Shading and Texturing Environments, Props, and Robots

In this class, Neil shows his pipeline for shading and texturing environments, props, and hard surface characters—everything from organic plant life to buildings and hard surface robots. These techniques can be used to texture any high resolution object, whether for VFX and animated films, videogame cinematics, or even architectural work. He discusses shaders as well as all of the available methods for applying textures to your models. The class also covers pattern creation methods, from procedurals and hand-painted textures to photo manipulation. Focus is on efficiently shading thousands of individual objects without the need to spend a lot of time UV mapping everything (although UV mapping is discussed). Although Neil demos all of this using 3ds Max® software, Autodesk® Mudbox® software, Chaos Group's V-Ray®, and Adobe® Photoshop, the principles discussed can be applied to your paint application and renderer of choice.