With the warp grain done, I'm ready to add knots if needed. Knots are a nice to have; we don't always need them, but they can add character in a wood map. If we're doing more straight grain pieces, like tools, we may not want to add too many knots. Knots, however, look really good in furniture. I'll show the process on them and you have the option of adding them in or not. To start, I'll go back in the Liquify tool, choosing Filter > Liquify. Now in Liquify tool, instead of doing giant broad strokes, we want to work in more localized areas.
I'll press B to go back to the Bloat tool, I'll take the Brush Size way down, probably in the 200 range is just fine, and again, Density and Pressure are very low. First I'll start to bloat open areas for knots where the wood grain has a little bit of a wave like this. I may want to bring up the Brush Size a little bit; I'll start to add in local places for knots, being careful again not to make giant zigzags in the wood. I'll add a few in and then come back and move them around a little bit.
With my knot spaces in place, now I'll switch over to the Twirl tool. In the Twirl tool, zooming in on the knots by using the Zoom tool, I'm going to twirl in a knot structure. I'll take the Brush Size way down, and again, Pressure and Rate are very low. With twirl, what we really need is a roundness in here. It doesn't even have to be a complete knot as much as a spot that we recognize as such. Remember that this is a map we're going to take pieces out of for wood.
I'll press Ctrl+0 to zoom out. We can see that I have a knot-like structure in that one place and I'm ready to do other knots in other places. We perceive it as a knot even though if we look closely, it's really more of a smudge. I'll zoom in on the next bloated area, press C to switch to my Twirl tool, and grab a little bit of the darkness and twirl it in. What we want to avoid is twirling forever, getting us endless loops and pixelated circles. Really what we're after is some kind of oblong or off looking ring structure.
I'll continue to zoom in on my knots and twirl them in and it's perfectly fine in this to have incomplete knots in places, where they're more of a smudge that could have been a knot farther along. It's also fine to have light areas for knots that cross dark grain. What we're after here is the structure we recognize in the wood, not necessarily a picture-perfect depiction of it. Remember also, we're going to take this and probably upsize or downsize it and fit it onto an unwrap, and so as long as our structure is pretty good, this will work nicely.
I'll click OK when I'm done and give it a minute to return that liquefied result. My wood grain is ready. I've got tonal variation and knots, and also areas around the knots that the grain has been distorted. Now I'm ready to finally add color into this and use it as part of a map.
Author
Released
6/21/2012Note: A familiarity of basic modeling and unwrapping techniques in 3ds Max and a working knowledge of Photoshop will help you get the most out of this course.
- Laying out the overall form
- Planning for modular textures and models
- Adding the framing components
- Laying out the UV coordinates
- Creating bump maps
- Painting diffuse textures
- Setting up a library of textures
- Converting bump maps to normal maps
- Testing maps
- Laying out a texture sheet for multiple tools
- Using a high poly to low poly workflow
- Baking out normals and ambient occlusion for rusty and dirty surfaces
- Modeling furniture
Skill Level Intermediate
Duration
Views
Related Courses
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3ds Max 2013 Essential Training
with Aaron F. Ross7h 9m Beginner
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Introduction
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Welcome57s
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Using the exercise files2m 22s
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1. Modeling a Large Prop (Shipping Container)
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Adding the side panels2m 33s
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Unwrapping the sides2m 10s
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Unwrapping one corner box2m 25s
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2. Texturing the Shipping Container
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Adding details to the doors2m 55s
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Adding soft rust3m 57s
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Adding rust bubbles3m 46s
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Testing the maps5m 54s
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3. Modeling Tools and Small Props
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Modeling a sledgehammer2m 52s
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Modeling a ladder5m 6s
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Unwrapping for the ladder5m 47s
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Placing the clean texture5m 51s
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Painting galvanized steel6m 59s
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Adding dirt and wear6m 48s
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4. Modeling Furniture
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Blocking out the basic form5m 26s
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Refining the silhouette3m 31s
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Unwrapping for the chair7m 53s
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Painting the fabric6m 26s
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Laying out the wood texture5m 49s
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5. Painting a Wood Texture from Scratch
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Adding knots3m 2s
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6. Workflow and Integration
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Overview of normal maps1m 45s
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Overview of the pipeline2m 41s
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Smoothing groups2m 50s
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Adding hinges5m 42s
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7. Sculpting and Painting in Mudbox
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Painting in Mudbox5m 34s
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8. Ambient Occlusion and Specularity
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Painting a specular map6m 36s
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9. Importing into Unity and Testing
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Refining materials4m 37s
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Conclusion
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Video: Adding knots