Customer Reviews

Digital Texturing and Painting

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

this book takes an new approach to introducing its readers to texture creation. If your expecting a step by step photoshop tutorial your in for a surprise, this book actually help show you how to look at textures and surfaces to see why they are the way they are, then gives ideas on how to recreate these effects and details on your computer. The first half of the book covers the look of textures and how they are affected by there surroundings as in the lighting, the enviroment and the mood you want to create.

The second half is made up of tutorials which show you how to apply the techniques you saw in the first. It mixes the use of scanning and standard 2d tool (eg photoshop, illustrator) and 3d surfaces (procedurals) to give you ideas on how to make most out of what you have. Overall a very good book, its clearly laid out with an easy to read style and all in glorious colour, it helps you look at things differently and add a little more imagination to your textures.

So if your into 3d and are making your own textures, do yourself a favour and get a copy.

I bought this book, along with Digital Lighting and Rendering, and found these two volumes to contain an impressive body of knowledge. Aside from being beautiful books in themselves, well printed, good typography, etc., they discuss in detail their subjects from a theoretical, ARTISTIC point of view instead of mere button-pushing, something you don't see much when dealing with books covering 3D. But they don't stop there ... they illustrate and explain in well-written, lucid terms how to apply this theory to your 3D work. Once you understand the reasons behind a 3-light set-up, for example, you can adapt this scheme to your own work and won't need to be spoon-fed input values to position your lights correctly. On the texturing side, you are first encouraged to SEE and understand what you are seeing, to use the real world as a reference. Then and only then should you interpret your vision in your software.

These books won't teach you the software, you pretty much have to know this already, or be in the process of learning it, but it does approach the various techniques by addressing their application among the major platforms.

If you are serious about improving your 3D skills and want to feel a real sense of mastery, I would highly recommend these two books ... they are well-worth the investment. I plan on reading them both several times and keeping them handy for reference and inspiration.

Some reviewers have underappreciated this book. I can understand why. The introduction is slow and wordy. It could have used a good edit to tighten it up. As for expectations, a lot of readers are looking for a magical formula to create good textures. But for most readers, that is putting the cart before the horse. You must first recognize what is a good texture. You must see it in artwork. You must see it in the real world. You must learn to see it in your own mind as you do your own modeling and artwork. That is the core concept that this book teaches you: how to see and appreciate textures. Once that is set forth, there are tutorial chapters at the end that demonstrate texture layering and mapping, placement of these, and so forth. Yes, I'll admit it. When I started this book, I was thinking of returning it. Now that I've read and digested most of it, I view it as a treasure to be revisited often. As a final comment, I recently attended a seminar on how to get into digital art. A number of people in the audience trumpeted the value of this book. Enough said.

What strikes me about this book, is the seriousness and devotion that Owen Demers has for this topic. I have seldomly seen such wonderful piece of work. My congratulations to the author and publisher for accomplishing such a thoroughly high quality release!

This book is really what ALL artist should be forced to read at any point, but preferably the beginning, of their careers. It focuses on developing the art of seeing as the most important tool in your arsenal. Once you can SEE, then you can reconstruct any complicated or simple texture. This is of course a project so great that a lifetime is not enough, but nonetheless, I have never seen it handled better than in Digital Texturing & Painting. I love the idea that traditional artists will be able to find tons of insights in this book for digital artists. The new are teaching the old. But again even though the explicit theme of the book is textures for 3D purposes, the teaching is that this is just another tool, the underlying priciples are the same as in all visual art.

This is one book you should run to get now. Simply because it will make you a better artist, in whatever field you are, now and for good.

I'm new at computer graphics and this book gives me the start that I found no where else. While I say this book is definately a buy if you want to make great textures, there have been a few places where I wish it was more informative for the newbie. I'm having trouble grasping all these "maps" and what they are. Nothing in the index on maps so I hunted around. There are explanations, but still nothing about what most of the maps physcially are or how to create some of them. Computer graphics is complex with its own lingo so expect, even with this book, to have a steep learning curve. I can't imagine how steep the learning curve would be without this book!

- jim

This book gives you a whole new understanding on Texturing. It takes a different approach and starts from the beggining. All from new to old can benefit from this book. The art work is excellent.

The color and easy reading make it a easy book to grasp on to. It starts with basics and then works forwad. Next you will find tutorials that prove to be very beneficial to all.

This book is a must for all to have. I keep it by my computer for referance. If you are looking at this book to apply towards on specific software, DONT! It is a total approach that should be a must for all starts for the 3D World.

This is a useful book, written by an experienced artist. Most of the book was really about art itself, how to see and notice details in real life the way an artist would. Only the last chapter really got into specifics about painting textures in Photoshop or specific types of maps.

If you want a book where most of it tells you how to think like an artist, then this is for you. If you wanted a book that went into more detail about how to unwrap UVs on a model or specific texture painting techniques, you'd be dissapointed.

Many CG books contain nothing more than a series of tutorials that may teach a student how to achieve a particular effect with a particular software package, but do little to teach fundamental skills that can be used in any piece of software, or with physical media. Others are inaccessible due to needless technical detail. Still more are so general as to be worthless for the serious student. Demers manages to avoid all of these traps. Digital Texturing and Painting provides a solid foundation for the artist, starting with training of the eye to really see texture, carrying that forward with advice about preproduction, and finishing it off with 9 chapters of texturing exercises drawn from a real production.

The exercises are not step-by-step tutorials, but a description of the creative process that goes into creating texture. The student is expected to already be familiar with the 3d software of their choice, and while the exercises are based on Maya, the principles can easily be applied to 3ds Max, Lightwave, or even Blender. This is not a book about how to use Maya; it is a book about how to be a texture artist, regardless of the tool you use. As such, I anticipate that it will remain relevant long after most of the CG books on my shelf are obsolete.

As a Maya user I found this book extremely helpful in texturing those annoying SubDivision surfaces. The book talks about textures and how we see them. It provided help for my thesis, to make it look non-computer-animation-plastic and a little more lively.

As a well-versed member of the "Google Images & Clone Stamp" school of texturing, I know full well that knowing all the technical ins and outs of a program doesn't guarantee good results. A strong grounding in fundamental art principles is needed to make proper use of all the technical bells & whistles.

It can be said that Digital Texturing & Painting is too art-heavy, but it's such a critical aspect of good CG that's either glossed over or omitted in other books. Being able to break down & understand all the many elements of a texture so it can be recreated and controlled is of the utmost importance. And learning how to go beyond photos and start working with the infinitely unique number of real world textures you can find or create adds new levels to your texturing work.

The art-based sections as well as the more technical preparation section are geared toward making you think about every aspect of the work and how best to execute it, rather than creating bland textures that have been done a thousand time before.

Although the specific texturing examples are rather short, the author covers the basics of several texturing methods. NURBS, polygons, using projections, using 3D paint software, tiling textures, using Illustrator, using Photoshop, making & scanning in real world objects or just making things from scratch. And the included CD has the PSD files for you to poke around in a figure out how the maps are put together.

Digital Painting & Texturing has the breadth & depth to be a helpful book for texture artists of all levels.