This image shows a presentation of the high poly mesh used to create my brick texture for this project as well as examples of the final texture sheets. What is interesting here is that at the time, before PBR I painted some directional lighting into the diffuse (middle) texture. While this subtle, soft shadowing made the texture look a little more realistic under the lighting used in my renders, it would be entirely unrealistic when under a dynamic lighting solution, where the light might hit the wall from an alternate angle or at a different intensity. With PBR and a shader that supports self-shadowing normal/parallax occlusion maps we no longer need to include this kind of ‘fake shadowing’ in our textures.

Needless to say, while physically based rendering may have introduced some new workflows for artists to understand, it has actually made texturing assets far easier and creates a far more realistic end result.

Tools of Trade

I have a tendency to try as many new tools as I possibly can, in order to further my understanding of the technologies and in the hope of streamlining my workflow as much as possible. In a professional environment, the ability to create high quality assets is fantastic, but that ability to do so in a timely manner is even better! I’d say that the essential tools are somewhat dependent on the nature of the project, however certainly a 3D package of some kind ranks right at the top of the list, my personal preference is either 3D studio Max which I use currently at Foundry 42, or Maya, which I used for 5 or so years prior, both are brilliant. Next up is certainly Photoshop, though there are new tools for making materials, Photoshop is the original texturing package and is still my weapon of choice when it comes to creating graphic design elements and tweaking textures. Next, a personal favorite of mine is Zbrush, though most of my studio work is hard surface, I recently wrote a feature on sculpting anatomy for 3D World magazine and used Zbrush for the entire project – when it comes to organic modelling zbrush is the best in my opinion.