[Tutorial]Easy TF2 style cliff textures

[jamin620]

ok, Here we go.

so I need some big ice cliffs for the part of my map that takes place on a glacier. I am not going to explain too much, but instead just post a bunch of screen shots of what Im doing.
http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/3809/tut4by3.jpg
start out with whatever base color you want and start painting in some variations with a nice uneven brush thats big, so we can get the general tone of the background.

ok, now I am going to take a TF2 Cliff, edit it abit, and use it to give my colors some shape.

I am using Rockwall001. this is because it is one of the few tf2 cliff textures that actually tile, and honestly it looks pretty good if it is stretched.
http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/1931/tut7go4.jpg
stretch the texture to twice the height. Now take rockwall001 again, and flip it. we are gonna tidy up the texture a bit, using the clone tool.

Now set this second layer to Hard light with a fill of 25%. I dont need these rock shadows to be too hard, because I will be using them for the normal map as well.

Now start detailing with the rough brush again, on the background layer.
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/3/tut8fc2.jpg
add a bit of noise.

Now Save, then go back to your Hardlight rockwall001 layer.

Burn in some extra detail into it, then auto levels it and colorize it abit. I dont know if colorizing it does anything, but I do it anyway. then shrink it down to 1/8 the size it is.

save this as a jpg or a tga or PSD whatever. you will use this to make your Normal map. I use Crazy bump for this, 'cause it kicks everything elses ass.

http://www.crazybump.com/

once you load up your image, hit "find 3d shape analysis." Then fine tune the settings and save.
load this normal up in PS again, and bring it back to the original size.
Put in an alpha mask if you want shiny cliffs (and, since they will be ice cliffs, I do)

and make a vmt.

I ended up with this in about 45 minutes of work.
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/6059/tut12wo0.jpg

Now some might say "Jamin, you reincarnation of Michaelangelo, while your material is clearly making my eyes orgazm as I speak, are not Ice cliffs very easy to make, compared to Brick walls or Technology or foliage?

yeah. sure. But this is what I needed made, and anyway whose to say Im done making tutorials?

BTW the limit in images on this forum is obnoxious.

[dirtyminuth]

You're a man of your word. Textures look great! Have you had similar success with non-nature textures?

[trackhed]

next comes my rant

I am so god damned tired of looking at valve textures recolored :p

[Snipergen]

Agreed, hueing a valve TF2 texture and run it trough crazybump is not what I call "a new texture". Also, this doesnt look like snow yet. That's because you used a rock texture as base.

[Haas]

Tnx for the tutorial.
Now its time to make some good textures :P
In photoshop you should use filter texture there enough texture to make any kind of texture.

[jamin620]

Man the hating here is ridiculous. I wouldn't be surprised if someone busted out some "your mama" jokes.

There is no snow in this pic. the cliffs are Ice, and the ground is also ice, which incidentally is not based on anything at all. unfortunately, when making the bump map I turned up the intensity a bit too high.

I also did more than just hue it up, though I agree it is not a "whole new texture". I also removed some articles that stood out as repetitive when tiled, and reorganized the rock face's features a bit.

In the end, I actually like what I came out with a lot and don't think it looks much like a valve texture when in-game, no matter its origins.

[Snipergen]

Maybe we sound a bit too negative, your tutorial is good but people are also interested in making the vmt and vtf, aswell where to place it.
But you shouldn't bash that you are bored of the original textures, and make an adjustment of the textures. :)

[jamin620]

Im actually not bored with the original textures themselves so much as the desert theme. Personally, I think that Valve should not have had EVERY map be a desert map, but thats just me.

[Youme]

Its certainly a reasonable texture, but you either need to make it less repetative or bump up the scale size.
I was dissapointed from the title, I thought you were going to be making a texture from scratch :(

[trackhed]

this (http://www.moddb.com/games/61/half-life-2/tutorials/24160/tfs-video-metal-texture-from-scratch) is a good starting point for photoshop

creating blend textures (http://www.moddb.com/games/61/half-life-2/tutorials/24108/creating-blend-textures)

[dirtyminuth]

Damn, I thought it was a fine tutorial and a fine ice texture.

[DJive]

Same, at least its a nice hold over till someone starts to hand make a few.

I think this could work well with HL2 textures as well, just cartoon them up some.

[Snipergen]

Hmm, it's more than just cartoon them up, since the tf2 textures are handpainted and hl2 are pictures made tileable. You can't just throw some photoshop effects at them to make them tf2-ish :)

[jamin620]

I dont think TF2 materials are hand painted

Pretty sure they painted in PS too.

they don't have the signs of being scanned in. and the brush strokes look too consistent in color to be actual paint. plus, they are also tileable, so they at least had to be put into PS to do that.

[Snipergen]

They are hand painted in photoshop :)
What I want to say is that they are created from scratch and used no photo reference or overlay.

[Youme]

Snipergen, I'd be carefeul about the asumtions you are making. There is no conclusive proof that they didn't use any photo reference.
They are simply painterly yet realistic textures

[Scotland Tom]

From THIS (http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=4338&page=3) article:

“This impressionistic philosophy was also central to our texture painting style throughout the game. Much of the world texture detail in TF2 comes from hand-painted albedo textures, which intentionally contain loose details with visible brush strokes, intended to portray the tactile quality of a given surface.

In the early stages of development, many of these 2D textures were physically painted on canvas with watercolors and scanned to make texture maps. As we refined the art style of the game, texture artists shifted to using photorealistic reference images with a series of filters and digital brush strokes applied to achieve the desired look of a physically painted texture.

Not only does this hand-painted source material create an illustrative NPR style in rendered images, we have also found that these abstract texture designs hold up under magnification better than textures created from photo reference, due to their more intentional design and lack of photo artifacts. Furthermore, we believe that high frequency geometric and texture detail found in photorealistic games can often fight the designer's desire to both compose the environment and to emphasize specific gameplay features.”

[Snipergen]

Fair enough. Good find tom. Youme I know, but I am just quoting what I heard at the GDC in lyon. I wrote stuff down from his slides:

Textures: Impressionistic, but the material is clear.

And he said it was hand painted so I don't lie here, just passing on what I've heard. But I'm sure there are many ways how they made them. Fact is, it's not created from a photo.

[S.E.A.L.#555]

Fact is, it's not created from a photo.Erm....

"As we refined the art style of the game, texture artists shifted to using photorealistic reference images with a series of filters and digital brush strokes applied to achieve the desired look of a physically painted texture."

Photorealistic or photo, makes no difference.

Photorealistic means it looks as realistic, or virtually identical, to a photo.


By the way, excellent tute and awesome texture. One or two people around here are hypercritical !'"#%'!"'&!'s.

[bazola]

Thank you for the tutorial. Personally I think those cliffs are a perfect "glacier" type texture in the TF2 style. Nice work!

[MungoKing]

I'm sorry, but I can not find the location of the original textures anywhere. Could just tell me the location of the textures, or the file path? That would be fantastic. Ironically enough I am also out to make ice cliff textures, but don't worry it is only for the walls, and I'm doing something very different from yours (Nuclear winter). Thanks in advance!