This course will cover all the aspects for the high resolution texturing of a vehicle, in this instance a war-rig truck, featured in a movie as a hero asset, designed for close-ups.
Artist Alban Orlhiac will start by looking at artistic concerns and colour approach to determine how should a heavily-weathered, dusted up vehicle roaming the deserts that has seen lots of action be painted. From the base paint coat of its earlier and fresher life to the grimy, rusty and oily looks showing the passage of time and a high mileage.

This course will take you through a full review of UV optimization for close-up requirements in shots, reference gathering and colour palette composition to the full texturing in multiple layers using Photoshop and advanced tools and methods in Mari.

Alban Orlhiac is a Lead Texture Artist at Double Negative with more than 15 years of experience. He has been working in London since 2003 and has achieved various movies such as Batman Begins, Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince, Total Recall, Skyfall, Thor : The Dark World and recently Mission Impossible : Rogue Nation. He is currently involved in the next James Bond movie. He covered the modelling and texturing aspects of VFX301: Tornado Destruction.
course syllabus
Class 1: UV layout in Maya. UV optimization for maximized space used in a picture. Resolution considerations in regard to final screen resolution for a hero asset.
Class 2: Looking at reference pictures to determine key aspects for texturing : colour palettes, types of details and list of layers to be added up for the final look. Gathering reference pictures and setting up the work environment in Mari : importing models and creating layers and channels.
Class 3: Base paint layer for the whole truck : the challenge of painting an asset in black and work a rounds to give a natural look to the paint. Determining key areas by painting variations in the black and preparing it for the first details pass.
Class 4: First detail pass : bespoke painted details for the props and specific parts of the truck. Aiming at using photorealistic references only and make them all live in the same world through consistent grading and level of details.
Class 5: Second detail pass : scratches and bumps on large flat areas. First look at secondary textures with the painting of displacement for the larger bumps.
Class 6: Last detail pass : rust and weathering, including oil smudges. First look at the importance of specular and roughness maps using a Mari shader to look at the oily look of textures.
Class 7: Weathering layer : Creating an occlusion pass in Mari to control painting in receding areas. Using a procedural layer to paint a first quick dust pass.
Class 8: Finessing the dust pass and breaking it up in different layers for different uses in shots : collision and speed accumulated dust, piled up dust, collision and friction dust smudges.
Class 9: Overview of the colour textures and final touch ups. Overall grading using Mari grading nodes as adjustment layers.
Class 10: Creation of all secondary passes : bump, specular, specular roughness and transparency textures. Creation of a quick look development in Mari using its shaders.