That’s exactly what I needed to know. Thanks! Outstanding work BTW.
Take care,
D
Hey Behrooz,
I couldn’t find if this question was asked before, but how do you deal with those tiled textures normal map wise, do you fix them in photoshop first and offset them properly to make sure they work properly for tiling and then do the diffuse afterwards? or is there another process into it.
Because i dont think there was anything but a plane used for most of the pictures you posted to be projected on, most seems like high ceiling walls or just normal walls you pass by throughout the game. Even though that uncharted used more polys this time around in the game, i assume the walls were 1 poly plane surfaces right?
I have to play the game again ;s and spend more time on the environment design to see how much polygon was used on the structures, cause I’ve seen cracks and what not being actually modeled into the walls and floor but getting my head around the fact that its been tiled is a little hard haha.
by the way i love your texture work by the way, I’m starting to love texture artist position more than level design now!
Thanks for your time,
Ameer 
Hey Ameer, Danny,
I had a couple of other private messages asking your questions so here is a quick rundown of the process i use…
Step 1 - When I start my tile-able texture I am assuming each 512x512 texture covers 2.5 to 3 meter of ground/wall …test your engine for the optimal resolution (depends on mipmaping distance…anything further than 3 meter from camera may mipmap to lower detail level and 1024x1024 resolution texture map will be a waste of your texture memory budget.
HINT:when working in zbrush use as big a document as your system allows (2K or 4K)to add all your cool details, for your final texture use 512 size.
Step2- find good references and call out a couple of good reference images(I use Aperture for my image collection…use keywords to help your search wall, windows, doors, etc.) …I also subscribe to cgtextures.com for references
Step3- Using photoshop I figure out my tiling grid patteren and test the grid texture on the geometry to make sure its reading well. Again checkout cgtextures.com under the tutorials tab for tiling complex patterns …there you will find a bunch of other good texturing technique/tutorials you may want to read and find useful.
Step4- Using Maya I model my grid using quad polygons…export geo as obj file
Step5- import obj maya file and use Zbrush to detail the blocks.
Step 6- Use Zbrush’s material grab and export Normal, diffuse color, specular, cavity,… etc. versions.
Step7-Use photoshop to composite and touchup your final texture
NOTE: for the real final texture i will spend time and add chewing gum; cigarette butts; twigs, oil spots; squashed insects,…others details to make it a bit more interesting texture.
Learn about and download Layer shift here:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=034651 Learning series by Ryan Kingslien.
Also refer to Zbrush classroom go to http://www.pixologic.com/zclassroom/homeroom/
look for tutorials by Sebastian Legrain.
Here is a screenflow movie of zbrush process, enjoy!
Hope this helps.
Behrooz<–“No matter where you go, there you are.” …The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
NEATO!
Thanks for the quick reply Behrooz I’m working on my finals < exterior and interior designs> , and I was just experimenting with the wall tile sets and ground tile sets, looking through alot of Kevin Johnstone 's stuff and his guide of “how to” and “where to” start. this was perfect timing for it.
If you dont mind me asking, how do you bake your ambient occlusion maps, inside of maya/max or using a shader program.
Im working with unreal engine right now but im sure Naughty Dog Engine should be very awesome to work with :0
/drool over “Environment Artist” job position in naughtydog :o
Thanks again for the info
never mind got my answer! thanks alot that was alot of real good info!
i haven’t used zbrush to that extent yet, i still yet to learn alot from zbrush.
I just saw the links too, gonna try it out right away
Ameer,
You are very welcome. nice concept work!
check out uv layout shading networks for baking lights into textures using mental ray,
Look for the 2002 lecture/DVD by Rob Ormond as part of the Siggraph Maya Learning seminar explaining the technique…
http://vfxkorea.tistory.com/entry/본문스크랩-mental-ray®-for-Maya®-in-Games-Applications
part two of the DVD talks about using shading tricks to baking lights into textures.
Good luck!
Behrooz<–Follow the white rabbit.
great techniques there. I would like to ask where are you baking your hard-body inorganic hires models in? Care to share your settings, since i’ve always had trouble transfering the hi-res details of my inorganic models to their lo-res counterparts. The details(like bevels) always look lame, often shadowy like light is not hitting the surface properly and sometimes, the bevels don’t necessarily comform to the surface of the lowres model resulting in jagged detail that i often have to retouch and fix in photoshop.
I did a gun before in maya and baked the hires to the lowres version in maya, the result was good only if i had the lo-res models normals’ edge smooth maxed to soft and then viewed at hi-quality rendering, and if i baked the maps from the hires to the lowres with this smoothing as well(since maya’s baking yields different looking normal maps based on different edge smoothing groups). But i heard that the display there doesn’t neccessarily appear what it would be in the engine, since if the normals are smoothed to its max it will appear soft and pasty and not hard-edged at all which is not the desired result. What would be your solution to this? A collegue mentioned to me, If you want to check what it will look like in a game engine, rendering the model in mental ray would display a closer approximation, is this true?
Care to show your workflow when transfering the hires details from zbrush model to the lowres ingame mesh for inorganic- hard edged models, esp. when the tri-count of these models are really low.
Thanks. no baking is necessary, textures( color , normal,…) are the final product…since the texture is applied straight to the polygon object (ie. simple plane) using the usual uv mapping… next time I get some free time will do a demo. see if this helps for now:
Behrooz<–The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.–Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Hi,
> check out uv layout shading networks for baking lights into textures using mental ray,
Just to know cause I am curious 
If I understand, you bake your ambient occlusion generated with mental ray in diffuse texture,
but what about the static lighting ?
Do you use lightmap for static lighting of your environment (simple or directional lightmap ?). Are they generated with mental ray ? I heard, some time ago that Naughty dog has a specific tools to generate light intensities then color these light after, which avoid to redo a full light calculation process when changing light settings.
Thanks for any light on this
Hi Sebalo,
Nope, Thats not how we bake our lights…I was just answering Ameer’s question about the general technique. We have specialized lighting tools, its out of my scope to explain here, Please refer to GDC2010 for more info:
Uncharted 2: HDR Lighting
Speaker: John Hable (Programmer, Naughty Dog)
Date/Time: Saturday (March 13, 2010) 3:00pm — 4:00pm
Location (room): Room 305, South Hall
Track: Programming
Secondary Track: Visual Arts
Format: 60-minute Lecture
Experience Level: Intermediate
Session Description
This session talks about HDR Lighting in Uncharted 2. The main focus will be Gamma/Linear-Space Lighting, Filmic Tonemapping, and Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion. Throughout the session, we will talk about all the little details that no one tells you, like why our SSAO only affects ambient light, how our highlights avoid clamping, and if specular maps should be stored in linear or gamma space.
Intended Audience
This lecture is intended for anyone who understands shaders, including engineers and artists. This presentation focuses on concepts and tradeoffs as opposed to hard-core implementation details.
Takeaway
Attendees will learn about our approach to HDR Lighting, as well as general color management. They will also hopefully learn more about managing light in a scene.
Behrooz<-knowledge worker…Shop Class as Soulcraft
Ok, thank you,
I have the good luck to be able to follow this conference at GDC,
I am very exicted by these topic
thanks to share your knowledge on this forum. Uncharted 2 is really a great success.
Eventually rest of us will find it online too;)
Behrooz<- Laughing without an accent
Session Description
This session talks about HDR Lighting in Uncharted 2. The main focus will be Gamma/Linear-Space Lighting, Filmic Tonemapping, and Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion. Throughout the session, we will talk about all the little details that no one tells you, like why our SSAO only affects ambient light, how our highlights avoid clamping, and if specular maps should be stored in linear or gamma space.
HA! Linear space lighting and AO multiplying done the proper way? Can’t wait to see this! I hope others will follow this trend.
Thanks for the reply. Sorry, what i meant by “baking” is to transfer hi resolution details into the low resolution mesh by producing a normal map.
But what if it is something as complex as say a gun, in which you cannot use just a 2.5d mesh in zbrush or a single plane in maya to do your normal map, where you really need to take the hires mesh into maya and bake it into the lowres side by side, how do you deal with this in your production workflow esp. when maya doesn’t have a gigapolygon core to handle many polys in it.
I have tried all the settings and positioning the lowres to the hires model as closely and accurate as possible, but i always end up with less than satisfactory results. Although it may look good when viewed under hi-resolution in maya’s viewport with its normals maxed to soft, but when i render it in mental ray, my gun looks like a balloon with details. On the other hand if i put its edge smoothing to hard, it doesn’t look like a balloon but the details projected look very cheap and obviously low-res looking esp. the bevels, if you know what i mean.
Good morning Jinian, As a background artist I make mostly repeating textures, but in some exceptions I want to bake my textures (edge grab objects).
see if this zmapper tutorial helps you:
http://gnomonology.com/group/14
( I am still on zbrush3.2, I understand you dont need zmapper for 3.5 version, I will try it today and let you know).
If everything else fails then checkout xnormal softwarehttp://www.xnormal.net/2.aspx
Behrooz<- holding my breath for Zbrush3.5 OSX
Wow! Such inspirational work!
Behrooz, thanks for all the great info. 
Do you know if you guys are going to be hiring any more Texture Artists anytime soon? Just curious.
Thanks. Check for job openings at naughytdog…looks like one open position
…there will be more openings , here:
Also read this article for some good advise.
http://www.cgchannel.com/2010/02/career-advice-from-rich-diamant/
Behrooz<- axis of harmony
Ok Thanks!
Hey Behrooz,
Your tutorial you posted on here as well as the zbrush video you put on youtube are SO helpful. Much appreciated.
I was just wondering about this part:
Step 6- Use Zbrush’s material grab and export Normal, diffuse color, specular, cavity,… etc. versions.
I know how to use the material grabber in zbrush and how to get the normal map with it, but how do you go about getting the diffuse, spec,and cavity maps? When you have time could you just give a quick rundown of how you setup/get your diffuse,spec, cavity, maps from zbrush? Are there any other maps you like to grab from zbrush to set up the final texture?
Much appreciated.
You are very welcome, Glad you find it useful.
attached are materials I use…To see the correct result you need to render using best mode (NOT Preview mode)
Materials are easy to setup,Also spend some time and learn about making your own materials and using Zapplink plugin.
see here for cool matcap info:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=46175&highlight=matcap+tutorial
Behrooz<–today figured out using Garmin forerunner 310XT for my workout …I like it!zbrush-rooz-matrials 2.zip (354 KB)