Hi! I’ve got HP Photosmart M407 Digital Camera.Can anybody help me with what settings I can take some photos to use as texture.If u don’t know it specificly any basic principles about the photos for texturing will do (such as brightness,using the flash,resolution,etc. )
Best is try and not get any lighting or focus information in your pics. What I mean is that you don’t want any shadows or specularity, and you don’t want any depth of field showing, ( a band of focus while close and far away are out of focus). So you want direct diffused light, and you want lots of it so everything is in focus. I have a sheet of white muslin I use to filter the sun and get perfect pics. Flash is useless, (unless you have a pro one you can filter or bounce off the ceiling), but you can use it to get rid of shadows in a pinch. Use smallest f-stops you can and lowest ISO although I’m not sure if ISO is so important with digital, just as low as you can but keeping at least 60ms shutter speed if you have a steady hand.
To Enzoblue:Thanx for your reply.But I need more practical things since I’m not a pro at photography.And as stroll I see lots of things to be used as texture.It means I can’t set a stage at that moment.Yes maybe it doesn’t give me a clear photo with which one can get better results with your way.Anyway thanx a lot.
Well ok, my guidelines still apply for the most part. Just try and get a nice straight on shot at a time of day where there are fewest shadows and such and if there’s a bright overcast sky it’ll be perfect. Try to keep in mind that you’ll want the image repeatable, so try not to get a section of the texture that has and distinct features like holes or dents etc.
There are tools in photo programs where you can make images tileable. What they do is match up all four sides of a photo so they fit together nicely. Try that, Gimp has it.
Image size doesn’t matter at all with blender unless you want to share them online. Then people expect 256, 512, 1028 squares just as a standard - game engines require that they’re in these increments. I make them huge for my use.
Anyways, here’s a general guide from Leigh of CG talk, http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-6648.html:
Observing the Aspects of Surfaces In Real Life
If you wish to become a brilliant texturing artist, the first thing you are going to have to do is learn how to properly observe surfaces in the world around you. You need to look at things and, in your mind, break the surface apart into it’s different aspects. Look at a brick wall – study the variations in colour, notice how the light is broken up along it’s surface, feel the groves, scratches and bumps on the bricks themselves as well as the grain of the cement between them. Even take note of it’s temperature – I know that sounds strange, but that can become very important when you are trying make people really believe that the surface exists. People looking at your textures must be able to imagine exactly how it feels to touch, and the temperature of the surface is definitely important, But that is a detail that I will go into depth at a later stage.
You need to begin looking at the world around you in terms of the aspects that you will recreate digitally. I know this may sound really bizarre, but when I am driving to work in the mornings (this usually being the only time of day that I actually see the world outside…), I often find myself looking at an old garbage can on the side of the road, and thinking “hmmmm… that can has an awesome diffusion map on it” or looking at an old council truck and thinking “what a cool specularity map that has”. It is because I think like that, that when I sit down to work and am given something to texture, I can draw directly from my memory and experience, because I do know offhand what the diffusion of metal looks like, or how to do really great rusty streaks on the side of a truck.
Make an effort to break up things you see into Colour, Diffuse, Luminosity, Specularity, Glossiness, Reflection, Transparency and Refraction, Translucency and Bump aspects. Some surface areas also include Displacement, which is basically a Bump map that actually alters the geometry, but because it is then, technically, a geometric property, I will not deal with it, as it doesn’t really affect surface attributes as such. All these different surface properties are generally, across the board, incorporated into your software’s surface editor, possibly with the exception of transparency (which is not the same as Opacity), and translucency. Observe how these different aspects interact with each other – for instance, very reflective transparent glass, isn’t very reflective and is less transparent where it is scratched and where it has been dulled (by been handled or by being wiped by a dirty cloth).
thanx.I’ll take what u say into consideration.