R2D2 Texturing

R2D2 Texture

Having completed the texturing exercises, it became apparent then best solution for texturing R2D2 was using procedural maps. His mainly solid colours don't necessarily require a seamless texture from real life. Because of this, it seemed appropriate to add detail to the simple white and blue colours using procedural maps. Another important part of his components is the metal material, of which I researched the most effective way to achieve a good effect. This was useful as it meant I could use it on my other models.

1) The metal texture used mainly on the head is made of a multi layer texture with medium to low specular glossiness. The best part of this realistic metal texture is the reflections using raytracing, better shown on the snowspeeder which uses the same material). Interestingly, the diffuse colour is near black; the light and how it responds to it is what gives it the grey metal effect.

2) The blue panels use a simple blue colour on a standard material. This works well as they only require the one colour. With a medium height and slightly thin curve on the specular highlight graph, they still catch the light quite nicely as shown on the edges of the inset and extruded panels

3) The glass eyes uses a metal preset under the preset architectural materials. Having experimented with these presets, this gave the best result with the small specular highlight. This has also been used for the smaller eyes as shown to the bottom right of the main eye.

4) Still using a standard nearly white texture, I felt the main body needed some subtle detail. Though quite extreme up close, feeding in a noise map with small brown fractal specs created a good rust effect

Good parts:

• All materials using presets or in built procedural maps means there is no reliance on using textures that could have issues with seams
• Metal texture can be used by saving it to material library for use in other models
• Use of fairly simple in built materials or effects means render time should not be too high

Improvements:

• Despite the aforementioned benefits, using a realistic, real world texture would give a better effect with more detail in terms of scratches etc
• Rust effect on R2D2 could be more realistic using a different effect or an imported texture