> also had no idea where the story was going, you emotionally disconnect.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">My buddy, the excellent concept artist <a href="http://www.xotos.com/" target="_blank">Cenay Oekmen</a>, kept pestering me to watch it, as he relayed the storylines to me. It was not that I had never heard of Breaking Bad before. At the back of your head, of course you notice the distant thunder of the many, many <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903747/awards?ref_=tt_awd" target="_blank">awards</a> rolling in, thereby adding the show to your mental to-do list of things to watch, as and when a convenient opportunity arises.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Then <a href="http://dannystack.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Danny Stack</a>, from the <a href="http://dannystack.blogspot.co.uk/p/uk-scriptwriters-podcast.html" target="_blank">UK Scriptwriters Podcast</a>, went so far as to claim that <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0186505/?ref_=fn_al_nm_4" target="_blank">Bryan Cranston</a>, in Breaking Bad, delivers the best acting, bar none, in recent years (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000358/" target="_blank">Daniel Day-Lewis</a> included). That sure is a tall statement and a ringing endorsement to boot. So I had to see what the fuss was all about. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Conveniently <a href="http://www.netflix.com/" target="_blank">Netflix</a> offered a first free month trial, when recently launching in England and Breaking Bad was part of the library on view.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What I found, I was not prepared for.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The show grabbed such a firm hold of my person, that I was unable to wrest myself free of it, till I had watched it till the end. Frightened and fascinated of this stranglehold Breaking Bad had on me, I would write down observations on a notepad while watching, to help me analyze the powerful means of storytelling employed by the creators.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This is what I found. </span><br />
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<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Tension</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The tension, Breaking Bad produces in the viewer, is so strong, that it leaves you unable to break free from the story till the tension is finally released in the desired resolution. However the desired resolution never fully materialises, so you are always left hungry and never sated.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Once the desired goal seems within reach, something comes up: The Cat String Theory (a cat is only interested in that piece of string when it is out of reach) essentially.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The use of imagery in the
opening sequence is very clever. Mysterious and ominous images are shown
without any context beyond what the audience puts together to make
sense of it. Some times consequences are shown before causes; some times
the images are foreboding. It all increases the tension.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Shock is used deliberately and in clever ways. The
effects of the shocks further increase tension and keeps your mind
racing defensively at all times. The impact of the shocks are amplified
through contrast: The brutality of the criminal drugs world is
juxtaposed against the tranquility of domestic trivial family life.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Walt has a number of tension axes running through his life:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></span>
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Between Walter and Skyler runs an axis of smoke and mirrors, as Walt struggles to achieve his desire without alerting Skyler. Will he get found out, or will he not be able to carry out his plans for the benefit of his family?</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Between
Walter and Jesse runs an axis playing on stupidity, as Jesse
with carelessness inadvertently mess up everything Walt painstakingly tries to achieve with carefull planning.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Between Hank
and Walter runs an axis focusing on both who can be the coolest father
figure for Walt Jr., as well as their individual positions on either
side of the law. With Hank parades his macho credentials as tough guy law enforcement officer, Walt is sorely tempted to reveal what a hardman his Heisenberg alter ego has become; A macho alter ego, Walt is openly in love with, as he finally releases all the frustration from the years of being an overlooked mild mannered chemistry teacher.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">All of these tension axes, are like all the spinning plates an acrobat has to keep spinning simultaneously, or the whole act falls apart.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">When
Walt reaches his goals, he doesn't find deliverance, but rather more
frustration. The frustration of 'why be King of the world, if nobody
knows'? This mirrors his life-long frustration of being an incredibly
skilled chemist labouring in obscurity in a dead-end job.</span><br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Empathy</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Right off the bat, the audience thoroughly identifies powerfully with Walter White's desire because of the extraordinarily unjust plight of the protagonist. This is further amplified by how high the stakes are: Life and death essentially; his own, his handicapped son's and his unborn child.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Walter White and Jesse Pinkman
is a classic "stuck with you" type of protagonist pair. They are mirror
opposites and are reliving each others' lives in reversal. Yet they cannot see how similar they are; like a soon-to-be couple in a romcom, you feel like shouting out at them, "don't you realise you love each other?!"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Both halves of
the protagonist pair, Jesse and Walter, are obviously well-meaning
underneath their respective stupidity and brusqueness.</span></span> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Our protagonists have their likability increased through plenty of "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1932907009/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1932907009&linkCode=as2&tag=selfimposegur-20" target="_blank">save the cat</a>" moments.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Walter
White only wanted a solution to his very unjust predicament when he
started out. But now he is tainted and can never go back, which
increases our pity for the protagonist's original plight.</span></span><br />
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<h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Recurring Themes</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></h3>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The stakes will be
raised by stating the goal, and then having accidents and unfair
circumstances come in the way of the goal on the first attempt,
whereupon dreams of ever achieving the goal are replaced with frantic damage
control. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span dir="auto">The show dazzles a lot through really imaginative plot turns and clever use of chemistry (a bit like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088559/" target="_blank">MacGyver</a>) and science.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Recurring obstacles: Wife (and the rest of Walt's family) finding out, police, accidents, criminal predators and similar hazard<span style="font-size: small;">s, stupidity and<span dir="auto"> naïveté.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span dir="auto"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span dir="auto"></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span dir="auto">The name of the protagonist (Mr. White) carries a lot of symbolism: A man who has hitherto never done anything illegal in his life. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Breaking Bad has a recurring themes of "good" people with "illegal" personal secrets; Skyler smokes while pregnant, and sleeps with her boss, while trying to impose morals onto Walter; Marie is a cleptomaniac shoplifter married to a law enforcement officer; Saul is a solicitor, who actively deals in criminal activity; Gus is an upstanding member of the community and a benefactor of the local DEA, while being a drug overlord etc.</span></span>
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<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Conclusion</span></h3>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">All of these things are not particularly new; They have been part of the storytelling canon for ages. But the writing team and Vince Gilligan have employed these tools in absolutely expert fashion. I have never seen anything, before or after <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000033/" target="_blank">Hitchcock</a>, where tension itself has been employed so effectively to hook in the audience for such long durations of time.</span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-79956721399556801732013-06-11T13:21:00.000+01:002013-06-11T13:21:41.238+01:00MARI: Project File Broken in CrashI remember our 3D modelling teacher at <a href="http://www.tees.ac.uk/" target="_blank">University of Teesside</a>, <a href="http://www.amarna3d.com/" target="_blank">Paul Docherty</a>, explaining to us how a file is sort of a box containing things, where the lid has been opened and things have been taken out, while it is open in a 3D application. If your workstation crashes while the file is open, it is like the lid and the things have not been put back properly, and the file may not work anymore.<br />
<br />
No doubt a very simple analogy, but it works for me. Hence, every so often when <a href="https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/mari/" target="_blank">MARI</a> crashes, you hold your breath as you reload the project file.<br />
<br />
Yesterday, this beauty greeted me:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Z0TWn6-s252I1broX21Be29B8G5m8bKcpARyLTMmwhSVhgrQQjj4xqqCMPrxWXl9-bPZ52haFgEbC0U22_QzXoewixOXNI_d7S-GXkkPJa_fYR6m3lxa-8ujGt-kM83kengaDg/s1600/MARI_error_message.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Cannot Open Project. Failed to open /Temps and Caching/Mari/Project.mri file with QuaZip" border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Z0TWn6-s252I1broX21Be29B8G5m8bKcpARyLTMmwhSVhgrQQjj4xqqCMPrxWXl9-bPZ52haFgEbC0U22_QzXoewixOXNI_d7S-GXkkPJa_fYR6m3lxa-8ujGt-kM83kengaDg/s400/MARI_error_message.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
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<br />
My heart sank, although I had recently exported all my nearly finished diffuse maps from that project. Before importing them back in and starting (almost) over, I tried a simple thing:<br />
<br />
Select the broken file in MARI's project overview.<br />
<br />
Click Copy<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj-OuKQvvphNj_MeC6px8Dm2a-Zi8hZtGMEcKRMqYEpXgI6gePZbgGxlPb2tBRebqWEK_84v4e8Qx_Cof9AlbTT_SB-0xiqOr0m2ra-DWBrGmMQmAvbqJP9owRPCX0tpZTOvy60Q/s1600/MARI_project_copy.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img alt="MARI copy project" border="0" height="44" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj-OuKQvvphNj_MeC6px8Dm2a-Zi8hZtGMEcKRMqYEpXgI6gePZbgGxlPb2tBRebqWEK_84v4e8Qx_Cof9AlbTT_SB-0xiqOr0m2ra-DWBrGmMQmAvbqJP9owRPCX0tpZTOvy60Q/s400/MARI_project_copy.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
<br />
It took MARI a fair while to copy the project, but once it was done, the copy opened as if nothing had happened. <br />
<br />
Oh MARI, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways! <br />
Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-43920543378670854632012-11-01T14:37:00.000+00:002012-11-06T18:02:59.111+00:00/Shameless Plug/Are you interested in 3D?<br />
<br />
Are you interested in animation?<br />
<br />
Are you interested in VFX?<br />
<br />
Are you interested in creature/character work?<br />
<br />
Are you interested in rigging?<br />
<br />
Yes?<br />
<br />
Do you know <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1015407/" target="_blank">Simon Payne</a>?<br />
<br />
Do yourself a favour. You really should.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1015407/" target="_blank">Simon Payne</a> is a colleague of mine at Digital Domain London/Reliance MediaWorks. Simon has been around the VFX block more than once. Needless to say he draws on deep, deep experience of most any facet of 3D and VFX. Simon is the kind of brain-on-two-legs kind of guy, you can roll up to ask anything, say "Gee Simon, what can you tell me about matchmoving?" He'll take a deep breath and 20 seconds later it comes streaming out of him coherently and logically about camera control groups and focal lengths, like he'd been preparing the lecture for a good few weeks in advance.<br />
<br />
Simon's chosen field of expertise is rigging and character work. I recently learned that he had put together a teaching programme on rigging and creature work. There is a lot of teaching materials out there regarding various aspects of 3D and VFX production. Some of it is worth your while, some of it is not. Even with the worthwhile stuff, you quickly come to the point where you feel, that by rights there would need to be so much more still, for it to truly take you to the levels needed on feature film VFX work.<br />
<br />
Simon's rigging and creature programme can best be described as comprehensive. That word just keeps coming back to me. Comprehensive. Comprehensive. He certainly hasn't spared himself putting this together, and it will stand up to the most exacting of standards in feature film level VFX work.<br />
<br />
If you have <i>any </i>interest in rigging, creature/character work or VFX in general, you stand to gain massively from Simon generously sharing his knowledge and experience.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.cmivfx.com/tutorials/view/495/Creature+Creators+Handbook+Volume+01" target="_blank">http://www.cmivfx.com/tutorials/view/495/Creature+Creators+Handbook+Volume+01</a><br />
<br />
Yes, this is a strong plug on my part, and unashamedly so. This deserves it. I just wish there was a similar course in texturing...<br />
<br />Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-53801630726796110422012-08-18T23:07:00.000+01:002013-06-21T18:53:50.525+01:00Story Learnings: Plot Turns<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The happy and helpful people over at </span><a href="http://screenwritingu.com/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">ScreenwritingU</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> posted a lovely overview of the different types of plot turns. I found it well worth my time:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://screenwritingu.com/screenwriting-articles/211-10-ways-to-create-a-plot-twist.html" target="_blank">http://screenwritingu.com/screenwriting-articles/211-10-ways-to-create-a-plot-twist.html</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once I had stuffed myself full of anagnorisis, Chekhov's Gun and noted to my satisfaction the warnings of using Deus Ex Machina in any significant way, I noticed that the list was originally written by a certain <a href="http://tnt-tek.com/" target="_blank">T. N. Tobias</a>. A particularly uncommitting fellow, who is struggling to keep up with his reading list (aren't we all?). He has since taken down his list and points to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> instead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wikipedia, who as it turns out, has a far superior list of types of plot turns, <i>even more</i> worth your time:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_twist" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_twist</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Who would have known?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Post Scriptum</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I shall shortly dismantle this blog and simply redirect to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> henceforth. All resistance is </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">futile, and I have accepted that this singularity of knowledge is inevitable.</span></div>
Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com01 Whitehall, City of Westminster, SW1A, UK51.5073346 -0.127683151.3492066 -0.4435401 51.6654626 0.1881739tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-52957353234729439552012-07-23T21:59:00.003+01:002013-06-21T18:54:19.549+01:00Story Learnings - So Far... Part 2: Practical Application<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So... </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A friend of mine, from my native Denmark, who probably would like to remain anonymous, pointed out that my recent blog post (<a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/story-learning-so-far.html" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/story-learning-so-far.htm</a><a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/story-learning-so-far.html" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">l</a>) was exhibiting myself as a pretentious ignoramus with an underlined copy of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060391685/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=selfimposegur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0060391685" target="_blank">Story by Robert McKee</a> in one hand, a dog-eared printout of the <a href="http://www.wga.org/subpage_newsevents.aspx?id=1906" target="_blank">Casablanca script</a> in the other, and somewhere in between (my ears) a little higher up, the notion that I <i>also </i>have a great idea for a movie!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I should point out, that said friend works as a script consultant, has done so for some years, and has an <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2309230/" target="_blank">award-winning documentary</a> under his belt to boot. So, not entirely an amateur with an opinion and a Blogspot account, like me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I believe, I did mention that before, but I shall point it out once more for the record: I am not a professional screenwriter. I do get paid for the occasional piece of writing (very broadly defined), but it would be pretentious of me to pose as a professional screenwriter. <a href="http://johnaugust.com/" target="_blank">This</a> is what a blog of a bona fide working screenwriter looks like. What I am, is a man who loves stories, loves to learn about anything and everything regarding stories - all with the humble hope of improving my own storytelling skills and the stories they will produce over time. <i>I am a wannabe screenwriter</i>. Absolutely. I <i>want </i>to <i>be </i>a <i>screenwriter</i>. I am working hard to become a screenwriter, and when I have sold my first spec script, I will remove the "wannabe" tag. Until then, I have no problem displaying my direction, ambition as well as my current status.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The previous <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/story-learning-so-far.html" target="_blank">post</a> was literally a page in one of the journals, I carry with me at all times. During a lunch break, I looked at it, and thought 'why don't I write this up?' </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just as I am passing them on, the ideas therein have all come to me, and I am pretty sure they are not mine. Just as they probably didn't belong to the ones I learned them from. As the wise King Solomon said, "there is nothing new under the sun." Thus, before there were <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060391685/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=selfimposegur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0060391685" target="_blank">McKee</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385339038/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=selfimposegur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0385339038" target="_blank">Fields</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1932907009/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=selfimposegur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1932907009" target="_blank">Snyder</a>, there was </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1163161586/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=selfimposegur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1163161586" target="_blank">Lajos Egri</a>, before that, there were a whole bunch of other people, all leading back to </span><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140446362/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=selfimposegur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0140446362" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Aristotle</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">... Before him? See, that's when our records go a bit hazy. But there must have been somebody, because those universal principles of act structure, protagonists and inciting incidents are all found in one of the earliest found stories, </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014044100X/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=selfimposegur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=014044100X" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">The Epic of Gilgamesh</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A whistle-stop tour of four millennia of story thinking, all simply to make the point that I am only standing on the shoulders of the giants before me. Is that understood?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, that was all the defensive stuff; The caveat, I might not have spelled out clearly in my last post.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On to the meatier part of this discourse: A good suggestion by said friend; These 11 points mean nothing, unless you can apply them <i>practically</i>. So please allow me to expand on my previous post, by showing how these principles help me in my writing and how I practically apply them in putting a story together. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think I should preface this with a little information about the script I am working on at the moment. A colleague, now a friend, approached me with an idea for a short film. I liked it, and agreed to start working, what was roughly two sentences, into a fully developed story. The basic premise is the relationship between a young and good but naive girl and an old and mentally very strong, but dying man. I suppose, the dramatic question can be boiled down to 'how do you preserve your life and values, when forced to live with an evil and powerful adversary?' </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are telling it as a vampire film, which is </span><u style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">not</u><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a vampire film.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Key to this was that we would potentially produce it ourselves, so I set myself a number of limitations on number of characters, locations and other things driving the costs up. Also this project is very much a job application of sorts: My friend wants to show, that he has what it takes to handle production design, and I would like to go through the entire process of writing, directing and producing the finished article. This also shapes a project.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So let me go through the 11 points from my previous post </span><br />
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1. The universal story: Light wins over darkness</h4>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I would hate to tell a story, which does not leave the audience satisfied. You know those stories, that you enjoyed in parts, but at the end it was like something was missing? Partly for this reason I am happy to lean on the universal master plots and feel no need to rebel against and try to break the rules governing those. So light must win over darkness, and if there is no happy ending for your protagonist, it would mean that the protagonist was a dark character, who got what he deserved in the end. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The basic premise for this story reminded me of the '<a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/story-learnings-plot-4-voyage-and.html" target="_blank">voyage and return</a>' plot, with the exotic and fascinating new environment in the beginning, the emphasis on a young (of mind) protagonist and the nightmarish lead up to the climax and resolution. So I spent a bit of time reacquainting myself with the typical structure of 'voyage and return' stories and their commonalities in terms of characters and the psychological elements they employ. File under "background research".</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">2. The heartbeat of a story</span></h4>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the beginning we spent a lot of time brainstorming signature images and key scenes that we felt belonged naturally to this story. So you end up with a notebook full of all kinds of moments, which on their own may be brilliant, but still need to fit into a meaningful plot. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I like to use a whiteboard. On the whiteboard I literally draw a horizontal curve of the story's tension and another one of the pace of the story, detailing how I envision in this abstract way for the story to play out. Horizontally across the white board I then plot in key moments (Reminds me of mapping out key frames on an arc when animating). Remembering the idea of the 'heartbeat of the story', I am careful to add suitable moments of release after moments of tension and vice versa. Also as I naturally want the 'heartbeat of the story' to beat faster and faster leading up to the climax, I look at the mix of the length of the scenes as the pace curve progresses towards the finish.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. </span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You know, I can't tell you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. The Gap</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Remembering 'The Gap' means to me, that I never play nice with my characters. Personally I would like nothing better than to please them and make life easy for them, but instead I force myself to always write them into trouble; Never giving them what they want without letting them work for it first; Surprising them time and time again with a piece of bad news, until they, backs against the wall, have to dig down to their innermost core and pull out astounding things at great cost. It makes me feel like, I am always the jerk, but I believe it makes for more interesting drama.</span></div>
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5. Sub text versus text</h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I write the subtext first. Sometimes it is only a single sentence. But then you can prod it a bit by asking yourself, 'Why this is sub text and not text? Why would the character hide this? Why would this make the character embarrassed, angry, uncomfortable etc.?' Knowing that, you can then look at , how you would make such and such a situation respectable and civilized. How would the character try to hint at these things, and how explicit would the character dare to make these hints under these circumstances? Drawing on my experience from sales work, you often find that people ask other people exactly the question they would like to be asked themselves. When strong feelings are involved - let's say you are massively embarrassed about the colour white - people will carefully and purposely talk about the exact opposite (the colour black in this case) to hide what is really on their minds. So knowing as much about the subtext and the nature of it, gives you very precise ammunition for how you want to tinge the lines of dialogue and what direction you want to drive them in (away from the thing on everybody's minds or towards it).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6. Character is shown through dilemmas</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I turn this one upside down. You should have a pretty good idea of who your character is in the beginning of the story and how you want and need the character to develop over the course of the story. So knowing what values, emotions or traits I need the character to demonstrate, I simply ask myself, which situations would force such a response from this character? Or what situations would test those traits or values to the limit for this character? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The answers can take a bit time to find; I have yet to devise or learn a method that instantly facilitates brilliant dilemma after dilemma in answer to your question. But I suppose this is where your imagination need to earn its screenwriting chops. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7. No scene, that doesn't turn</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a quick and dirty benchmark I use to find what needs to be cut or changed. On my floor, I have all my note cards with scenes arranged according to the plot. I will go through them one by one, analysing the scene in my head. If a scene doesn't change or "turn" the emotional values in it, it either must be cut, or if you absolutely need it, say to build up to the next scene, you must give it some major attention till it both serves its purpose in the overall plot and also offers more than mere treading water in the moment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">8. Show, don't tell</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Show, don't tell' is another snappy benchmark I apply to a lot of things. We want to minimise, or cut altogether scenes and dialogue, which only serves the purpose to fill the audience in on background knowledge, but do not drive the plot forward. Anything that can be told without words at all, and just images, must be done so. No line of dialogue, which could be cut and the meaning still be read, must be left alone. What doesn't makes the story stronger, will make it weaker. And so I travel through my script with a razor sharp pair of scissors, trying to trim the baby fat as I go along. In reality it is hard work. I hate cutting my own words. I love all of them dearly. So instead, as I write, I try to keep this in mind beforehand and stay economic before I even put the dialogue on page.</span></div>
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9. Storytelling is story delaying</h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do you know how little children sometimes ruin a joke by telling you the punch line first? We can be so enamoured with our wonderful imaginary world, so full of fascinating details and complex back story, that we can't wait to show all of it to the audience in the very first scene, if not even before the opening credits. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But storytelling is story delaying. So as I work my way backwards through my story (see point 11 below), I ask myself what information is crucially needed for the audience to understand the development of the plot. These "must-know" bits of information all have individual places in the plot, where before this point they would be unnecessary and after this point, they would be too late. You may be able to put parts of the same piece of information in different locations. This both helps your story to not be overloaded in the beginning. You don't want the audience to feel like they have to munch through a mountain of broccoli to get to the good stuff. Another thing is that the audience is smarter than you may think. Avoid the groans tearing them out of the suspense of disbelief as one painfully obvious thing after another is pointed out to them. Lastly it helps building suspense. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the story I am working right now, I want to build an escalating sense of dread. So the intentions of the old man to essentially trap the young girl, I will reveal spread out as bread crumbs building up to the nightmare feel that I want. Revealing it all in the beginning ("Ha ha, you are trapped!") might create a bit of shock and some mild confusion, but that would evaporate long before we hit the climax. Revealing it all in the very end would only confuse the audience to what is going on. In either case, the suspense would be lost. For other parts of the story - a subplot involving the girl's recently deceased grandmother - I need to reveal some bits early, while the death of the grandmother is still fresh in the audience's mind, in order to bridge us over to when the resolution comes in that plot line.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I guess, I like to be quite organised about these things; I am scared I will miss out on something important, so I like to lean on a bit of structure. Hence my whiteboard is my friend, where charts and curves all pinpoint the location when the crucial elements must take place. I like having those big tent pole elements placed first, that gives me peace of mind to write more impulsively </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in between</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. </span>
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10. Setup and pay off</h4>
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This takes me back to my white board. Looking over the key moments of my story, I want to make sure that the preceding scenes fill the audience in on the things they need to know, in order to readily understand the key moment to come. Also I like to increase the impact of these moments, if at all possible, by leading into it with an opposite (a bit like anticipation in animation before a "take"). This takes us back to the 'heartbeat of the story'. On the grander scale, the story's resolution will be preceded by the story climax of tension and conflict. But setting up smaller points, such as a sequence climax, will also benefit the impact.</div>
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11. Plot turns</h4>
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This is how a story comes to be in my universe: It all starts with a few garbled up images or words which only really makes sense to me. They become a string of key moments or parts of scenes. Little by little you end up with a growing number of things (characters, story beats, scenes etc.), which just has the right feel for your story. Before that list grows too big, you need to know where you are going; You need to nail your ending down. There is no room to manoeuvre on the ending. It must be good. It must be satisfying. It must be surprising. So before you paint yourself into a corner, by creating too many lovely darling ideas, do yourself the favour of figuring out where this journey is going to end.</div>
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Once I have my ending pencilled in, I work backwards from there to the beginning (funny, how the possible beginnings often are among the first feeble scribbles). What I aim to do, is alluding to the ending and how everything is resolved in subtle ways throughout the story. Carefully delaying the full explanation, or at least cutting it up in small bites and placing them as a bread crumb trail throughout. I kinda explain this to myself, as folding a piece of baking paper with an arrow drawn in one direction. You know the semi-transparent stuff you use to line oven trays with? To make it really, really simple, let's say at the ending, the protagonist turns out to be good (as opposed to evil). This is revealed at the climax. Taking a step back, we need to fold the baking paper back over itself, so now the arrow points the other way. Lo and behold, in the sequences before the climax we believe the protagonist was an evil so-and-so. Taking yet another step back, we fold the baking paper again, and now the arrow is once again pointing in the good direction - the protagonist is good as gold. As you keep folding the paper, working your way backwards through the story, each of these folds, or changes of direction, represents a plot turn, where we turn the story on its head. Also as with real baking paper, you should be able to see or make out what is on the layer underneath, although not as clearly as the topmost layer. Obviously, there is an upper limit here, where the more times you turn things upside down, the more ludicrous it gets. Similarly, the more layers of baking paper you got, folded on top of each other, the more opaque the whole stack eventually becomes.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Looking back over my folded stack of baking paper, so to speak, I try to see if I can match up some of the changes of direction in the story, to what I already have in my file of things, that just feels right for the story. If not, I need to start answering the hard questions of, why such and such is not what it seems, why character so-and-so would completely go against his/her character traits in extreme circumstances, or how things (believably) against all odds will turn out like this. This is very much one of the jigsaw puzzle parts of putting a story together. But also enormously satisfying, once it locks elegantly into place. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Outro</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Right. At the end of the day, this is only meant to make writing good stuff simpler. A good screen play is a good screen play is a good screen play. No amount of theory can make up for that, nor guarantee that. So I better get back to writing what really matters, my next screen plays!</span>Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com212 Stanstead Rd, Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire EN11 0RH, UK51.766166693807712 -0.008625984191894531251.763710193807711 -0.01356148419189453 51.768623193807713 -0.0036904841918945315tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-61895257262040846512012-07-19T11:24:00.000+01:002012-07-20T21:15:02.742+01:00Wow<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
Wow!</div>
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I get ahead of myself.</div>
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<a href="http://www.londonscreenwritersfestival.com/" target="_blank">London Screenwriters Festival</a> today announced the long list of their <a href="http://www.londonscreenwritersfestival.com/50-kisses/" target="_blank">50 Kisses screenwriting competition</a>.</div>
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<a href="http://www.facebook.com/notes/50-kisses/50-kisses-longlist/422240594485043">http://www.facebook.com/notes/50-kisses/50-kisses-longlist/422240594485043</a></div>
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The competition will eventually have 50 winners, who will have their contributions made into a feature film for theatrical release on Valentine's day 2013. The organizers received an astounding 1870 submissions. Today the long list consisting of 500 candidates was released.</div>
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Back in May, a colleague forwarded me the competition details. "Considering as you seem to have a good hand at writing", she said. She must have been referring to all the silly nonsense emails (a topic for multiple posts in the future, no doubt) I dream up, and bombard my colleagues with on a daily basis. I objected that "there is big difference between spewing silly nonsense with
fancy words and telling a good story that tugs the heart strings." And then put a story together in a lunch break. "You miss a 100% of the shots you don't take", said <a href="http://michaelmindes.com/wisdom-wayne-gretzky-quotes" target="_blank">Wayne Gretzky</a>. So why not?</div>
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It sure felt good seeing my name on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/notes/50-kisses/50-kisses-longlist/422240594485043" target="_blank">that list</a> today. Who knows what other adventures are waiting out there?</div>
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<br />Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-13761254217009306442012-07-17T14:44:00.001+01:002013-06-21T18:54:40.854+01:00Story Learnings - So Far...<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
One of the side effects of spending too much time at work, writing company wide emails about made-up nonsense (more about that in another post), is that you become the go-to guy for writing just about anything.</div>
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The other day one of our lighters asked me to teach him about storytelling. Massively flattered as I was, I managed to object, that I am only just learning myself. But what I do know, I will happily share. So put on the spot like that, I managed to break into a 10 minute improvised lecture - which in hindsight wasn't half bad. We continued this over our instant messenging client over the days that followed.</div>
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As I said, I am just a humble student of storytelling, but I do think others might benefit from what I have learned at the feet of the masters so far. Here goes:</div>
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1. The universal story: Light wins over darkness</h4>
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I have spent a lot of time looking into universal plots and what they tell us about the human psyche and our need for and use of storytelling. In short, there is really only one plot: Light wins over darkness. All other meaningful plots are merely viewing this master plot from different angles.</div>
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2. The heartbeat of a story</h4>
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A story must invariably be told with a certain rhythm: Tension and release; Greater tension and greater release; Greatest tension (climax) and greatest release (resolution). Like a heartbeat, constantly expanding and contracting. If you follow tension with more tension and more tension still, you will lose the effect of the tension. Likewise with release. The audience will grow numb. </div>
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3. </h4>
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I could have sworn there was a 3rd point in there somewhere. Which I seem to have lost. I will leave it unnamed as the unmarked grave for the anonymous soldier. Or maybe I just don't want to reveal my secret sauce? You will never know... </div>
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4. The Gap</h4>
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Hitchock said, "drama is like ordinary life, with the dull bits cut out." Yep. We can't have that. Dull bits. Things that go exactly according to plan. It doesn't make for good stories. So when we write, we look at what our characters are expecting... and never give them that. In that gap between the expectations of the characters and the outcome sits lovely, lovely drama; Conflicts that force your characters outside of their nice-guy behaviour; Conflicts which escalate tension; Conflicts which entertain the audience at the expense of our characters, who now will have to work harder for it.</div>
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5. Sub text versus text</h4>
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Just as in real life, what is said is never the full picture. Dialogue is the text, the sub text is what the characters really are feeling, thinking and reallly trying to say. I remember the great salesman <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/067179437X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=selfimposegur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=067179437X" target="_blank">Frank Bettger</a> always said, "The first reason sounds good. The second reason is the real reason." Also in stories, nobody will volunteer what they really mean all the time - unless they are the fool on the hill. It is up to us as storytellers to construct these layers of what is said, and is really meant underneath.<br />
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6. Character is shown through dilemmas</h4>
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Take any serial killer, dress him up nicely, ask his neighbours about him - 'oh, he's such a nice young man'. What is really inside of us, will only be revealed when we are out of our depth; When we have no game plan and we have to improvise. Those are the moments where the slick surface of careful grooming and learned manners crack open to reveal the true person underneath. All the surface stuff doesn't really count. How do we create those cracks? Throw our characters into tough dilemmas, where they have to make tough choices about the lesser of two evils. That is when we will see what they are really made of.</div>
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7. No scene, that doesn't turn</h4>
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A scene that starts with a man being in a good mood and ends with him being in a good mood is a non-event; A waste of precious time. It will not advance the plot, it will not entertain, it will most likely just be there to fill in the audience about background details (exposition). Never should it be found in your stories. By "doesn't turn", I mean the emotional values do not turn: Turn from positive to negative or the other way around. No scene, that doesn't turn! It is storytelling fluff. We can't have it!</div>
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8. Show, don't tell</h4>
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Actions speak louder than words. A nigh on universal truism. Also in stories. What we tell people will not have as much impact as what we see them do. In screenwriting whatever can be said with images should be done so. Only resort to dialogue, if you can not tell the same parts of the story with images. The emotional response from the audience will be far greater.</div>
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9. Storytelling is story delaying</h4>
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Save the best for last, they say. I guess, that is just good showmanship. Likewise, a story is not a story, if you upfront tell your audience all the facts. For starters, suspense goes out of the window as all questions are answered. So don't insult the intelligence of your audience, and don't tell them anything a moment before they absolutely have to know. Tension will build and as a result the exhilleration of the revelation will be so much stronger, when you do tell.</div>
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10. Setup and pay off</h4>
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You know how there are two parts to a joke? The punchline is what people laugh at, but it makes no sense without the setup. Likewise, the really important moments of your story needs careful setting up as well, to make sure they will have the impact on the audience that you intend. </div>
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11. Plot turns</h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ah plot turns... Those moments of exhilleration, where a story is completely turned upside down. As you learn that Darth Vader is actually Luke's father, your mind races, in a split-second, back through two entire movies, and all of a sudden there are so many things that make sense at last. Carefully setting up plot-turns with subtle hints and delivering them with impact will leave your audience thrilled and excited as they experience the joy of piecing it all together in their minds. Believable plot turns take quite a bit of imagination and careful planning on the structural stage of a story. But if you can manage to deliver a well-built plot turn, it will stay with your audience for the rest of their life - the above example being ample proof thereof.</span><br />
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I could, and probably will, add another 20 to these 11. But it is a start. Besides, I need to practise some more; Juggling with 11 balls in the air, is plenty hard for me still.</div>
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What are the most important parts of storytelling for you?</div>
Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com163 Poland St, London, Greater London W1F 7NY, UK51.513550060015277 -0.1363420486450195351.511079560015276 -0.14127754864501954 51.516020560015278 -0.13140654864501952tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-4504029585768531692012-03-31T20:42:00.000+01:002012-03-31T20:42:17.176+01:00<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Story Learnings: Plot #4 - Voyage and Return</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reaping the rich rewards from Christopher Booker's excellent tome on storytelling <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826480373/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=selfimposegur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0826480373" target="_blank">The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories</a>, we have reached the fourth of the seven master plots (You can find my posts on the first master plot, Overcoming the Monster as well as an introduction to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826480373/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=selfimposegur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0826480373" target="_blank">The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories</a>, <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.com/2012/01/story-learnings-plot-1-overcoming.html" target="_blank">here</a>, the second master plot, Rags to Riches, <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.com/2012/01/story-learnings-plot-2-rags-to-riches.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and the third master plot, The Quest, <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/story-learnings-plot-3-quest-continuing.html" target="_blank">here</a>.):</span><br />
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</span></div></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><b>Voyage and Return</b></i></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is a second plot based on a journey, quite different from <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/story-learnings-plot-3-quest-continuing.html" target="_blank">the Quest</a>. The stories we find using the Voyage and Return plot seemingly have nothing in common, perhaps except that they are some of the most haunting and mysterious tales in the world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The essence of Voyage and Return is that the hero travels out of their 'normal' world and into another world completely cut off from the first, where everything seems disturbingly abnormal. At this first this strange new world is exhilarating, but gradually a shadow intrudes. The hero feels increasingly threatened, until by way of a 'thrilling escape' the hero is released from the abnormal world and can return to the safety of the 'normal' world where he started. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These are the stories we call Voyage and Return and they follow these five stages:</span></div></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">1. Anticipation Stage and 'Fall' into the Other World</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">We meet our hero as he is in some state, which lays him open to a shattering new experience; His consciousness is often restricted in some way: young, naive, curious, bored, drowsy, reckless or actively craving a diversion. Wittingly or unwittingly, what they have in common is that they are psychologically wide open for some shattering new experience to invade their lives and take them over. So he 'falls' into a strange new world, unlike anything he has ever experienced before. The event which precipitates the hero into the abnormal world is often shocking and violent.</span><br />
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</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">2. Initial Fascination or Dream Stage</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">At first this new world is exhilarating, mainly because it is so puzzling and unfamiliar. Even so it can never be a place where our hero can feel at home. It is always very clear to the hero that something very queer is happening to them. One way or another the story work every conceivable permutation on their hero's sense of what is normal, even in terms of the most basic assumptions we make about our identity as human beings.</span><br />
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</span></div></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">3. Frustration Stage</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Gradually the mood changes to frustration, difficulty and oppression. A shadow is looming and increasingly alarmingly so; Being in the alien world becomes less and less pleasant. The hero will experience everything in a kind of dream-like semi-detached way; The other world will never be wholly real to them - even if some of the experience threatens their very survival.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The shadow becomes so dominant that it seems to pose a serious threat to the hero's survival.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Just when the threat closing in on the hero, becomes too much to bear, the hero makes his escape from the other world, back to where he started. Has the hero changed, or was it all 'just a dream'? This is the most important question in the Voyage and Return story.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">To answer that question, we need to look closer at the hero. Voyage and Return stories never have a princess or a kingdom as a reward, but instead a possible inner switch from darkness to light; ignorance to knowledge. As such Voyage and Return stories fall into two distinct categories: Either the hero will be transformed by the mysterious 'other world' or they will not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">If the hero formed a relationship with someone from the opposite sex, while in the other world, he will have to abandon this person, when he returns and furthermore he will not have learned, or is not transformed, when he returns.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">In some instances the hero, like Peter the Rabbit, has simple gotten a terrible shock or is physically exhausted from his folly. In other cases such as Robinson Crusoe, our hero eventually arrives on feelings of profound repentance for his former frivolity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of the very earliest stories a child can grasp are simple version of the Voyage and Return plot (long before they can appreciate the complexities of a <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/story-learnings-plot-2-rags-to-riches.html" target="_blank">Rags to Riches</a> story with its 'Princes', 'Princesses' and transformation scenes). Goldilocks and The Tale of Peter Rabbit tells of a young person straying out of the familiar world of home and nearly getting killed for it. But on a more grown-up level the Voyage and Return plot is about the hero being in a state of limited of awareness and this has plunged him into a realm of existence, which leads to a nightmare threatening him with annihilation. But as a result he has learned something of fundamental importance. He has moved from ignorance to knowledge. He has had a chance to reach a much deeper understanding of the world, and this offers him a chance to completely change his attitude to life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The heroes starts out by being selfish; not really recognising anything in the world outside themselves. This blind egocentricity is very much the same characteristic we have seen in dark figures in the earlier plots who actually opposed the hero. So the hero is presented here as far from light, and it is precisely this that plunges him into the adventure that threatens to destroy him. The real victory in the Voyage and Return stories is not over the forces of darkness outside the hero, but over the same dark forces within the hero.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The Voyage and Return stories are an incredibly eclectic bunch: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Alice in Wonderland, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, H. G. Wells' The Time Machine (as well as a lot of other science fiction), Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit, Brideshead Revisited, Orpheus Journey to the Underworld, Gone with the Wind, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, Robinson Crusoe, The Lord of the Flies, Gulliver's Travels, The Lost World, Lost Horizon, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Golden Ass and many others.</span><br />
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</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next of the seven basic plots contains some of the most complex stories ever told. We'll look at Comedy next.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Questions and comments are welcome.</i></span>Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-47504763488187261122012-01-29T22:31:00.000+00:002012-01-29T22:31:42.346+00:00<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Story Learnings: Plot #3 - The Quest</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Continuing my way through Christopher Booker's excellent tome on storytelling <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826480373/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=selfimposegur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0826480373" target="_blank">The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories</a>, we have reached the third of the seven master plots (You can find my post on the first master plot, Overcoming the Monster as well as an introduction to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826480373/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=selfimposegur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0826480373" target="_blank">The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories</a>, <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.com/2012/01/story-learnings-plot-1-overcoming.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and the second master plot, Rags to Riches, <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.com/2012/01/story-learnings-plot-2-rags-to-riches.html" target="_blank">here</a>.):</span><br />
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</span></div></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><b>The Quest</b></i></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Far away there is some priceless treasure, worth any effort to achieve. When the hero learns about this, the need to set out on the long and hazardous journey to reach this, becomes the most important thing in his life. Whatever perils and trials are in the hero's way, he must go on until this objective has been triumphantly secured. These are the stories we call The Quest and they follow these five stages:</span></div></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">1. The 'Call'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">We meet our hero as he finds that life in some way has become intolerable. The mood is one of urgent compulsion. Something has gone terrifyingly wrong. In the midst of all this comes the 'Call'. The hero realises that he can only rectify matters by making a long and difficult journey. Even though the hero and his friends feel under intense compulsion to depart, they often have to face every kind of discouragement and opposition before they can set out.</span><br />
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</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">2. The Journey</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The hero and his companions set out. Their journey follows the classical storytelling rhythm of constriction and expansion; tension and release. They go through a succession of terrible, and often near-fatal ordeals, interspersed with periods of respite where they can regain their strength.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The opposition comes in two main flavours. Actually, that should be three, because in stories of The Quest variation, the acutely hostile terrain is almost an obstacle in itself; It will be wild, alien and unfriendly. The other two, more specific obstacles are: Monsters and temptations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The monsters follows the archetypical description of monsters from the <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.com/2012/01/story-learnings-plot-1-overcoming.html" target="_blank">Overcoming the Monster</a> plot. The Temptation, on the other hand, is usually centred around a promise of some physical gratification, which stands in stark contrast to the hard nature of the task the hero has been set. Underneath the surface, the Temptation have much in common with the Monsters, except that the latter uses direct confrontation and the former uses guile and seduction to lure the hero to his doom. If the temptations are mastered or overruled in some way, they may completely change nature and their relationship with the hero, and become useful allies.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Each encounter ends with a thrilling escape. Ordeals alternate with periods of respite. Along the way the hero and his companions will receive hospitality, help and advice from 'wise old men' or 'beautiful young women'. The hero may have to make part of the journey through the underworld, where spirits from the past will give him guidance.</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">3. Arrival and Frustration</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The hero is now within sight of the goal. However, now on the edge of the goal, a new and terrible series of obstacles surface and must be overcome.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">4. The Final Ordeals</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Despite the lengthy and perilous journey the hero and his companions have already travelled, they are usually only halfway through the story, when they arrive within sight of the goal. The hero has to undergo a last series of tests (often 3) to prove that he is worthy of the prize. The story culminates in a last great battle or ordeal, which may be the most threatening of all the many ordeals the hero has been through so far.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">5. The Goal</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">After a last 'thrilling escape from death', the life transforming treasure is finally won: A final coming together of man and woman, or the establishing of a kingdom; The hero now has an assurance of renewed life stretching indefinitely into the future - or 'he lived happily ever after'.</span><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Companions</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The companions of the hero is a distinctive mark of The Quest. They come in four different varieties:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<ol><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Simply a large number of unnamed people. For example the main body of Jews accompanying Moses in the exodus from Egypt.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An alter-ego with no particular distinguishing marks except loyalty and fidelity. Frodo in Lord of the Rings has the loyal Samwise Gamgee.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An alter-ego with opposite qualities of the hero. Think of King Lear and the Fool, or Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A group of people, each with distinct qualities which together forms a 'whole'. In King Solomon's Mines the leader and hero Allan Quartermain is accompanied by the strong Sir Henry Curtis, the rational Captain Good and the intuitive and mysterious Umbopa.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Helpers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In addition to the companions and all the negative figures the hero meets on his journey, he also encounter some very different figures - helpers. The helpers will offer him positive assistance such as periods of respite or perhaps crucial guidance. Among the helpers two very important figures predominate: The benevolent wise old man and the beautiful young (or mysteriously ageless) woman. In the story of The Quest, their roles are not so much to intervene, but to act as guides, drawing on unusual knowledge and wisdom. In Lord of the Rings we have for example the omniscient old wizard Gandalf and his ally the beautiful, ethereal queen Galadriel.</span><br />
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</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Examples</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Some of the most celebrated stories in the world are quests: Just think of Homer's Odyssey, Dante's Divine Comedy, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Steven Spielberg's Raiders of The Lost Ark.</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of the other well-known examples we find: Treasure Island, King Solomon's Mines, Watership Down, Around the World in 80 Days, King Arthur's Quest for the Holy Grail, Jason and the Golden Fleece, The Firebird from Slav folk stories, Virgil's Aeneid and many others.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Further variations</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From time to time we also see The Quest plot crossed with the Overcoming the Monster the monster plot. Particularly in stories inspired by the Second World War: The Guns of Navarone, The Dirty Dozen, The Heroes of Telemark, The Wooden Horse, The Colditz Story and others.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A dark version of The Quest is Heman Melville's Moby Dick. Here the central figure, Captain Ahab, sets out in an obsessive quest across the oceans to find the almost supernatural white whale. Ahab looks on Moby Dick as a prize of infinite value, worth any sacrifice to seek out. The whale is clearly a symbol for the essence of life. But there is nothing life-enhancing about the way Ahab seeks it. He is only out to destroy it at all costs. Of course such a story can only end in disaster.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next of the seven basic plots is also based on a journey, although quite different from The Quest. It has inspired some of the most haunting and mysterious tales ever told. We'll look at Voyage and Return next.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Questions and comments are welcome.</i></span>Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-4211702966191948422012-01-19T21:55:00.000+00:002012-01-19T21:55:15.709+00:00<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Story Learnings: Plot #2 - Rags to Riches</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Continuing my way through Christopher Booker's excellent tome on storytelling <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826480373/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=selfimposegur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0826480373" target="_blank">The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories</a>, we have reached the second of the seven master plots (You can find my post on the first master plot, Overcoming the Monster, and an introduction to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826480373/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=selfimposegur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0826480373" target="_blank">The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories</a>, <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.com/2012/01/story-learnings-plot-1-overcoming.html" target="_blank">here</a>.):</span><br />
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</span></div></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><b>Rags to Riches</b></i></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is clearly a type of story, which appeals immensely to the human psyche. Think of the massive inclination to root for underdogs and the wishful feelings people have, wanting to trade places with celebrities. As the title indicates this is a plot where the hero starts out ordinary, insignificant and unappreciated, but then suddenly steps to the centre of the stage, and is revealed to be someone quite exceptional. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Rags to Riches plot usually follows these 5 stages:</span></div></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">1. Initial Wretchedness at Home and the 'Call'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">We are introduced to our hero, or heroine, in a lowly and unhappy state at home. The hero is usually young in age, or has not yet ventured out in the world. Obviously this is a plot, which is concerned with the process of growing up. The hero starts the journey of a human being from unformed childhood and needs to reach the state of complete personal maturity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">To start with, the hero is overshadowed by malevolent dark figures, which come in two distinct varieties: Adults acting in the place of a parent or figures closers to the hero's age and status (evil stepsisters, for example). Something happens to either call or send the hero out into the world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">2. Out into the World with Initial Success</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The hero is now out in the world away from the original home, or starting point. New ordeals await, but these are also rewarded with the first limited success, which is also a prevision of the eventual glory, which the hero will find. The hero is thus lifted out of his original state of misery. However at this point the hero is not ready yet for the complete fulfilment.</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">3. The Central Crisis</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Everything suddenly goes wrong. The shadows of dark figures return. The hero is separated from his greatest treasure/friend/love. The hero is overwhelmed with despair at this. Because of the earlier lift in the hero's fortunes and because the hero is so powerless, this is the absolute low point of the story, where it all seems lost again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">4. Independence and the Final Ordeal</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The hero gradually emerges from the crisis and is shown in a new light. The hero discovers in himself a new independent strength. This new strength is put to the final test, against a dark and powerful figure, which stands between the hero and his final goal. This dark figure is characterised by egocentricity and incapacity for true, selfless love. Basically the same characteristics as the monster from the <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.com/2012/01/story-learnings-plot-1-overcoming.html" target="_blank">Overcoming the Monster plot</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">5. Final Union, Completion and Fulfilment</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The hero is rewarded with a complete, loving union. The hero succeeds to a "kingdom"; a domain over which they will rule wisely and well. By the end of the story no one ever doubts that the originally derided and humble little hero should be worthy of their final glorious destiny, however improbable it looked at the beginning, since they have along the way revealed such admirable qualities which show their true inner worth. And thus the hero has deserved that mysterious central goal in storytelling, where everything at last is perfect and complete.</span><br />
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</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Dark Version</span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Rags to Riches plot can also be told in a 'dark' variation. The hero will attempt to do the same climb from rags to riches, but in some ways fails to reach the fully rewarding conclusion. The heroes in these stories are not the selfless and goodhearted ones we are used to. In fact they react to any kind of opposition with egotism. Instead of being the victim, it is their surroundings who fall victim to the hero's actions. Although the ultimate symbolic goal of the hero is remarkably similar to the original Rags to Riches plot, the hero in the dark version really is a monster. His ambition is only a means to egotistical gratification and a desire to dominate others. Of course the attempts to reach such a goal will always be frustrated, and surely it brings about his complete destruction.</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Examples</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">This plot is very richly represented in stories through the ages and continues to be very popular. Just think of the Hollywood cliché moment where the ever handsome hero removes the spectacles from the plain girl, lets down her hair and gazes at her in awe, "... but you are beautiful!" </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of the more well-known examples we find: My Fair Lady, Superman (and similar heroes, who go from weedy bespectacled kids to all-powerful superhero), the biblical story of Joseph, Cinderella, Aladdin, Puss in Boots, David Copperfield, The Ugly Duckling, Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush, Jane Eyre, Moll Flanders, Great Expectations and many, many more.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next of the seven basic plots is instantly recognizable, and even more so than any of the other six plots. We'll look at The Quest next.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Questions and comments are welcome.</i></span>Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-64677460619295167352012-01-17T16:09:00.001+00:002012-01-20T08:37:49.321+00:00<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Story Learnings: Plot #1 - Overcoming the Monster</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am trawling my way through Chris Booker's excellent tome on storytelling <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826480373/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=selfimposegur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0826480373" target="_blank">The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories</a>. Booker has basically over a life-time gone through the massive mountain of storytelling from the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh to present day James Bond movies, comparing and cross referencing as he went along, until he managed to successfully distil the sum total of man's prolific storytelling through the ages into no more than 7 basic, but distinct plots. Obviously there are very interesting psychological reasons why these essentially same stories have occurred since the beginning of man's history. It is also very interesting and worthwhile to storytellers to note what happens, when you try to bend or disregard the rules governing storytelling, as you end up with a product sadly lacking in impact and satisfaction.</span></div></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826480373/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=selfimposegur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0826480373" target="_blank">The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories</a> weighs in at a hefty 700+ pages. Even so I am amazed at how there is absolutely no fluff or empty space in this gigantic work. As I am working my way through this huge treasure trove of storytelling insights, I will summarize my findings, or rather Christopher Booker's findings as told to me.</span></div></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Without further ado, let me introduce you to the first plot of the seven master plots:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><b>Overcoming the Monster</b></i></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a type of story, which the human imagination is particularly fond of forming. As the title indicates this is a story in which a hero is called to face and overcome a terrible and deadly personification of evil. The story is usually presented as a long build-up to the final confrontation between the monster and the hero, and it will usually follow these 5 stages:</span></div></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">1. Anticipation Stage and 'Call'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">At first we see the monster, or become aware of it, from a great distance. We gradually learn of its fearsome power and reputation, and how it is casting a threatening shadow over the community. The hero then experiences a 'Call' to confront it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">2. Dream Stage</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The hero is now making preparations for battle. For a while things seem to be going reasonably well. The audience still feel comfortably remote from and immune to the danger presented by the monster.</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">3. Frustration Stage</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">We finally find ourselves face to face with the monster in all its awesome power. The hero now feels small and alone. He is slipping into the monster's power, and there seems to be only one possible outcome - the death of the hero.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">4. Nightmare Stage</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The final battle between the monster and the hero, where the odds are massively stacked in favour of the monster. And just at the climax, when all seems lost, comes the reversal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">5. The Thrilling Escape from Death, and Death of the Monster</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">In the nick of time, the monster is miraculously dealt a fatal blow. This is a moment of fundamental significance to storytelling. In fact, 'the thrilling escape from death' is one of the most consistent motifs in storytelling. The community is then liberated and our hero emerges to enjoy the prize: Usually some kind of treasure, a princess or a kingdom.</span><br />
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</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Monster</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The monster is characterised by being heartless, egocentric (as opposed to the hero, who is selfless in his deed of risking his life for greater good or the community) and seemingly omnipotent. However the monster usually has a blind spot (often tied to its egocentricity), which renders it vulnerable. </span><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The monster will have three distinct roles playing through the progression of the story: First an active role as a predator looking for victims; Secondly a passive role as holdfast, where it will sit in its lair jealously guarding its "treasure"; Thirdly the monster takes the role of avenger, lashing out viciously, when its guardianship is challenged.</span></div></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Constriction and Release</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">As with all stories, the overcoming the monster plot, follows the general rhythm of tension and release in successively greater amounts leading up to the climax and final resolution; In a story well-constructed, these phases of tension and release alternate, in a rhythm like the heart beat of a story, which provides one of the greatest pleasures we get from stories.</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the climax of the story, we feel the final surge of liberation; and as it fades, we are left with the warming knowledge that the hero has now won a much deeper hold on life, which will last indefinitely into the future - or as the saying goes 'live happily ever after'...</span></div></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Examples</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Needless to say, this very straightforward plot has been used countless times in genres of all kinds: </span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Melodrama (Nicholas Nickleby); war stories (The Battle of Britain, The Sinking of the Bismarck, The Longest Day, The Battle of the Bulge, The Guns of Navarone etc.); the Hollywood western (The Magnificent Seven - and its inspiration The Seven Samurai, High Noon etc.); thrillers (King Kong, The Three Musketeers, The Final Problem, The Thirty Nine Steps, all James Bond stories etc.); science fiction (War of the Worlds, The Day of the Triffids, Star Wars); disaster movies (The Towering Inferno, Airport etc.); Gothic horror (Dracula, Canon Alberic's Scrap Book, Frankenstein, The Castle of Otranto etc.); myth (St. George and the Dragon, David and Goliath, Perseus and Andromeda, Beowulf, Theseus and the Minotaur, Oedipus and the Sphinx, Jack and the Beanstalk, Epic of Gilgamesh etc.) and many, many others.</span></div></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next of the seven basic plots also appeals massively to the human psyche; We'll look at <a href="http://marquepierre.blogspot.com/2012/01/story-learnings-plot-2-rags-to-riches.html" target="_blank">Rags to Riches</a> next. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Questions and comments are welcome.</i></span>Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-63981683667311421732012-01-14T19:31:00.001+00:002012-01-14T19:33:00.849+00:00<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Tutorial: How to Paint Textures the World of Warcraft Way</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During the course of the thesis project of my bachelor study at University of Teesside, I experimented with putting together a World of Warcraft style outdoors environment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the course of this project I developed a particular methodology for painting my textures. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This ensured both a fairly consistent output, but also helped as a paint-by-numbers </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">backbone when I was stuck on a particular task, or uncertain about how to begin it. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once all these guidelines had been checked off, I would have a product, which was so </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">near completion that it would be easy to make out which parts were still missing. Or as Rembrandt so wisely said, "start with what is known to you, and what is unknown will be revealed."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Though this is all the way back from 2004, perhaps it might help a few people out there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So here we are in Photoshop looking at how to organise our layers and progress them logically till we have the desired look:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My first layer in Photoshop is a sketch layer. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRJVMAeKynOw4Ak0pmiZJPZyU66KSkxElip0bW_9lRBwfHjpJWzlXoufyH7OqnIl9Z02qBFJC-uALjMUA739Ugj2RrheNT0P3P9ak2O_gvVrbuVyvc1_frzW3b1-9aNcGpq2CoZw/s1600/1-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRJVMAeKynOw4Ak0pmiZJPZyU66KSkxElip0bW_9lRBwfHjpJWzlXoufyH7OqnIl9Z02qBFJC-uALjMUA739Ugj2RrheNT0P3P9ak2O_gvVrbuVyvc1_frzW3b1-9aNcGpq2CoZw/s400/1-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1.1 The sketch layer (left) for a grass texture, along with the final texture (right)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With quick and simple brush strokes I </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">lay down a rough design for the texture. The sketch layer will not be seen in the final </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">texture at all, so precision is not paramount. It is more about trying to lock down the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">composition and placement of the different elements. Also it is a subconscious warm-</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">up for the artist, where you can doodle your way into the world of the material you are </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">about to create. Depending on the type of texture and the projection and UVW </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">coordinates, it is a good idea to save often, and then load up the object in 3D space with </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the unfinished texture mapped on. This gives the artist a chance to make sure the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">different parts of the texture is placed correctly before too much work would have to </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">be redone or edited. </span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For textures where a solid template has been extracted from the geometry, you often </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">don’t need a sketch layer, if the UV template is self-explanatory. Here the template layer serves as its replacement to offer </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the proportions and shapes of the final texture. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin6RqzphPFVIOc643jZe3HcWV9yne9dVPLANv0c7hI-b9MoR4XCBifJOCVjzls6C-GJ9KMFYWeCVLblPkMtTtTlBj9REAhTvh7IvafjzLzJyAZrm6qqLJ6m2KmRHDfgVMuTCtF-g/s1600/1-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin6RqzphPFVIOc643jZe3HcWV9yne9dVPLANv0c7hI-b9MoR4XCBifJOCVjzls6C-GJ9KMFYWeCVLblPkMtTtTlBj9REAhTvh7IvafjzLzJyAZrm6qqLJ6m2KmRHDfgVMuTCtF-g/s320/1-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1.2 Templates laid out on the canvas</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After the sketch layer, it is time to lay down the major colour values. For that I will </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">create a base colour layer for each of the separate objects or fields featured in the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">texture. In turn each object or section will be organised in separate layer sets, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">appropriately named for ease of navigation as well as organisation of screen real </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">estate. On the base colour layer a fairly accurate estimate of the materials average </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">surface colour will be painted in with a decent amount of precision. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Following on from the base colours, the details will be painted in, in a similar fashion, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on a layer above the base colour layer. The main objective here is to lock down their </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">shape and general colour. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYVQzG3bpHCKmqiS1W3C_5sxTKwEosiUimDxEFonqXxOXSAVFUgsiM97hobR1aOBkRpNchPlX4oyAcluGDwr5NeKBSpKwcB2pRk0z9iL11xYRXsWnEicquO0ydrDxt8J4GnOsi4Q/s1600/1-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYVQzG3bpHCKmqiS1W3C_5sxTKwEosiUimDxEFonqXxOXSAVFUgsiM97hobR1aOBkRpNchPlX4oyAcluGDwr5NeKBSpKwcB2pRk0z9iL11xYRXsWnEicquO0ydrDxt8J4GnOsi4Q/s400/1-3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1.3 Base colours blocked out</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once we have these, the most prominent colour values painted into the texture, it is </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">time to think about the texture of the surface of the object we are creating a material </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">for. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What would it feel like, if we were to run our fingertips over it? Rough or </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">smooth? Is there a particular pattern to the texture of its surface? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Take polished wood </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from a tabletop for example. There you will have a very smooth surface marked with </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">tiny grooves, which all run more or less parallel, and furthermore form a pattern of </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">elongated rings. Once a suitable texture has been found as a reference photo or </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">painted from scratch, I will usually set this layer’s blend mode as either multiply or </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">hard light with around two thirds worth of opacity and fill. This will allow the texture </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">layer to mesh nicely with the colours of the base and detail layers, as it increases the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">contrast between brightness and darkness of the colours below in the pattern of the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">surface texture.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCP8lNx95REKssHUM3pjBaP_GA6VSfybBpfC2sAnGwFkCN4QFC6R2WctmG8izScuC80J_0XmZsh6keIi52ysKTCwo_smnxUevQv8EV4Vsd86jd6uVUFiKsUBQ-wJ8A2g69SwjcQA/s1600/1-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCP8lNx95REKssHUM3pjBaP_GA6VSfybBpfC2sAnGwFkCN4QFC6R2WctmG8izScuC80J_0XmZsh6keIi52ysKTCwo_smnxUevQv8EV4Vsd86jd6uVUFiKsUBQ-wJ8A2g69SwjcQA/s1600/1-4.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1.4 Patterns added to the texture</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next layers I work into the stack are some I personally refer to as my curvature or d</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">imensionality layers. What I want to add to the image now, is the illusions of depth. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">try to illustrate the curvature of the surface by creating a light and a dark curvature </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">layer. The first one is the “curvature dark” layer where I, with a loose hand, will paint </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">broad and slightly transparent lines of dark and desaturated purple. Usually the brush </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">settings are not more than 20% opacity, to make sure that I can build up the effect I </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">want in an organic way, by painting over and over till the desired colour depth is </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">established. The idea is to make the parts of the surface that are the farthest away </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from the viewer the darkest, and vice versa. I do the same with “curvature light” layer, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">which I place on top of the “curvature dark” layer. Here I use the light yellow to </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">illustrate where the surface of the material protrudes out towards the viewer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">two layers will then be taken through the Gaussian blur filter in Photoshop to smooth </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">them out, and make sure the painting is not too conspicuous. Furthermore I lower the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">opacity to no more than 50% and might even take off a bit of the fill rate too. For the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">dark layer I usually use the multiply blend mode, and for the light layer, I use the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">lighten or soft light blend modes. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQZlXPaEDIcd_cJPOMEA5DORv98hffc09YNJF-FMAhQBz4q39fyaYQzKFZqCDS38NWM_W8O4gWTe8axyZ3_xf6pCQnuUENRs3pspOl_TR4roB2-zgwOwZrsKKEnqvp_IcNTy2Ngw/s1600/1-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQZlXPaEDIcd_cJPOMEA5DORv98hffc09YNJF-FMAhQBz4q39fyaYQzKFZqCDS38NWM_W8O4gWTe8axyZ3_xf6pCQnuUENRs3pspOl_TR4roB2-zgwOwZrsKKEnqvp_IcNTy2Ngw/s1600/1-5.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1.5 Dimensionality layers in effect</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Already now, after these few crude operations we have a decent texture quickly </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">emerging. It has an illusion of dimension and depth. It has an illusion of a surface </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">texture native to the material we are trying to describe visually. It has a good estimate </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of the correct surface colour. There are still a lot more that can and needs to be done, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">but after these few fundamental manoeuvres we are well on our way. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A good technique is to make sure your edges are marked out. Corners which points </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">away from the viewer and other crevasses in the texture, I line with a dark colour, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">typically dark purple, on a low opacity layer with multiply blend mode. Corners </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">which points to the viewer or edges where the material portrayed ends, I line with a </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">light colour, like light yellow, on a similar low opacity layer with a fitting blend </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">mode. That can be anything from colour dodge to overlay, depending on the situation. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The illusion that we are trying to create here is, that at the very least, tiny amounts of </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">dirt will gather in grooves and corners, which will obscure and darken the colour </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">underneath substantially. Likewise protruding edges have a tendency to reflect light in </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a different fashion than the flat surfaces adjacent to them. This we are trying to </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">illustrate with the lightening effect. Both layers will need to be slightly blurred with </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the Gaussian blur filter. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apart from illustrating changes in local colour from additional wear on edges protruding out and collection of dirt and dust in corners and crevasses, this step is also a bit of cheap and dirty ambient occlusion, where we are painting a touch of lighting information into the texture.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTHq7Fpy52mgEnXpg3Dxe4zXw9oKOqP15eBX4DYVh0MNs8GUyhgbEUBKDOBTQ42Lge8wYBHzjjsW8bId6wt2ZTF5NGiw3XMRpriiJazz0UZQpbEfpVW51ADxQ0VkQY5veYEXlziA/s1600/1-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTHq7Fpy52mgEnXpg3Dxe4zXw9oKOqP15eBX4DYVh0MNs8GUyhgbEUBKDOBTQ42Lge8wYBHzjjsW8bId6wt2ZTF5NGiw3XMRpriiJazz0UZQpbEfpVW51ADxQ0VkQY5veYEXlziA/s1600/1-6.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1.6 Edges and corners painted in</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If the texture we are painting is for an object that resides outdoors, it needs to show </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the effects of weathering, or if it is placed by windows where sunlight will regularly </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">bleach the surface, it will need a similar effect. For that we need to desaturate the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">colours where sun, wind and rain have washed them out. For this we paint with a light </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">grey where we want the desaturated effect. Again the brush needs to be very </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">transparent, around 20% or so, and I find that broad strokes work well for this effect. Generally in texture work, textures will need to be far more desaturated than you think at first, in order to achieve a realistic look. But since this is the highly stylized look of World of Warcraft, we don't need to go to those lengths.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I am happy with the areas covered I change the blend mode to colour dodge </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and lower the opacity to around 70% to brighten up the area. Then I copy the layer </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and change the blend mode of the new layer (sitting on top of the old) to saturation. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the weather-worn effect is finished. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another effect of being left outside could be long-term exposure to moisture, which </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">will leave green algae or lichen on the material. Such effects I usually conjure up with </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a noise filter, and then setting my blend mode to soft light and reducing the opacity </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with a good 20 percent. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOyNMbuOyo4RFOWDow21eG6I9BbwIpywSTSTd_B4j7olGXc_O9P4ajE0HlPi53wJOi_yDbBwTjUABIQmwZMM4C3PjkQK82zo_NoSPN6xxWfHO3h7mGeCJpmlCypBQ3pDEAOygoBA/s1600/1-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOyNMbuOyo4RFOWDow21eG6I9BbwIpywSTSTd_B4j7olGXc_O9P4ajE0HlPi53wJOi_yDbBwTjUABIQmwZMM4C3PjkQK82zo_NoSPN6xxWfHO3h7mGeCJpmlCypBQ3pDEAOygoBA/s400/1-7.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1.7 Residue of green algae added to the bottom of the bucket</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most any material, which has not just left the factory line, will have scratches, cuts and </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">wear of different kind. So we analyse the material we are portraying, and make out </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">where scratches and tears would gather with normal use. These I usually paint with a </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">dark thin brush. I will then add the layer style outer glow to them, and use the default </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">light yellow glow in overlay blend mode. To use a lighter outer glow, gives the lines a </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">subtle addition of contrast, so they will stand out more. Furthermore the light edges on </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">them will simulate the same effect we did when adding light edges to the corners that </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">are protruding. Then I select the contents of the layer with the surface texture and </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">delete that selection from the scratches layer. This lets the scratches be embedded into </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the surface, by following the closely the texture of the surface. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS_k5BqgnmV60aWj84gmHnMBz5HapWG1m3h23hascQJd2MwIEeYjy1f5SMDQrmGnLiC6icI2tBKPX1q6RuSun6lmkiTuZrLwm3YKBtLf-TvZtQfU9doezvwNyB19VvZYkk2qdRFA/s1600/1-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="387" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS_k5BqgnmV60aWj84gmHnMBz5HapWG1m3h23hascQJd2MwIEeYjy1f5SMDQrmGnLiC6icI2tBKPX1q6RuSun6lmkiTuZrLwm3YKBtLf-TvZtQfU9doezvwNyB19VvZYkk2qdRFA/s400/1-8.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1.8 Leather shield without scratches (left) and with scratches (right)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If the texture has areas with paint, enamel or other materials covering the surface, you </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">need to make sure that the scratches will be etched into the paint. So I select the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">outline of the scratches and the wear and tear and delete that selection of the paint </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">layer. After that, it can, in many cases, be beneficial to add a bevel and emboss layer </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">style to the paint layer. Just a few pixel thick it will give the illusion of dimension in </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the paint layer; that the paint is actually added on top of the base surface, instead of it </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">being assimilated completely into the material underneath.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtD8e_V9r2kc4F-lve3elbpSHg3F9c-63aG-oYbKIQNpdedqh1hNpfXmJUYpnAQBn1k81DfqMEnwUrWqvdroOEHvcq9rAHu-lUF6QGXXG6feMJulALqI071caGwt0QPllbI13jFA/s1600/1-9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtD8e_V9r2kc4F-lve3elbpSHg3F9c-63aG-oYbKIQNpdedqh1hNpfXmJUYpnAQBn1k81DfqMEnwUrWqvdroOEHvcq9rAHu-lUF6QGXXG6feMJulALqI071caGwt0QPllbI13jFA/s400/1-9.jpg" width="216" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1.9 Painted leather shield with scratches etched into the paint</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Where the material has overlapping objects or other things that will cast a shadow on </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the surface beneath it, we paint lines of dark purple with a soft edged brush. It is a </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">good practise to build up the wanted result layer by layer, by setting the opacity of the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">brush as low as 20-30%, and then keep painting over and over and over again, until </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the desired result is there. This allows for a free and painterly style of working, where </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you leave room for “happy mistakes.” Then the layer is blurred with the Gaussian blur </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">filter, and finally the blend mode changed to multiply and the layer’s opacity lowered </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to around 30-40%.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxAnts86_2k33utZ-GOyzzrWl3Oh-MedhDJK2lwCYti_jh33npG3JxkzwSJ_IsKtTLfodnY1V569aGMD3ESuA9Z6RGmuoGk_JBlFV5JVd8JMfr_ffA6w6W7MPGVXlMu2_mYDs7Mw/s1600/1-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxAnts86_2k33utZ-GOyzzrWl3Oh-MedhDJK2lwCYti_jh33npG3JxkzwSJ_IsKtTLfodnY1V569aGMD3ESuA9Z6RGmuoGk_JBlFV5JVd8JMfr_ffA6w6W7MPGVXlMu2_mYDs7Mw/s400/1-10.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1.10 Shadow cast by the rope is added</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the last things left to do now, is to paint highlights with a light shade of colour, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">usually a light yellow in this colour scheme. The highlights go where light will </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">bounce off the material; where the material is shiny and smooth; and where the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">materials protrude out towards the viewer. This is done with a brush of a fairly low </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">opacity, around 20-35%, and then blurred with the Gaussian blur filter afterwards. I </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">set the blend mode to screen and lower the opacity and fill rates to around 60%. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the texture is almost finished, I like to go back to my base colour layers and pick </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">out two or three shades of colour analogue to the base colour underneath. These I </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">paint on separate layers in a quick and semi-random fashion with a soft edged brush </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with no more than 15% opacity. The blend mode stays as normal. This is used to give </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the colours underneath a more crisp and lively feel. The last thing you want is a flat </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and completely uniform field of colour, even if that is what you are aiming for. This </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sounds contradicting, but even if a face of colour is perceived as being uniform, there </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">will always be subtle variations, without which it would not be perceived as real or </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">normal looking. Furthermore with an understanding for colour theory, the base </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">colours can be enhanced immeasurably this way. Take a green for instance, put a light </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">yellow on one side of it, and a purple on the other, and it will spring to life and appear </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">much more crisp and sparkling. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5z-6vdCVcnrnrrK2r9QsFtyyMQpmz7NrVGTOIh45vFT6il7jKDyVHsSdgXANh4ta2QnTiqM5ahwHiKUObHXA1qTsSxpMlGih0bWXPcTd2FkR3oMTtRfqNfPPUr6ChQqfQpC9S6w/s1600/1-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5z-6vdCVcnrnrrK2r9QsFtyyMQpmz7NrVGTOIh45vFT6il7jKDyVHsSdgXANh4ta2QnTiqM5ahwHiKUObHXA1qTsSxpMlGih0bWXPcTd2FkR3oMTtRfqNfPPUr6ChQqfQpC9S6w/s400/1-11.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1.11 On the left the wall is without analogue colour differences, on the right it has the differences painted in</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lastly I want to make sure that no surface, detail or anything else is too uniformly </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">coloured. So my topmost layer consists of very subtle colour noise. This is made by </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">using the filter render clouds on an empty layer with the default setting of white and </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">black for foreground and background colours. Then I switch to the channels palette </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">where I will repeat the same filter in each of the red, green and blue channels. This </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">secures a random distribution of red, green and blue, which will show as a harlequin </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">kind of pattern on that layer. I change the blend mode to soft light and decrease </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">opacity and fill down to at least 40. In some instances you need to go as low as ten. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This makes sure that a random pattern of the RGB colour hues is softly changing the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">underlying colours to break up overtly monotone fields of colour. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqz279iy_cXlJ3Q6wLjlV70UZVFYxlLqEKkjmnM0ANRe3NCLzTzZOBA1__5rcQAJxhRnYHnca46ogslizozaaHggfSNMOdXALyWg-SwQy6oOD5r56jOQDJUSiCxd_PL0ZgAvxgYw/s1600/1-12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqz279iy_cXlJ3Q6wLjlV70UZVFYxlLqEKkjmnM0ANRe3NCLzTzZOBA1__5rcQAJxhRnYHnca46ogslizozaaHggfSNMOdXALyWg-SwQy6oOD5r56jOQDJUSiCxd_PL0ZgAvxgYw/s320/1-12.jpg" width="315" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1.12 A colour noise pattern</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Notice that one of the absolutely crucial effects needed to conjure forth a realistic </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">texture, dirt, is seldom needed in a cartoony texture. Normally you would use a dirt </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">layer messing up the hitherto so tidy material, typically with a multiply blend mode. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But that effectively ruins most stylised looks. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At this point I have a decent texture, which oftentimes only needs minor tweaking. In </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the worst cases the details or changes needed, will be apparent at this stage. If the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">texture includes ornamentation or other decorative details, they can easily be added </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">now, on top of a very believable surface, which will constantly remind you of its </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">make and condition. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD8qTwOv5VGheaftYrRA_ZJgqkg76JwqrtLotAxCy9QZJmQ8Ix8Rjac7kQfgIPRnSeBGfRsy8274wG9du_ZV1akJvzWGsoZGjPii2egWJfravavMZWjLvrh2Zo_hUQE2MwLp_vQg/s1600/1-13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD8qTwOv5VGheaftYrRA_ZJgqkg76JwqrtLotAxCy9QZJmQ8Ix8Rjac7kQfgIPRnSeBGfRsy8274wG9du_ZV1akJvzWGsoZGjPii2egWJfravavMZWjLvrh2Zo_hUQE2MwLp_vQg/s400/1-13.jpg" width="397" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1.13 The finished texture</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDE37wN_sa2KBjLmk_lAwoJ0JQv6m-MpTOSToqorGwF2mDFldQbmodEBawwuZ5TceKs9wNNqAT2gdw3qMi5CrQuKRiV02kEjCUTc8A39UpCNkYrxS62I8X9CgbdBIMyLGmCZJO2w/s1600/1-14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="391" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDE37wN_sa2KBjLmk_lAwoJ0JQv6m-MpTOSToqorGwF2mDFldQbmodEBawwuZ5TceKs9wNNqAT2gdw3qMi5CrQuKRiV02kEjCUTc8A39UpCNkYrxS62I8X9CgbdBIMyLGmCZJO2w/s400/1-14.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1.14 The finished texture applied to geometry and rendered out</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span>Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20029995.post-62904444026386095402011-12-12T09:26:00.003+00:002011-12-12T15:35:04.774+00:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Old Boards</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Found these old boards kicking about (I really need to clean my/make myself a new website). They are from my 2nd year at <a href="http://www.tees.ac.uk/undergraduate_courses/Animation_Games_&_Computer_Graphics/" target="_blank">University of Teesside</a>. Obviously, I have immense love for all beings canine. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Enjoy: </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtqYo9jpWibSBjjo0-EvMxpkD8bLPDEvwzH8tyFfLF-1Wt9IoNenzQ43dDXpPRDhn5LG5Bmgw4cbB5e2zVNDgGHzC2jbNZ-Z3SMR7zgDWmaHAXUo_PhtFKoD8YZMNPiW_nC28Mww/s1600/Panel+01+-+basis+screen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtqYo9jpWibSBjjo0-EvMxpkD8bLPDEvwzH8tyFfLF-1Wt9IoNenzQ43dDXpPRDhn5LG5Bmgw4cbB5e2zVNDgGHzC2jbNZ-Z3SMR7zgDWmaHAXUo_PhtFKoD8YZMNPiW_nC28Mww/s320/Panel+01+-+basis+screen.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A bit of slapstick there. I remember, I wanted this to read like it was a single panel newspaper cartoon. I am not sure if panel number 9 reads correctly as the dog is sniffing his crotch. I wonder how you'd visually tell that stronger?</span>Self-Imposed Gurudomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05436407605862742063noreply@blogger.com0