(https://i.imgur.com/7R2vBrk.png) So I'd like to make a dirty apartment corridor. The problem is that by using a single color everything looks super clean which is not what I am going for at all.
I'd also like to make cement floor but I have the same problem again. I usually 'cheat' my way out of it by using pattern on floors and walls but I'd like to learn how to have interesting wall and floor textures without using shapes and the like.
I hope I can get edit or tips from you guys.
Thank you.
Title: Re: How to make wall and floor textures
Post by: xix on February 26, 2020, 09:03:08 pm
If you want to make something dirty, you generally need a few off-tiles. The pattern is pretty grimey, but it's very evenly grimey. The walls have a kind of ugly yellowed color, but it's very consistently ugly yellow. Dirt and mess is a all about inconsistency as well as generally being ugly.
Title: Re: How to make wall and floor textures
Post by: Zizka on February 26, 2020, 10:22:45 pm
I totally agree with you on a cognitive level but I still have no clue how to do it practically speaking! :'(
Title: Re: How to make wall and floor textures
Post by: Chonky Pixel on February 27, 2020, 09:34:38 am
Think about what makes something look grimy. Here's a few ideas.
- Carpets get dust caught around the edges. Make your tile edges fade a bit near the walls. Make the fade irregular. - Stains. Make irregular patches of a darker shade. This goes for the carpets and the walls. - Detritus. Add some dark specks of... stuff. Better not think too deeply about what it is. Or if you want to think that deeply, draw them and add them in. Dead rats, syringes, cockroaches, whatever fits your genre. - Distressing. Make some cuts, dents, or similar damage to your walls. Make threadbare, torn or worn bits of carpet.
If you want to do a concrete floor, think about things like multi-storey or underground car parks. What makes the concrete floor look grimy? Maybe:
- Stains. - Cracks. - An uneven surface with dirt ground into dips and pockmarks.
Find stock images for the things you want to draw and study them to see what makes them work. If you have a go at making some grime, we can probably give better feedback. What you have here is a blank canvas. :)
Title: Re: How to make wall and floor textures
Post by: xix on February 27, 2020, 01:50:54 pm
Yup! What Chonky Said. As far as technique:
- I used a transparent layer to get the darkness on the edges of the carpet/walls - Stains look similar here, but you can make them specific to your reference. E.g. dried gum and paint on concrete - I am a huge fan of Aseprite's jumble tool for this (hit R twice)
This literally took me a minute. You can get really good with a good amount of time. I think the hard part for me is creating a tight usable tileset, but for that... just use more/bigger tiles.
(https://i.imgur.com/0dChWsw.png)
Title: Re: How to make wall and floor textures
Post by: Zizka on February 27, 2020, 02:11:23 pm
Edits are always useful. I can do stains and cracks and other high contrast details. It’s the low contrast texture I’m having trouble with. Cracks are easy to do, they stand out as individual objects. So are stains. What I’m looking to recreate is “sub texture” for lack of a better word: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cement-polish-beautiful-texture-603431633 (https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cement-polish-beautiful-texture-603431633)
No matter how hard I try, the result never looks believable.
Title: Re: How to make wall and floor textures
Post by: eishiya on February 27, 2020, 02:27:59 pm
Pixel art isn't a great medium for subtle textures as they tend to just look like noise, so you should focus on large-scale detail like stains and big splotches of different colours. Using subtle colour variations can create a grimy look without impacting readability. Grime in general is all about unevenness, don't just fill the walls with a solid colour. A pure solid colour just looks clean xP
I recommend filling our your hallway scene with props and then adding grime, as such things influence grime a lot and can make a hallway look gross even before you add any grime. For example, making the shadows in corners and between objects and walls deeper makes it look like the corners and gaps are filled with dirt. You could add cleaner patches on the walls in the shapes of objects that used to be there. (FWIW I think starting with a scene and developing the tiles out of it is a good approach in general.)
Some games use a very low-opacity noise layer either built into the tiles or as an overlay, that can be good for things like concrete or a general unpleasant look. Note that this can look out of place if other art is very clean. If the clean parts of your game have a clean style, then the grimy parts should achieve grime with clean, cluster-based effects such as splotches.
Title: Re: How to make wall and floor textures
Post by: Zizka on February 27, 2020, 06:18:42 pm
(https://i.imgur.com/7R2vBrk.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/KheIjbn.png) I didn't understand the bit about the carpet fading at the edge. There's still more work to be done about the carpet but I've run out of ideas for now.
Title: Re: How to make wall and floor textures
Post by: MysteryMeat on February 27, 2020, 07:01:06 pm
depending on the type of carpeting, the "fading at the edge" should be thought of more as how the carpet interacts with the edge. If it's, say, integrated shag? it'll probably get pressed up into the molding of the wall, causing a slight bit of a overlap at the edges:
However, carpets that are instead resting on the floor would have a little bit of gap space between the wall and carpeting, where the floor material would peek through:
or even in some fancier settings, rugs that are integrated will be designed to look like rugs that have been laid over the floor like the above example!
The edges of the floor will probably be where most damage and dirt builds up: - Foot damage - scuffs. - Dust and detritus missed by vacuum cleaners. - Things kicked out of the way.
You have lots of neat skirting board showing! :)
The door and mat on the left read to me like a box sticking out of the image. The gap between them on the rightmost door helps me work out what they are. Maybe rounding the edges of the mats would help as well, so they look like they're made of softer material. And removing the outlines.
Title: Re: How to make wall and floor textures
Post by: Zizka on February 28, 2020, 10:05:16 pm
Alright so I have *tried* to fit in all the comments but I *might* have missed some. I tried something with the mat in front the doors to make them look less floaty, let me know if I've succeeded.
Title: Re: How to make wall and floor textures
Post by: Chonky Pixel on March 01, 2020, 11:54:59 am
This is a massive improvement from your initial piece! I love the wall detail.
I'm still getting "box" vibes from the doormats, and using noise for texture (as you do for some of the mats) generally isn't a good idea. Some of the carpet texture is doing odd things to the idea of shadows around the doormats, and I still think it looks a touch unnatural where the mats touch the doors.
Title: Re: How to make wall and floor textures
Post by: Chonky Pixel on March 01, 2020, 12:25:37 pm
(https://i.imgur.com/gNEkCPa.png)
Just a very quick edit with a few small ideas regarding texture. For the door, you can add texture to the outsides (top and bottom) and the middle can remain blank. To me, this gives a better finish than slapping texture all over a surface. It gives a sense of seeping damp to me as well. :)
For the mat, I've changed the single pixels (which contain no information) to double pixels, often married with opposite coloured counterparts. This should give more of an impression of actual texture (strands going in the same direction) and a little 3D from the contrasting colours.
I attempted to remove the box-like feel by getting rid of the hard borders and doing a little light-source work. (Imagine light coming from top-left as that matches the door.) Added a stain to the mat, softened the corners and gave it a bit of an angle.
Just ideas, feel free to ignore.
Title: Re: How to make wall and floor textures
Post by: Zizka on March 01, 2020, 01:20:48 pm
Great edit, thank you. Will give it a shot when you get home. A pictures *is* worth a thousand words!
Title: Re: How to make wall and floor textures
Post by: Zizka on March 03, 2020, 06:35:32 pm