The Architecture 3: Painting Texture & Physics

I found I was being so stupid to paint the textures using just Photoshop based on the exported uv “blindly” before, it was so slow and painstaking and there were quite a lot flaws because of the non-contiguous seams. And I learned from the Night Cafe Project that he used Mudbox to paint the bitmap directly and turns out nice so I am considering to get one too.

But I used Blender’s texture painting this time for the new building. It’s much easier than use only Photoshop although the hardness of the brush is unchangeable and it turns out the vague edges which is quite unpleasant.

I also tried the unlit shader as used in the Night Cafe which creates an amazing painting-styled environment. It’s kind of a 2D-like 3D, but I have to say at this stage the flat colour is not really compatible with others and everything needs to be changed if I wanted them to fit. I’m going to change the skybox, but I have no idea if I can manage the terrain and plant. Also the style of Bosch is more realistic and not like Van Gogh’s, and there’ll still be reflective materials like glass and metal so, I’m not sure now but maybe it’s not suitable for mine. But it’s good to know this technique.

Anyway I’ve just finished the second big building and I tried more with the joint physics which was used on the hanged red ball on the above pink building.

This time I tried to make the branches waves so I gave it a try to separate them into pieces and add joint physics. So as how people make rope physics, the tip one is the child of the former one which is again the child of the one before it… But if I still use hinge joint then they’ll collapse like a hinge will do and a branch is not gonna be soft as that. So I tried fixed joint. It turned out nice to wave like a branch but the problem was it would soon stop even though I turned of the drag coefficient. And then my solution is to tie something transparent as hinge or add some constant force to the top ones, as well as add their mass.

For those grow upwards I unchecked the “use gravity”, just use hinge joints and add an upwards constant force to the top one, so it moves like a balloon – maybe they seem a bit too much “enchanting” for a branch though.. Just because fixed joints don’t wave so much and would stop soon even if I added force. There might be some solution to the fixed one though….

Hopefully it wouldn’t seem “so much” after the other moving elements (creatures) are added later.