How did I deal with…?

Texturing Buildings for a Real Time Environment Using 3D Studio Max, Photoshop, Substance Designer and Painter

The goal of this project consists of modeling, lighting and texturing some of Barcelona's Barri Gòtic buildings façades, and prepping the meshes to be uploaded in a real time engine. Here you can see a sample from a post‑produced Render Time version:

Render time version — Sample from render time version.

The staff is executing the following tasks, filling in gaps in the environment:

Modeling Texturing Materials

Modeling

The company (Barcelona Media) is commissioning a whole staff to implement this project, I'm just one more 3D Artist. I'm showing you only my work. I'm getting this block out from the studio, including information about the geometry's dimensions and position.

Block out environment — Block out reference to position the finished model.

First of all, I'm extruding indispensable elements for parallax and opening UVW.

Detailing facades — Façade after applying modeling detail.

Texturing

I'm exporting a 2D image from the façade UVW into Photoshop to use as a template, importing a photo of the façade and retouching shadows and blocked‑out elements. Here you can see the final results for the 1st floor color texture.

UVW first floor — UVW and color texture.

Color first floor — UVW and color texture.

Based on the geometry and the color texture, I am extrapolating normal maps, baking an ambient occlusion pass, and hand-retouching reflections and roughness maps:

Glossiness, reflectivity, normal maps, and occlusion pass.

Reflectivity — Glossiness, reflectivity, normal maps, and occlusion pass.

Materials

I am adding these textures into their respective slot in the building material, resetting Xform, collapsing my geometry and sending them in for evaluation. Here you can see the whole building and some more I made, with textures applied (3DS Max viewport):

Summary 1 — Front and side views of the buildings I made for this block.

Summary 2 — Front and side views of the buildings I made for this block.

This is only one example of texturing applied to a real time environment situation. For more information about rendering in general and texturing in particular, take a look at these case studies:

Texturing Character

Texturing a character for render time by opening UVW in Maya, hand painting and extracting PBR textures in Substance Designer/Painter, rendering EXR.

Rendering Prop

Rendering and Compositing a Prop Asset Skateboard Bag, Using Maya, ZBrush, Mental Ray, EXR, and Nuke.

Rendering Interior Env.

Rendering an interior environment through animatics and concept, HDRI lighting, texturing, simulating VFX with Maya Nucleus, rendering EXR, Nuke comp.

Compositing Short Film

Compositing short film using Nuke by rendering EXR and grouping background, character, volumetric lights, simulations and optical effects.

Discover 3D Skills