at the moment I'm looking into the materials (shading) topic. On this forum there are professionals and dedicated technical artists from various fields, such as game, interactive real time, TV series, ads, feature film and more. Probably everyone know something about how to do it (suitable for their context). I feel it is difficult to start this topic, partly because putting words on the complexity that is in my mind is a challenge, and additionally this can become too advanced so that no one want to express anything.
Additionally, I wish not to go into specific rendering engines, because I hope to keep this topic on a generic level. However, the use of Houdini for data management is of very high priority. With my limited brief experience, I already see that this is key to solve many challenges.
Brief background:
- traditional UV mapping and maps such as diffuse, specular and more (1-4 channels)
- material ID-maps from ZBrush processed with Python to generate various maps for Houdini
- traditional 2D editing of maps/textures in a 2D app (PS/Krita or whatever)
- Maya (Software, Mental Ray, 3delight with a little shader coding)
- Houdini (RenderMan basics, Mantra basics)
For the modeling, capture (weights) and partly rigging it has been possible to simplify things toward a procedural, i.e. flexible, workflow. The key here I would say is that the important data, especially attributes, are kept in Houdini. Then some data can visit another app, for example Blender, Photoshop (or Krita), ZBrush or any other app. Finally the outcome of that app will be integrated back into Houdini so that all original important attributes and groups are retained. For example, when I had issues with ZBrush because my character has too many groups, one solution was just to generate new (temporary) objs for ZBrush.
Since probably everyone here know basically how UV-mapping works, I'm not interested to talk about it very much. It is useful for many cases, but not always.
If any method was possible I would like to paint enough detailed attributes directly on a model in Houdini, and simply use that to build procedural maps, patterns and shaders. There is a risk of loosing the artistic side of things when going technical, but it does not have to be so. I've worked with PS matte painting (junior level) and when doing so the maps, or masks, are very fundamental. Since I don't know how to do this directly in Houdini I'm considering to use ZBrush polypainting to hold the source data for maps (for example by copying subtools). Either this would use UV:s but I've also noticed that the actual polypaint can be transfered to Houdini.
I guess it is time to stop writing. So the key question is: Do you use Houdini for procedural material and shading generation? Maybe you use other apps as "helper" apps, but then use Houdini for patterns and shading. Would you be happy to share any fundamental insights into your process, just as pointing the way to go?
Anything is interesting (I'm such a newbie in this area).
