Application as a Texture Artist

[azayrahmad]

I don't know if texture artists are still needed, but why not trying?

Position: Texture Artist.

Do you understand that Wildfire Games is a non-commercial project, work for 0 A.D. is volunteer, and work is done for free?

Yes

Do you agree to distribute all your work for Wildfire Games under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license?

Yes sir, of course

Name:

Aziz.

Email:

azayrahmad@gmail.com

MSN Messenger:

I don't have one, but I have Gmail chat & Yahoo! both nick: azayrahmad (azayrahmad@gmail.com & azayrahmad@yahoo.co.id)

Location:

Indonesia (I hope you know where it is). We are 11 hours ahead from you. I type this application at 10 in the morning, in front of my students.

Availability:

I have at least 2 hours per day and full day on weekend (friday, saturday, and sunday), but I am about to take post-graduate so in 6 months it will probably be different, but I'll try to help as much as I could.

Age:

20 Oops, I mean 22.

Occupation:

Computer teacher for the deaf (full time) and private math teacher (freelance).

Skills and Experience:

I have more than 4 years experience in Photoshop and later, Gimp. Self-learning though, I do it as a hobbyist, not a professional. I also have ventured to simple 3D modelling and website design, but both going nowhere.

I am also a Computer Science graduate, but that was just theories. I'm not really into coding

Motivation:

I love RTS games, I love anything historical, I love photo manipulation (and I could). 0 AD is pretty much the game of my dream. And I want to realize this dream, as soon as possible, so I could play this game and telling everyone that this is the game we've made (also, this one model, I'm the one textured it)

Personality:

I see myself as a funny but quiet guy. But mostly I see myself as a handsome guy.

Short Essay:

I found this game quite a long time ago, about a year ago. That time I was using Linux and there's this game. Probably one of the most sophisticated open source game I know (there's not a lot of good games that has Linux port. What I seek? I seek for experiences, I seek for knowledge, and I seek for a job to fill my free time

Interests and Hobbies:

I love watching movies, and sometimes reading books (this one has been mostly replaced by surfing the Internet). I also love writing (not in English) and drawing. And of course, playing PC games

Staff:

Not really. I know some of them from the forum, but not beyond that.

Community:

There are no exact 'frequent' forums, but I contribute to my local forums (in my country), DeviantArt (hasn't been active for some time now), Reddit, Facebook, and this forum.

Favorite Game:

At this time I am playing mostly city building sim (Caesar, Pharaoh, SimCity) and RTS games (Rise of Nations, Age of Empires, and this game). My favourite games of all time would be Starcraft and Spider Solitaire

Work Examples:

I haven't worked as professional, yet. But for hobby, I have several of my arts here http://azayrahmad.de...t.com/gallery/.

Thank you for your considerations

Edited August 7, 2012 by azayrahmad

[azayrahmad]

Sorry double post

Edited August 7, 2012 by azayrahmad

[MishFTW]

Wow your art is amazing. I liked the cruiser, nice work with shadows there.

[Spahbod]

Indonesia (I hope you know where it is). We are 11 hours ahead from you. I type this application at 10 in the morning, in front of my students.

This is an international team and people are from different time zones. I think Yves is nearly in the same zone with you. Also many people are from Europe and are at most 7 hours ahead of you.

Thanks for your application. The art department leader should soon be here.

[azayrahmad]

This is an international team and people are from different time zones. I think Yves is nearly in the same zone with you. Also many people are from Europe and are at most 7 hours ahead of you.

Thanks for your application. The art department leader should soon be here.

I always assume you guys are based in America... my bad

by the way, thanks Geek377 for your compliment! You need to remember that it's a photo manipulation, I don't create the cruiser.

[Enrique]

Hello azaryahmad! Welcome to the forums and thank you for your application.

Nice work examples .

What would you like to texture? we're currently working on the last announced Mauryan civilization. We will need textures for their building set and units, but there's also a variety of organic assets you can choose (trees, rocks, animals...). We're also revamping some old models/textures. It's your choice

If you are interested, here's some basic information regarding the art for the game (there are some things outdated, but some useful information still there) http://trac.wildfire...tDesignDocument

And here you can find a sample roadmap our Art dept Leader made: http://www.wildfireg...=0

Looking forward to your creations

[azayrahmad]

Thank you very much Mr. Enrique!

As you have seen from my work gallery, my primary expertise is photo-manipulation, so my first choice would be revamping old textures. But I am also willing to help texturing Mauryan and any other objects, if I have time.

Soo... which object's textures needs revamping? I would be happy if there is a to-do list.

[Enrique]

You don't have to create them from scratch. You can find a suitable image texture to start working from there as long as it is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

We also have an special agreement with the site www.cgtextures.com to use their content in the game. It's my primary source when creating textures.

I'm currently revamping some Greek buildings and we definetly need more texture variation for the set. I was planning to create a new 512x512 texture. You can give it a try and make a 512x512 or 1024x512 texture with greek mosaics/paintings/marbles/artwork/masonry.

Here some headlines for texture creation:

-It must be an square texture like 256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024 etc or rectangular like 256x512, 512x1024 and so on.

-The textures are shared by different building assets. Keep this in mind in order to avoid specific shadows (or give too much texture space for a tiny detail)

-We use "playercolor" on some parts in the texture to identify each player's buildings. This is achieved with transparency on the texture (no transparency=noplayercolor, full transparency=total playercolor) You can be creative on the texture of where to use it.

-Transparency may be used also for transparent objects with a different setup ingame (for more detailed info see the art design document http://trac.wildfire...tDesignDocument)

Here is a link to the game files repository:

http://svn.wildfireg...ublic/ps/trunk/

You can navigate to /binaries/data/mods/public/art/textures/skins/structural/rome_struct.dds (or .png) to see one of the structural textures for the Rome civilization as example.

And here is the thread for the greek buildings revamp if you want to see some of the updated buildings and how they look with the current textures:

http://www.wildfireg...pic=16269&st=60

[azayrahmad]

Thanks for the references.

So I guess you have the list of which textures that already being revamped and textures that are still need to be revamped? Some file names for me? .

This is what I'm going to do. Correct me if I'm wrong.

1. I'm going to edit file rome_struct.png to a more high-resolution and high-quality version of the current texture, or a new design. (Should I? or should I keep current resolution 1024x1024?)

(I'm sorry but I'm still working on dds plugin. I recently downloaded Gimp 2.8 and the current DDS plugin is not compatible with it. What's the differences between DDS and PNG role in this?)

2. I'm going to post some samples of what I've done here

3. I'm sending the revamped texture to this forum.

4. Repeat for another unrevamped texture

I apologize if I still don't understand

[Enrique]

Hello Azayrahmad,

rome_struct.png is ok at that resolution, in fact we do not use more than 1024x1024 resolution for buildings. Keep in mind that when playing the game, the camera is 80% of the time zoomed out, therefore there is no need to get higher-res textures for buildings. I just pointed to that texture to you to see an example of a current-used game texture.

We need a new texture for the greek buildings because they are overall too white (general color speaking)

The current structural textures that are being used for the greek buildings are hele_struct.dds and hele_struct_b.png in the same path I pointed on my previous post.

I'd like you to gather some ancient greek-style images of mosaics, paintings, masonry, artwork etc.... licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 or in cgtextures.com. Tweak them (cropping, coloring, patching..) as you think convenient and arrange them on a 1024x1024 texture for the 3D artists to use them on the existing buildings. Just keep in mind that bigger building parts like walls, masonry, columns, etc, should have a bigger texture space than, for example, a fountain decoration or small detail in the building.

Don't worry about .dds format now, you can use PNG. (i think the difference is the texture compression level)

You can post here your work in progress samples and we'll give you suggestions, or corrections to make.

Looking forward to your creations!

EDIT: I forgot you cannot open .dds format, I'm attaching a PNG version of hele_struct.dds so you can see all currently used greek structure textures so you can make a distinct one

Edited August 8, 2012 by Enrique

[azayrahmad]

So I am to create textures for existing greek buildings on the game. Shouldn't I refer to the already existing textures instead of creating an entirely new square?

This is a modified Hellenic texture I made, based on the one you've uploaded.

But you said to create a new file to store any texture I've got, so I made this too.

Warning: still in progress

But doesn't that means 3D artists have to remapping the texture again? Does that mean I have to explain every part of the texture and each functions?

[Loki1950]

Really like the weathering effects you added

Enjoy the Choice

[Enrique]

So I am to create textures for existing greek buildings on the game. Shouldn't I refer to the already existing textures instead of creating an entirely new square?

This is a modified Hellenic texture I made, based on the one you've uploaded.

We are happy with the existing hele_struct.dds and hele_struct_b.png at the moment.

I'm looking for a *new* texture with images of mosaics, paintings, colored murals... It's easy for the 3D artist to modify the building adding a plane mapped to your new texture for a mosaic, or adding decorations with little geometry on the existing buildings. Sorry if I expressed myself incorrectly with "revamping textures"

But you said to create a new file to store any texture I've got, so I made this too.

Warning: still in progress

Some comments:

-We can use the existing roof texture, you can use that space for something else.

-The problem with the wall image is that this new texture is needed because of the whitish-predominant color we already have. We are looking for some different color.

-I like the decorations on the right side but there is some weird shadowing on the bottom part. It seems that the faces are "sticking out" from the pattern. Sadly that's too much shadow, I liked the pattern though.

-The capital images from the upper left of the wall looks interesting, where did you get them?

[Gen.Kenobi]

And it would be great if you could make the big texture part's seamless in the X coordinate - specially walls, masonry, columns.

Well, If you could keep the original disposition of the textures, as in the map provided, it would be great, however as Enrique said, we for new textures

Keep it up mate!

[zoot]

And it would be great if you could make the big texture part's seamless in the X coordinate - specially walls, masonry, columns.

Well, If you could keep the original disposition of the textures, as in the map provided, it would be great, however as Enrique said, we for new textures

Keep it up mate!

Tell him how to do normal/parallax too

[Gen.Kenobi]

Tell him how to do normal/parallax too

That's an easy job!

Use the Xnormal or the normalmap plugin for Gimp or Photoshop

I'm gonna start committing some normal/textures to test as soon as I get the time to convert and try them out.

That's not the best way to do it, but it works.

[azayrahmad]

We are happy with the existing hele_struct.dds and hele_struct_b.png at the moment.

I'm looking for a *new* texture with images of mosaics, paintings, colored murals... It's easy for the 3D artist to modify the building adding a plane mapped to your new texture for a mosaic, or adding decorations with little geometry on the existing buildings. Sorry if I expressed myself incorrectly with "revamping textures"

I think I'm the one who misunderstood the word. I apologize for that. Revamp in Google translate would translated into the word that has similar meaning to 'to change.' So I thought we were going to 'replace' some of the old textures with newer ones to add variations. Now I think it's closer to the word 'to add.'

So we need textures for decorations only. Copy that

-Now this is the problem. I've searched for image reference and all I found about ancient Greek houses are that they are covered in white paint and have orangish clay colored roof. So I added roof and wall variation with slightly different color, but still whittish wall and clayish roof. I noticed that the current wall texture is yellowish white so I added bluish white. I'm about to add an actual blue paint but I don't know if ancient greek people really ever use blue as their house paint. Perhaps history department would like to comment about this?

-I'm going to clean the shadows today. Still in progress...

-You probably mean upper right as the upper left filled with roof texture. It's a floor decoration from Olynthos, I got it from here (I suppose all images in Wikipedia are CC licensed). If you like it, I will supply more. There are similar murals in CGTextures, but last night CGTextures went down so I'm working on it today.

That's an easy job!

Use the Xnormal or the normalmap plugin for Gimp or Photoshop

I'm gonna start committing some normal/textures to test as soon as I get the time to convert and try them out.

That's not the best way to do it, but it works.

I rarely heard about normalmap. I think it's a 3D texturing term. What's normalmap? I'm downloading the normalmap plugin for Gimp right now.

[zoot]

I rarely heard about normalmap. I think it's a 3D texturing term. What's normalmap? I'm downloading the normalmap plugin for Gimp right now.

Normal and parallax mapping are ways to simulate correct lightning of "bumps" and "dents" on a textured surface, so as to not make it seem completely flat. See this image of Gen.Kenobis rock with and without normal mapping:

Hopefully, you can tell that the rock on the right seem a bit more granulated than the one on the left.

To achieve this effect Gen.Kenobi has created a separate texture (don't ask me how ) that essentially tells the renderer where to draw bumps and dents.

[azayrahmad]

So that's what normalmap is. If I recall correctly I have learned a little about this when I learned 3D rendering a long time ago, but back then it was called 'bump map.' I don't know if those two are different, but bump map also used to create bump in 3D. It's basically just B/W version of original texture. Anyone care to give some more example? Preferably from my texture

Anyway, here you go, guys. There are still so many spaces empty. Anybody has some idea what kind of texture should I add?

[Enrique]

So that's what normalmap is. If I recall correctly I have learned a little about this when I learned 3D rendering a long time ago, but back then it was called 'bump map.' I don't know if those two are different, but bump map also used to create bump in 3D. It's basically just B/W version of original texture. Anyone care to give some more example? Preferably from my texture

Anyway, here you go, guys. There are still so many spaces empty. Anybody has some idea what kind of texture should I add?

Looking better!

I think you should get rid of the biggest relief and the orange triangular one.

Also make the mosaics and patterns bigger, to make them look great from some distance. I also think that some mosaics could have bigger contrast, or they'll be difficult to distinguish them in-game.

Nice improvements so far keep it up!

So that's what normalmap is. If I recall correctly I have learned a little about this when I learned 3D rendering a long time ago, but back then it was called 'bump map.' I don't know if those two are different, but bump map also used to create bump in 3D. It's basically just B/W version of original texture. Anyone care to give some more example? Preferably from my texture

To give you some information about it:

Normal maps are textures that fake bigger changes on a surface, modifying how the light affects the object to achieve the result. example: (http://rmgameart.com/stuff/normal_01.jpg)

Bump maps are BW textures for smaller detail on the surface, normally to enhance the texture details. example http://www.zanqdo.com/tmp/Bump_25.png

[azayrahmad]

How about this. Big enough?

By the way, do you think normal map is necessary for this?

[Gen.Kenobi]

Normal is an evolution of the Bump maps

Well normal map applies in different ways

You see, in a planar object, like a carpet, you shouldn't do normal maps. So almost all the things in your above texture shouldn't need normal maps - If I saw it correctly. However the triangular roof decoration is clearly an object with depth. So this is where the normal map goes, and tells the renderer that it has highs and lows that are mapped within a simple model's face.

It's really tricky to get normal maps from images, since the correct way to do them is to create a high-poly sculpted version of the model that would be baked into a low-poly mesh of the same model. But it takes too much time, that's why normal maps will be converted from the difuse image textures we have now

So, to sum up my point. There are areas of this image that would require the implementation of normal maps. But don't bother about them right now. Keep with your awesome job. We'll cross that bridges when we get to them.

I might do a tutorial for that as well, but I really don't have time right now.

Keep it up, mate!

[Enrique]

How about this. Big enough?

By the way, do you think normal map is necessary for this?

Hey! Nice work! that's looking better!

Don't worry about the specular and normal/bump maps by now.

But keep in mind that in the near future we will need to make normal maps for our textures, it's not bad to inform yourself how to generate them (there are GIMP and PS plugins to make them)

I would suggest last touches and we're good to go:

-Reduce the rounded pieces a bit and increase a little the mosaics. Mosaics will be bigger parts in the building.

-Increase some of the patterns' texture space (make them bigger) some of them are too small to use.

-Give more contrast to the mosaics. They will look better in-game even from a distance.

-You can get rid of one triangular relief, I think one should be enough and will give you more texture space for the rest of artwork.

-(Optional) You can paint the triangular relief. Greeks painted all of their artwork, but the paint is lost over time. (you can add a transparency layer, blend it with multiply, and paint over it)

The last step I perform when making new textures is to use a sharpen filter when the texture is ready.

This is because subtle color changes usually get blurry when looking them in-game, and sharpen the final texture helps to reduce the blurry effect.

When ready I'll start adding decorations to some of the greek buildings using your texture and you'll see the final result

[azayrahmad]

Done!

-Removed two rounds and added two mosaics. All has been contrasted.

-The pattern's source didn't have any higher resolution version, so I have to vectorize it all. The one with lion's heads is difficult though, so I leave the original. Might be useful for smaller objects. I wonder how big will these pattern be used. I'm planning to make the dark parts of the patterns to be transparent to be filled with player colors. Also should I make some color variations for the patterns?

-I keep the triangle with simpler artwork. Unfortunately at this moment I don't have any graphic tablet so I think if I have to paint it with mouse, the result won't be satisfactory.

Is it possible to make normal maps based on depth map? I find creating depth map a lot easier than sculpting high poly models. Also if we've planned to have normal maps, should the triangle (and all depth textures) be saved in a separated file?

[zoot]

Is it possible to make normal maps based on depth map? I find creating depth map a lot easier than sculpting high poly models.

Yes, that should be possible with tools like xNormal (and possibly the GIMP plugin, I don't know). Of course, it won't be as high quality as if done from a high poly model, but it's better than nothing.