Reference Materials, Textures, and Practical Stuff for 3D Animation
- 1 Basic Materials
- 2 Basic Textures
- 3 Creating a Morgue
- 4 Photo Gallery
- 5 Look and Collect
- 6 Exercises
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
The previous chapter attempted to train your eyes and mind to take notice and ask questions by looking at real materials. This sample chapter prepares you to begin collecting reference materials in your mind and in your office. You begin by investigating materials and their textures in photographs and then see how you can use these photos to further your exploration of materials and textures. You will be asked to explore the different sources available to create a library of reference called a morgue.These sources include: magazines, the Internet, and real materials to name a few. Finally, at the end of this chapter, the "Photo Gallery" section contains several different photographs through which I discuss the effects of nature, and effects of other materials on surfaces, which all contribute to create textures. As you study these photographs, continue exercising your artistic eye and practice the art of looking and dissecting that began in Chapter 1.
Now it is time to fill your head with as much information about materials and textures as possible. What follows are some photographs that I took walking around Manhattan, a city very rich in texture. These photos are a very generalized and arbitrary overview of materials and textures that appealed to me. Please keep this book as a general reference guide by your desk. It will help you when you start on your own pictorial reference expedition.
2.1 Basic Materials
This first part of the picture reference section shows pictures of materials as close as possible to their perfect state. I found out during my collecting that it is difficult to find a perfect state in reality. I relied on material samples from stores and also thoroughly investigated surfaces in the real world during my exploration to find these basic materials.
What follows are some photographs of materials in their near-perfect state. Refer to them as you go through this book, and use them as a basic reference guide in your professional endeavors. It is important to know what materials look like in this state—raw and untainted like a newborn baby. Think of these materials as the first layer of your paint program. The "virgin" blank canvas on which every other detail falls.