(Group Project) Week 6 - Material Creation, Editing & Mapping

This week's task was simple - to meet my target of equal group participation and workload, I needed to create, edit and map the complete model section that I have been creating over the past couple of weeks


This was easier said than done; I would have to create some textures myself through the use of Adobe programs 'Photoshop' and 'Illustrator' - a challenge which would certainly ensure I would learn new skills and use features perhaps I hadn't used previously!


Below I describe how and why I designed certain textures/materials within these two programs and their application within my Material Library in 3DS Max 


The Hydraulic-Hose -Weave Pattern

To get the closest visual comparison to a genuine hose-weave, I wanted to create my own map and not just take a cropped image off the Internet, as this would demonstrate my understanding of using software that I perhaps wouldn't approach in other instances

Using Adobe Illustrator, I started off as basically as I needed to, by creating a tessellating series of rectangles - one in a dark grey and one in a lighter tone, which were then copied , pasted and ordered as shown above

I then added in a dark purple rectangle and a black rectangle which would act as the weave underneath the upper threads - these were measured so that they would appear the length of the rectangle parallel to them and at an equal distance between the right-angled corners of the tessellated geometric shapes

I then copied and pasted these complete series of shapes to appear as shown here, ensuring all shapes were buffered up against one another without any gaps and/or overlap

This complete series was copied/pasted one more and moved into position as demonstrated here - the upper-most dark-grey rectangle would need to rest on the near-right top edge of the lighter-grey rectangle next to the initial dark-grey rectangle, with a final set of four dark-grey rectangles moved into the upper-right positions shown

Before I left Illustrator with the saved .AI file, I used the 'Outline' view to check all sides and borders of all shapes were not overlapping or breaking each others boundaries. Once I was happy with this step, I moved on to the 'Photoshop' stage

Once the Illustrator file was imported into Photoshop, the first step was to 'crop' and 'trim' the complete image into one which included a "full" tiling of the map which I would eventually place onto the hose in Max
The image above shows that this "full tiling" included a section of dark-and-light grey tile, as well as a succession of the purple and black weaves underneath (this was necessary as without this sample, they 'Mapping' wouldn't tile effectively and cause discrepancies within the 'Material Editor' in Max

To achieve the look and generate the 'braided' pattern itself, I used Photoshop's extensive library of 'Filters' 

I needed to find one that would create a scored, threaded effect over the single-layered image - the 'Filter' I needed was found under the 'Texture' folder and was called, quite evidently, 'Texturiser'

The filter created an uneven looking, but strongly visible scoring effect across the image (settings of Scale, Relief and Light shown), similar to how steel-braid would act when spun into hydraulic hose - it was ideal for my needs at this stage!

That was one instance of the filter applied, but to really stand out, I needed the direction of the 'Texturiser' to be evident from left to right, as well as up and down and so, with that in mind, I duplicated the layer and proceeded to repeat the 'Texturiser' filter once more, but alter the 'Light' direction from top to left, which gave the opposing-textural effect I was after

Here is the finished product, waiting to be imported into my Material Library in 3DS Max later on

The 'weave_pattern_texture' applied - the 'Pipe_Object' was modified with a 'UVW Map' so that I could use the 'Gizmo' and rotate the texture 45degrees to appear more like a real-life braided hose on the model itself

Tweaks to the 'Bump' map and the 'Specular' with a 'Phong' shader also brought it closer to my expectations

Other Photoshop-Created Textures w/Rendered Screenshots

The material was created with 'Gradients' of golds and yellows and a 'dry brush' effect in Photoshop

The material created above is applied to nuts and other fittings which are relatively new replacements compared to some pieces on the pump which are visibly showing their age 

The texture is of an 'Anistrophic' shader-type and has a reasonably high level of 'Specular' highlights to bring the edges of the objects to react in the lighting conditions, with a small amount of 'Bump' mapping to enhance the natural 'grain' of the steel

 

 

The two images above show the culmination of layers that made up one of a few textures which would be used on the ageing hardware throughout the pump model. Impressions of browns, oranges and ochres were deliberately applied in a random manner as to be enhanced later on with the use of a 'Bump' map

Here is a render of that map on a particularly weathered nut sitting right near the base of the gauge itself

Notice how, using the 'Phong' shader, in conjunction with the uprated 'Bump' map gives this material a more realistic and complex pattern and appearance to other maps which are present on the model

The map is a variation on the one above - a similar method was used in creating it

A render of the above material, with an 'Anistrophic' shader and varying elements of 'Specular' and 'Anistrophy' applied also

A simple map, but with the intentions to be used on irregularly shaped items such as the bolts, threaded attachments and so forth (the browns and umbers again signify aged appearances and extensive usage over the decades)

An example of the above map used on an irregularly shaped object - without the modifier 'UVW Map', many of these materials appeared distorted or stretched, as the total resolution of the PNG/PSD/JPEG file tried to work itself around the form of the object

The two images above show an example of the eventual usage of downloaded textures for complex applications such as the decidedly rusted and beaten piping (which the main steam supply would be attached too beneath the braided hose) This was then cropped to a small sample which I could then use, once I had reduced the 'Canvas Size' to avoid the saved file keeping the white background - making the tiling a nightmare when applying the texture onto the pipe!

A render of the above texture - once a 'UVW' Map was applied to the pipe, I then chose the 'Face' map-parameter and the texture worked itself along the object with little visible tiling throughout

One of the taps had a very reflective green-painted surface which I wasn't going to have the time to recreate in Photoshop, so I needed to use the Reference image (luckily the cameras used a 10M-equipped sensor to ensure all images taken contained plenty of strong detail, even after being heavily cropped!) to grab the sample of the texture I needed. The image above shows the photo being rotated to allow the 'square-shaped' crop tool an equal sample to chose from 90degrees to the edge of the tap itself

The sample taken, which I ensured contained examples of reflection on the surface and also a selection of green-tones across the sample too

 A brief look into the options I'd selected for this texture in the 'Material Editor/Library' Notice how I have used the 'Editable Poly' modifier to select areas of Polygons I wanted before applying the texture - this ensured I didn't have a complex array of tiling issues witrh the texture wanting to stretch itself across the complete object!






The green tap texture applied and rendered - the image above was changed afterwards to incorporate greater levels of reflection and tonal variation, as this render doesn't quite present the fine detail captured in the original crop

ScreenShots and Renders of other Sections of the Pump Model

 This render shows the detail that I wanted to capture in the metalwork casing of the gauge itself - a quick 200x200 sample of grey brush strokes onto a white background in Photoshop which can, when brought into Max and enhanced by 'Specular', 'Reflection' and 'Refraction' maps with the Anistrophic shader enabled, cause this fantastically accurate redition of a polished steel case effect
To add greater detail, I altered the default colour of white of the 'Specular' shader parameter to one that will match the warm, amber-like ambient lighting which will be present in the interior of the workshop when the model is taken into it

 

 At this stage, I was creating a duplicate of the 'chipped_paint' texture I had found to be applied to, amongst other things, the bolted attachment (shown here above the makers stamp), with the duplicate version being applied to the lower casing, which included the makers stamp here

I also found that I could use the CTRL and left-click technique to select all the nut/bolt objects visible here and use a 'UVW Map' to ensure all of them would adhere to the same tiling and co-ordinate constraints

 

A render of the lower-left corner - this wil be 'in shot' when the final production of the camerawork is produced and so it needed to be as tidy and co-ordinated as possible

When I was checking over the lower-left corner, I noticed that although I had mapped the 'makers_stamp' and 'Chamfer_Box' outer casing together, the texture didn't quite sit right as the damage of the peeling paint on the casing didn't match up with how it showed on the lettering (and these two items were evident in the reference images!)
And so, I needed to use the 'UVW Map' 'Gizmo' and move it around and adjust the roatation slightly to match it against the pattern of the casing as accurately as I could manage

When I was applying the 'chipped_paint' texture to the cylindrical casing, I found the standard 'drag-and-drop' technique meant that the tiling was clearly evident to the naked eye and so wasn't exactly presentable in that state
I therefore used the 'UVW Map' mapping of 'Cylinder' purely because I thought it would wrap the texture around the object in a more realistic way and the tiling would match up closer - the was indeed the case but, as the render shows, the extruded end section was causing an ugly distortion with the tiling of the material

By an almost coincidental decision, I checked the 'Cap' box next to the 'Cylinder' mapping option and, as is shown here, the tiling corected itself to match its opposing side very well indeed - a rare moment of happy coincidence if there ever was...!

One final item I wanted to cover before I attempted the final render (shown below) is to carry out a recce around the whole model and fix any tiling or positioning issues with the materials that I knew would bug me if they re-appeared when Post-Production was underway in the coming week 
There wer a mixture of simple tweaks with tiling to sort out, a few adjustments to hide irreversible tiling issues ( rotating the texture or the object to hide the offending section out of camera shot) and certain hiccups with mapping: the one above was the main one

The rest of the object was exactly as I wanted it but this series of Polys just weren't going to tile properly - luckily, I realised that this section was actually going to be hidden when this section is joined up with the central section anyway (certainly a close call!)

The final render! Here she is: all fully textured (apart from the dial-detail which, incidentally, I was in the middle of doing at the end of this week, but I blame Photoshop for freezing on me and not allowing me to recover the save I had!)
  The combined processes of creating, editing, cropping, mapping and applying didn't take as long as I'd expected and generally everything ran through smoothly - I was certainly pleased that the quota of my user-generated textures outnumbered the small selection I simply had to download (and that was ultimately only down to tight time constraints)



Next week the group will be concentrating on Post Production; this is the stage where I can polish up this stage of the total processes we have concluded to reach this point...

(Group Project) Week 5 - Model Final Touches & Material Application (StoryBoard provided too)

Although the group's plans didn't work out as we'd hoped for by the end of last week, I had the opportunity to sort out my section of the steam-pump without the added pressure of having the three other members waiting for me to merge it in by the end of a particular group meeting!

It only needed to sort out the casing detailing and a few other fixtures around the lower half of my particular modelled section

Looking at the reference images once more, I could see that there was indeed an extra steam-control wheel and attachments to the lower section of the previous item created

In my effort to maintain that reduction in file size, I figured that by cloning the closest existing object to it in terms of fittings included such as the wheel, bolts and nut, I could keep the file under control without generating and/or merging new items once more - a re-scale and re-positioning of fittings that connected the wheel to the existing 'Cylinder' was all that was needed

 

Now I could finally move onto the last section of this complete modelled object - the lower casing

The casing, in a geometric sense, was made up of a 'Cylinder' (not unlike the one that I'd created to bridge the two pipes shown in blue within the viewport on the image above!) and another 'Chamfer_Box' to the right of this

As in the method mentioned in the caption of the image above this one, the process of 'Cloning' an existing object meant that I only needed to 'Scale' the 'Cylinder' up, with the 'Symmetry' modifier still present

 

Once I had moved the 'Cylinder_Casing Object' into position, I needed to create another Cylinder and match both the radius and depth of the bevelled edge of the 'pink' 'Cylinder' as this is what is demonstrated on one of the many ref. photos that has this section in detailed shot

I made sure I had created enough 'Height/Length Segments' and also 'Sides', so that it contains enough smoothing on the 'Edges', but not an excessive amount that this would impact on the file size

 

In much the same fashion as I'd done with the 'Polygons' of the 'Adjustment Wheel Objects' (one shown in 'pink' in the lower left viewport here) I didn't need, I highlighted the requisite 'Polys' in the last-but-two circular segments near the centre of the 'Cylinder' and deleted the material

I then could selected the 'Polys' in the very centre shown here, moved them so that they touched the rear 'Polys' and then 'Extruded' and 'Bevelled' so that it made up the central hollow section in the real-life model

 

I deliberately didn't extrude this central section all the way to the very vertical edge of the 'Cylinder' so that I could highlight the 'Border' of the existing gap I'd created and 'Cap' it

There was now a large expanse of a single selectable 'Polygon' which I could push to the back and making up the new formation of material behind the mewly-created central section, as shown here (looking reminiscent of a jet engine I feel!)

 

A render up till this documented stage, notice how the edges are no longer defined as a result of merely pushing the material backwards - I was needing to do something about this as the real-life model had very defined and crisp edges to the object

 

I once again selected the 'Border' of the 'Outer Centre' and used the 'Chamfer Edges' tool

Usually, as the names suggests, Max will have a value of around 10.0 as default to chamfer to edges to a standard degree, but I wanted to bring definition back into the object, so I reduced this to a value of 0.00, which brought the defined edge back into this 'Outer Centre' section, as shown in the restored 'Render' window

 

This was the stage where I had moved the cylinder into position and cloned my 'Nut/Bolt' combination (as created in a seperate Max file) and moved this and another into postion - I could then select the pair of 'Nut/Bolt' and clone both, again ensuring Max doesn't clog memory up with new object names ordering themselves numerically each time a new 'un is modelled

 

At one end of the cylinder that will be connected up to the main body of the pump, I needed to create a peak whereby the extra Nut/Bolt could be positioned on

This was achieved by selecting the 'Polygons' from half way up the side of the bevelled edge right across the top, as shown here - the 'Extrude Polygons' tool bring used for this purpose (extrusion to 0.5cms)

 

The same method was repeated on a selection of two of the inner-most 'Polygons' which were, again, raised up (by 0.25cms this time) and the achieve the peak form, I just needed to use the 'Scale-Along-X' to bring the selected 'Polys'  inwards, thus pushing them upwards by a small amount also

 

A render of the progress at this stage - this was a difficult item to scale up properly without the rest of the model on-screen with me, but I knew that once I had added on the 'Chamfer Box' next to it, then I could take the completed section into the group's designated Max file to further adjustment and comparison

 

As described previously, the second part to the casing would be modelled from an 'Extended Primitive', the 'Chamfer Box'

The main reason I chose this over a normal 'Box' is due to the parameter of 'Fillet' which affects the curvature and gleaned corners of the 'Box' and generating a shape closer to the real-life example - I had to make sure that it fitted between the inside edge of the bevelled section of the 'Cylinder' adjacent to it, but then allow the right-most bolted-fitting to be overhanging by a small margin, as deemed by the ref. images

 

It was also neccessary to create another 'Chamfer Box' to add this onto the existing one, as this would be  what the 'Makers Stamp' would be cast onto in the foundary - an item that would be important in a historical sense to maintain the reflection of accuracy that the group has tried to follow throughout the modelling design

 

I had another use for the 'Clone' tool before I was finished on this section - by cloning all four of the Nut/Bolt objects that were part of the 'blue' 'Extruded_Circular_Cylinder' previously created and bringing them into place, as shown here

Notice that I have made sure the slimmer 'Chamfer Box' has overlapped the total length of the larger one, which will enhance the depth between the two when texture is applied

 

I now wanted to make the 'Makers Stamp' - under 'Splines', there was the option of 'Text' which, upon the user clicking it, showed a wealth of options for formatting the text and what text would be displayed

Keeping to 'Arial' font, I typed in the details as they were taken directly from the reference photograph taken at the Museum, including all line breaks and tabbed lines

 

Once I was happy with the punctuation and typecast of the text, it was then rotated and positioned as centrally as possible between all four pieces of hardware, with only the smallest adjustment needed with the 'Rotate Transform Type-In' tool, against the 'Absolute World' co-ordinates

 

Once the text was positioned correctly, it was then converted to an 'Editable Poly' and while still in this mode, all front-facing 'Polygons' were highlighted and were 'Extruded' (to the value of 0.25cms)

This meant that the text was able to accept a differing material-map to the 'Chamfer Box' under it, should that be needed, as well as being reactive when artificial lighting sources are introduced

 

A render of this part to demonstrate the inclusion of the 'Extrude' modifier on the 'Makers Stamp'

 

The final object that needs to be created is the attaching part to the part central section where one of the 'Connecting Rods' rises and falls into (it too is bolted together)

in the Group Meeting on ThursdayThe simpliest and most effective solution, I felt, was to use a 'Cylinder' that is scaled down to fit against the larger of the two 'blue' 'Chamfer Boxs', but still be easy to scale when all files are merged into the Group's File 19th November

 

To match up to the 'diamond-shape' on the opposing attachment thats part of the central section, I selected a small sample of 'Polygons' in the immediate section shown here and use the 'Scale' tool along the 'X' axis to pinch the material slightly matching evenly on both sides (possibly could have been better use of time to have the 'Symmetry' modifier engaged instead!)

 

The final render of my complete section - very pleased with how it turned out and it is certainly ready to be festooned with the collection of textures that I will design and arrange over the next week ready for the next Group Meeting on Thursday 27th November

StoryBoards

Here are the twelve directed scenes that detail the positioning of the camera and audible sounds effects throughout the promotional video and will demonstrate the group's individual member's attention to detail, as well as the background research that will be evident in the choice of  sound effects, audible narrative and environment that model is placed in

These points shall be addressed over the closing few weeks - my main role will be accountable as Post Production Co-odinator/Designer, just as the other members choices have developed in their modelling/animation decisions