This is my final blog report on Assignment 1 of the 3D I class, which is to be handed in this evening.
In this blog, I will show my final textured crate, and go through the function of each individual texture.
Here are two shots of my final crate model, rendered in UDK. This version isn’t much different from the version I showed last week, other than some small fixes and the textures being resized down to 512×512 for the hand-in.
To the left, my crate with only the diffuse texture turned on. To the right, all textures except diffuse on.
The first texture I’ll go through is the diffuse texture, this is the one that you’ll probably think of first if you’re not experienced with 3d and just hear the word “texture.” The diffuse texture is basically what gives the object color. As you can see on the right in the above image, without a diffuse texture my crate is a plain colorless box.
My diffuse texture.
While the diffuse is mainly to give color information to an object, you don’t want to just fill it with flat colors. I’ve drawn out shading on various parts of the texture, since there’s no way you can model an object 1:1 with the 3d information a real object would have, and generated lighting is not perfect. The edges of my crate, the dark blue rectangles with squares in them, have thin lines of darker and brighter colors along them. This is to give my edges a texture that would take much more work and be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to achieve if I didn’t draw it out in the diffuse.
To the left, my crate with only the specular texture turned on. To the right, all textures except specular on.
The next texture is the specular. This gives your model the information about how shiny a given surface is.
A comparison between my model with all other textures and specular on, (left) and the specular off. (right)
Specular textures are important for giving the illusion that different surfaces are made of different materials. The blade of a sword is made of metal and reflects so much light it can be blinding, while a piece of fabric is dull and will barely seem to reflect any light, only have shadows cast on it.
My specular texture.
Different specular levels can also help to differentiate between different parts of a surface that haven’t been modeled out in the object itself. The sides of my crate are flat in the, but the dark, thin lines along them are made of a much thinner, shinier metal than the bright plates below them. I’ve also drawn the dark lines between those bright plates in the specular, to make it so the plates will reflect light on the edges around those creases. This helps bring to make the detail I drew out in my diffuse look much more convincing.
The specular is affected by the next texture, the normal map.
To the left, my crate with only the normal texture turned on. To the right, all textures except normal on.
The normal map simulates edges and indentations on surfaces to create a ”fake 3D” feel. This is used to bring out details, generally small things that wouldn’t be worth the extra polycount, that weren’t modeled out in the object itself.
A comparison between my model with all other textures and normal on, (left) and the normal off. (Right)
The main use of normal maps in my model is on the sides. I’ve used normal maps to bring out the height differences in the different parts of these planes, making light bounce off and cast shadows along edges that aren’t actually in the model itself. This gives my dark lines in particular an illusion of 3D, and again helps exaggerate the spaces between my white plates.
A comparison between my model with all textures except the specular on, (left) and all textures except the normal on. (Right)
Normal maps work in tandem with specular maps. As you can see above, the sides of my crate won’t look as detailed without one or the other. My dark blue lines need the normal map to tell the light engine that they’re above the white plates, but it also needs a specular map to tell the light engine to actually reflect light along its edges.
My normal map texture.
Finally, I actually added an extra texture in my model which wasn’t required for the assignment, a self-illuminate texture, also called emissive in UDK.
To the left, my crate with only the illuminate texture turned on. To the right, all textures except illuminate on.
A self-illuminate texture simply makes it so any part drawn out in it will be completely lit at all times regardless of light cast on the surface. Since my crate has bright lights along its edges, I added this texture to make it so that those lights are shining all the time, even if the edge they’re on is completely dark.
My self-illuminate texture.
GAME blog 