Newb questions about textures: What to buy and general how to.

GardenTurtle

Newb questions about textures: What to buy and how to.

Things I don't know crap about:

•  Textures / Shaders
•  3D Modelling
•  Any image manipulation software except MS Paint.

I did however manage to:

• Model a dress in Blender (including UV map and mat zone(s))
• Import and use Transfer Utility. Still got a lot of poke through when moving, but I hope that is solved later when I mess around with other morphs.

 

What I would like to do:

• Add base and normal map(s) (leather, silk, cotton or whatever looks decent on clothing)
• Learn some shader / texture stuff.

Questions:

• Is GIMP useful for "fitting" a texture to a UV map?
• I looked at some cheap "Sparkling Iray Shaders" https://www.daz3d.com/sparkling-iray-shaders. Can I use those for learning what to do?
  • I not quite sure what shaders are exactly, but since the package includes 43 Textures, well I hope that is what I need.
• In case I need to bake / create AO or normal maps (I not fully sure when I need to create those. AO is mainly for gaming though), is that done in blender?

Thanks in advance.

WendyLuvsCatz

for other maps try

Materialise http://boundingboxsoftware.com/materialize/

Quixel  Mixer https://quixel.com/mixer

Normal map online https://cpetry.github.io/NormalMap-Online/

Leana

GIMP or any image editor can help you create your own textures. Once you have created them, you'll need to set the surface parameters to apply them on your item.

 

A shader is basically code which tells your render engine how a surface should be rendered. It can use various maps and parameters to customize it. There are various shaders that DS can use, like the Iray uberBase shader which is the base shader used on surfaces when you want to render with Iray, or uberSurface which is one of the base shaders used for 3DL renders.

A set like the "sparkling Iray shaders" is a set of shader presets, ie presets to apply a shader with specific parameters/maps to any surface. There are various sets of shader presets available in the store, for example leather, cloth or metal shader presets. Looking at the various setups can indeed help you learn how to create your own materials.

You'll also see the term of material presets. Like shader presets they're used to apply a shader with specific parameters/maps to surfaces, the difference being that a shader preset works on any surface and will apply one set of parameters only, while material presets apply various sets of parameters to specific surfaces on the target item: eg for a figure a material preset could apply at the same time one set of parameters/maps to the various skin surfaces, another to the lashes and a third one to the finger and toe nails.

GardenTurtle

WendyLuvsCatz said:

for other maps try

Materialise http://boundingboxsoftware.com/materialize/

Quixel  Mixer https://quixel.com/mixer

Normal map online https://cpetry.github.io/NormalMap-Online/

TYVM 

I will have to spend some time looking at those, after I have added some basic stuff to my model.

(I have seen Materialize, when I messed around with Unity, so I will most likely start with that)

lilweep

GardenTurtle said:

Newb questions about textures: What to buy and how to.

Things I don't know crap about:

•  Textures / Shaders
•  3D Modelling
•  Any image manipulation software except MS Paint.

I did however manage to:

• Model a dress in Blender (including UV map and mat zone(s))
• Import and use Transfer Utility. Still got a lot of poke through when moving, but I hope that is solved later when I mess around with other morphs.

 

What I would like to do:

• Add base and normal map(s) (leather, silk, cotton or whatever looks decent on clothing)
• Learn some shader / texture stuff.

Questions:

• Is GIMP useful for "fitting" a texture to a UV map?
• I looked at some cheap "Sparkling Iray Shaders" https://www.daz3d.com/sparkling-iray-shaders. Can I use those for learning what to do?
  • I not quite sure what shaders are exactly, but since the package includes 43 Textures, well I hope that is what I need.
• In case I need to bake / create AO or normal maps (I not fully sure when I need to create those. AO is mainly for gaming though), is that done in blender?

Thanks in advance.

I dont know anything about 3D so you probably know more than me. But this is my understanding of things from one new person to another.

At a fundamental level i gues you need to know that in Daz Studio, both the texture maps and shaders can be added to your model under Surfaces tab. 

In a basic sense, both textures and shaders are similar, but 'shaders' are conceptually different in that they are basically repeating tile textures/patterns that tile across your material zones (oriented according to UVs).  You can change the vertical and horizontal tiling but can't change orientation.  You dont need to fit shaders to your UV as they are just tiling across the surface - but you may need to consider the UV seams where the tilings will meet up.  Conceptually, shaders will have a set of parameters fitting the type of material they are.  Shader presets can be applied on any surface.  In most cases, the 'Shader' presets you can buy on Daz store are just using the default Daz Uber shader parameters and have adjsuted these parameters and textures.  So you wouldnt need to buy any new ones if you just want to study how they are made.  You could just study the free Daz ones.

'Texture maps' are similar but would generally be something that is speficially created for a specific UV set - a tailor-made texture for your particular model.  You could use gimp to create a texture map on your UV template.  You could also use Blender to make your textures since it has 3D texture painting/shader viewer.  It would probably much better to use Blender than Gimp for creating textures.  I use Substance Painter - which is pretty trivial to export a bunch of different maps (base colour, normal, roughness etc).  But Substance Painter has a subscription whereas Blender is completely free.

Daz I-ray renderer has no need for AO.  AO maps are baked-in shadows, but in I-ray you are using ray-tracing to get real shadows.  So it's kind of a pointless map to have in Iray.

lilweep

Also, https://3dtextures.me/ and https://texturehaven.com/ are really good sites for free textures so you can set up your own shaders.

GardenTurtle

Leana said:

GIMP or any image editor can help you create your own textures. Once you have created them, you'll need to set the surface parameters to apply them on your item.

 

A shader is basically code which tells your render engine how a surface should be rendered. It can use various maps and parameters to customize it. There are various shaders that DS can use, like the Iray uberBase shader which is the base shader used on surfaces when you want to render with Iray, or uberSurface which is one of the base shaders used for 3DL renders.

A set like the "sparkling Iray shaders" is a set of shader presets, ie presets to apply a shader with specific parameters/maps to any surface. There are various sets of shader presets available in the store, for example leather, cloth or metal shader presets. Looking at the various setups can indeed help you learn how to create your own materials.

You'll also see the term of material presets. Like shader presets they're used to apply a shader with specific parameters/maps to surfaces, the difference being that a shader preset works on any surface and will apply one set of parameters only, while material presets apply various sets of parameters to specific surfaces on the target item: eg for a figure a material preset could apply at the same time one set of parameters/maps to the various skin surfaces, another to the lashes and a third one to the finger and toe nails.

I think I need to dive in and just mess around some more to grasp the shader stuff.

 

However looking at my question I see that I was too vauge.

I'm looking to find some basic pictures for the "Base Color" that I can fit to my UV map.

When I look at various clothing items some have provide these. And I would like to learn the basic process of creating those.

 

Are there products in store that have like basic pictures with patterns and colors that I can then manipulate in GIMP?

 

Hopefully that made more sense.

Thanks again.

 

 

GardenTurtle

lilweep said:

'Texture maps' are similar but would generally be something that is speficially created for a specific UV set - a tailor-made texture for your particular model.  You could use gimp to create a texture map on your UV template.  You could also use Blender to make your textures since it has 3D texture painting/shader viewer.  It would probably much better to use Blender than Gimp for creating textures.  I use Substance Painter - which is pretty trivial to export a bunch of different maps (base colour, normal, roughness etc).  But Substance Painter has a subscription whereas Blender is completely free.

I think this is what I was looking for.

I really confused when I comes to textures/shaders/materials and have no idea where to start, except trying to add a Base map to my model.

So I downloaded a fabric from https://3dtextures.me/ and is includes a basecoler.jpg and some other pictures (normal, height, AO etc.). So I ideally I should take the "basecolor.jpg" and fit to my UV map in either Blender or GIMP?

WendyLuvsCatz

with Quixel Mixer you can view it in realtime on your model as you tile it etc

lilweep

GardenTurtle said:

lilweep said:

'Texture maps' are similar but would generally be something that is speficially created for a specific UV set - a tailor-made texture for your particular model.  You could use gimp to create a texture map on your UV template.  You could also use Blender to make your textures since it has 3D texture painting/shader viewer.  It would probably much better to use Blender than Gimp for creating textures.  I use Substance Painter - which is pretty trivial to export a bunch of different maps (base colour, normal, roughness etc).  But Substance Painter has a subscription whereas Blender is completely free.

I think this is what I was looking for.

I really confused when I comes to textures/shaders/materials and have no idea where to start, except trying to add a Base map to my model.

So I downloaded a fabric from https://3dtextures.me/ and is includes a basecoler.jpg and some other pictures (normal, height, AO etc.). So I ideally I should take the "basecolor.jpg" and fit to my UV map in either Blender or GIMP?

I mean, using Gimp is one way to do it - but i feel like it could require a lot of finesse to do.

I think the way to make texture maps will depend on program you use.The only way i can imagine using texture resources to create texture maps in Gimp is very tedious. (Youd have to make one for basemap, one for normal map etc and they'd all have to line up with eachother.  I think lining up the maps is hard to do manually but maybe there are automated ways of doing this in Gimp that im not aware of.  I dont use Gimp.)

I think texturing in a program like Blender or, as other users suggested, some other made-for-purpose software would be easier and less stressful.  Perhaps you can find a good texturing tutorial for Blender (or others).  

Within Daz studio, you can 'texture' your model by assinging any repeating tile textures/shaders to the material zones/surface zones under the surfaces tab.  This way is simpler than making a texture map in Blender/Gimp.  But the most glaring limitation of using shaders (repeating textures) is that the repetitions of the texture might become really obvious.

 

GardenTurtle

lilweep said:

GardenTurtle said:

lilweep said:

'Texture maps' are similar but would generally be something that is speficially created for a specific UV set - a tailor-made texture for your particular model.  You could use gimp to create a texture map on your UV template.  You could also use Blender to make your textures since it has 3D texture painting/shader viewer.  It would probably much better to use Blender than Gimp for creating textures.  I use Substance Painter - which is pretty trivial to export a bunch of different maps (base colour, normal, roughness etc).  But Substance Painter has a subscription whereas Blender is completely free.

I think this is what I was looking for.

I really confused when I comes to textures/shaders/materials and have no idea where to start, except trying to add a Base map to my model.

So I downloaded a fabric from https://3dtextures.me/ and is includes a basecoler.jpg and some other pictures (normal, height, AO etc.). So I ideally I should take the "basecolor.jpg" and fit to my UV map in either Blender or GIMP?

I mean, using Gimp is one way to do it - but i feel like it could require a lot of finesse to do.

I think the way to make texture maps will depend on program you use.The only way i can imagine using texture resources to create texture maps in Gimp is very tedious. (Youd have to make one for basemap, one for normal map etc and they'd all have to line up with eachother.  I think lining up the maps is hard to do manually but maybe there are automated ways of doing this in Gimp that im not aware of.  I dont use Gimp.)

I think texturing in a program like Blender or, as other users suggested, some other made-for-purpose software would be easier and less stressful.  Perhaps you can find a good texturing tutorial for Blender (or others).  

Within Daz studio, you can 'texture' your model by assinging any repeating tile textures/shaders to the material zones/surface zones under the surfaces tab.  This way is simpler than making a texture map in Blender/Gimp.  But the most glaring limitation of using shaders (repeating textures) is that the repetitions of the texture might become really obvious.

 

Well I just spend some time on trying to figure out GIMP, and failed miserable (the only image program I know how to use is MS Paint).

Using Blender I did manage to paint on the UV Map with the image I downloaded (scaled down) as a brush. and then save the texture and use in DAZ.

I would show a picture but I can't just embed a picture. It doenst look pretty, but I think maybe i did accomplish what I wanted for now. 

Next is figuring out what do with the normal map, since it looks really flat. LOL

 

Anyway cheers people and thx.

cajhin

I'm a little late, but well... first, for any kind of work on textures (bitmaps in general), I would so not want to use Paint. If you don't like Gimp (I don't) check out Affinity Photo, a low-budget Photoshop but well done. it's currently half price and there's a trial.

Just do the easy things you would in Paint, and then spend a few hours figuring out how layers and masks work. That alone is SO powerful.

Normal maps and bump maps are two sides of the same coin. Most games and DAZ content use bump maps, they're easier to handle. Also check out displacement maps, those are bump maps on steroids, but expensive to render.