YEAR 2 PORTFOLIO
Wall-mounted Electrical Box
Realistic Textures Experimentation
STAGE 1 - BASIC MODELLING
Using the reference images obtained in pre-production, I created a simple wall-mounted electrical box with hanging wires, screw holes and wall mounts.
STAGE 2 - TEXTURE CREATION
Using Blender's built-in shading software, I was able to make multiple different procedurally-generated textures, such as rusted metal, metal and darker metal. These were all created using different nodes such as noise textures, which create random values to then be applied onto the texture, resulting in the variation in detailing seen in procedural generation. In addition, the use of colour bumps allow for a gradient colour between 2 set HEX values, resulting in a diverse and interesting colour palette for the texture. Lastly, the Musgrave texture node is used along side the noise texture node, as it creates the same random detailing onto the texture, however allows for more precise control over the measurements. This in-turn allows for multiple different layers of details, which refines the texture's randomness and details.
STAGE 3 - TEXTURE BAKING
Due to Unreal Engine's incapability to recognise procedural textures due to their complex node structure, I had to bake the textures in order to make them viable for exporting into UE5. This included adding a separate image texture onto the texture, which acts as a vessel to hold the baked image once it is complete. Next, I had to change the baking options of the material to not receive or reflect and light sources, since all lighting will be crated within UE5, so I don't want any additional light sources from 3rd party software's. Lastly, I baked the texture into a single PNG image, where I could then save the image, then change the material on the object to an image texture in order to place the baked image onto.
CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, the use of procedurally-generated textures allowed my alleyway scene to reflect the realistic, run-down concept that I was aiming for.
I believe that due to me extensive researching and editing within the shading software, I was able to create realistic and overall good-looking materials for my project.
However, one down side to making the textures within Blender, is that I had to bake every texture into an image in order to be able to use them, which as a result took a lot of time and research on how to do so. In the future, I will try to use Substance Painter, as it is easier to navigate and create materials, in addition to not needing to bake the textures out of the software.