I’m building a cyberpunk/apocalyptic style map and I can’t seem to find a good way to make small assets seem corroded without using the ugly corroded metal material.
The corroded metal material in itself isn’t bad, it just doesn’t flow well enough with other metal materials (Metal and Diamond Plate) to make a whole asset out of.
I’ve done this type of thing in the past and just made certain parts of the asset seem corroded, but you can tell it doesn’t quite look right because the regular Metal material is too “perfect” so-to-speak and contrasts way too hard with the corroded metal.
The two things I’ve tried:
Making the whole asset corroded metal looks really bad unless the entire area around it is some other “rough-looking” material (such as grass, slate, sand, etc.)
Making the whole asset out of regular Metal looks too “clean” for a corroded feel
For now I’ve resigned to making the entire asset Metal and making really small whole pieces of it corroded metal (not like in the image), but that seems to be the closest I can get to a corroded look without it looking strange.
Nice model! I think the contrast is so extreme because the corrosion is too contained. Corrosion is random and is really messy, so get the model messy:
(Not pictured would be the rust around the model itself where there would have rust leaking onto the surrounding surfaces)
(I’d 100% use a texture if I were making a serious asset, but you get the idea)
Basically make it look like it’s been rained on for a decade, and the metal has oxidized and rubbed off with the rain. Provide lots of slight colour variations and grime as needed.
Let us know what you come out with, I’d be interested what you decide to change!
Darn I was hoping to avoid textures because it takes so much extra time to find a good number of free textures that flow together (let alone the time required if I wanted to make my own textures). ):
Though you did give me the idea of using negations to counteract the “containment” of the corrosion. Thanks!
The corroded metal material has been an ugly mess for quite some time, and I don’t know of many situations where it actually looks passable with other materials. It’s just too strong and saturated with the rust to be of any real “rust” look.
Textures are surprisingly easy to make, and you should consider playing around with them to make something. Especially as your alternative is using unions which - while convenient - are not really great for performance.
Let me know if you need any additional help or have more questions
If I was working on a rustic style I’d use textures.
I just threw this together real quick to show you what I mean. Textures add that charm you where explaining about, and if you make them or find some you could really make a great rustic / apocalyptic theme with that.
You could seriously make some cool designs using them.
As you said previously, you wanted to avoid textures, in the last case scenario and you do use it, go to textures.com for free textures which are very varied in categories.
You can use negate to put random indents. But you’d need to go quite extreme if you’re not using textures if you want to convey that really nice corroded structure
What program do you use when creating textures? When I use them (which I do a lot) I find them online, knowing how to make custom textures would help greatly! Thanks!
I know I’m not the person who this question was directed towards, but I figured I’d give a shot at answering this, if that’s okay.
Photoshop will always be an amazing tool for a variety of purposes, but it is surprisingly helpful in creating simple game textures. There’s a great article that explains some techniques, but I’m hesitant to link it. So, here’s a summary with some of my own pointers thrown in:
Although Filters are oftentimes looked down upon, they can be manipulated and combined to create more intricate results. For example, combining the Noise and Emboss filters can give you a base for a customized concrete texture. Similarly, we can create a wood texture by “squashing” a rendered cloud filter in half via the Image Size tool and then adding the Posterize effect, producing the beginnings of a sweet wood grain.
Use Blending Modes to combine layers. Try breaking down an otherwise complex texture into layers and combining them through blending. There’s also Advanced Blending and Blend If options that can be used to only affect certain portions of your texture. For example, you can create a glossy texture by only affecting white painted areas.
Combine gradients, solid colors, etc. Adding on to the previous points, having your levels/areas of detail separated between layers helps both in organization and just seeing what you’re doing to the texture. An example provided in the article is a wine bottle that uses 3 different gradient shadow textures: one for the general color and shading, one of the edges, and one for the bulb shape that you often see at the bottom of a wine bottle.
Use Brushes, both built in and customized. These can be used to do whatever you want, from adding dirt to a texture to putting “dents” in a metal frame. It’s a slightly complicated process, though can result in some amazing textures!
Add color at the end! If you’re making something from scratch, color will just get in the way of your texturing process. There are exceptions to this (like with brushes), but use your own judgement.
Bonus round: Just use existing images that you can then modify! If you don’t have the time or knowledge to create custom textures from scratch (I know I don’t, most of the time), use textures from existing pictures or scans. However, be careful with incorrect perspective, lighting, and the chance of making the texture appear “flat”.
Additionally, 3ds Max is an amazing tool, but it’s pretty dang expensive. Sometimes I just use Paint . NET (separated so that it does not create a link), but it’s pretty janky and limited in comparison to Photoshop. The caveat to all of this is that most of the time I personally just look for something online, because by no means am I a full-time, professional dev and thus the results are not worth the time spent.
Hope this helps a bit! It’s kind of a crazy process, so if someone else has an easier way to make textures from scratch, I’d love to hear about it so I don’t have to spend hours slaving away for exactly what I’m looking for.
You can try using a non-roblox texture either custom made or from the internet, etc, and make it translucent so that you can clearly see the rust but it has the hue of the original material.
Back to the point, to make things seem corroded but fuse nicely you can use more materials, if you stick to corroded metal you will have a high probability to ruin the model and make it not interesting.
What you have to do is to the use materials like granite, diamond plate, neon and such to help “hide” the corroded metal but still to give it the looks of an old/ruined item and make it much more interesting.
Sometimes I just use Paint . NET (separated so that it does not create a link), but it’s pretty janky and limited in comparison to Photoshop. The caveat to all of this is that most of the time I personally just look for something online, because by no means am I a full-time, professional dev and thus the results are not worth the time spent.
