Texture Maps Explained - Essential for All Texture Artists

[@CandiRabbit]

You just saved my life; I've been on a long trail, an adventure that has lasted a very long time; Tutorial videos have come throughout my lifetime, Most of them, Recorded on some type of Ancient 240p Softwares. Usually not in english; But an alien language- FUll of breathing in the microphone, and The guy whispering to the point of RIP Headphone users. Usually forgetting what they're teraching mid way through the video. I feel like my quest for the holy grail has ended. Thank you.

[@LC-yo3bj]

Lol

[@TchenZMary]

😂

[@AngryKittens]

Not to mention those other "tutorial" videos usually don't even talk about the topic until 2/3rds of the video. They spend the rest of it repeating really basic things you already know or talking about something else completely different.

[@Belidos3D]

You mention that a color/albedo map can also be called a diffuse map, but its a little more complicated than that, and not always the case. The term diffuse generally refers to the pre-PBR DNSI workflow (Diffuse, Normal, Specular, Illumination) in which it was pretty common to use real world images as diffuse textures, or when using generated color textures, to multiply the Ambient Occlusion over the colors. So a lot of the time the difference between albedo and diffuse will be quite big as diffuse will contain light and shadow information whereas albedo will contain pure color.

[@FayeDelusions]

You are a GODSEND. thank you so much for making this video!

[@FlippedNormals]

Thank you! :D

[@carlosmarcial61]

Whoa! When I started doing 3D, I always wished for a video like this! 5 years later is here! Thank you FlippedNormals... keep creating such good content!

[@FlippedNormals]

Thanks a bunch, Carlos!

[@jeggzzzz]

One of the best texturing tutorials online. thank you. Perfect timing since I'm working on textures for my final project for school. I'm also one of the victims of albedo focusing. I'll be utilizing your advice regarding bump, roughness and spec maps instead. I work too much in stylized textures. I think that's why I focus so much on the diffuse map to assign most textures for hand painted textures. Always appreciate your videos, Henning and Morten!

[@FlippedNormals]

Thanks a lot, Sebastian! We really appreciate it.

[@ReedHeisleyShellaby]

Thanks guys! I'm learning 3D from home, and videos like this bring a lot of clarity. Looking forward to the texturing tutorial.

[@zacharycottet1819]

I like the way you guys explain the normal maps and bump maps. This will be needed for my classes at college

[@Spag_Zonkman]

One of the best tutorials I've seen on all the different texture maps. Very helpful. Thanks!

[@FlippedNormals]

Thank you so much!

[@shashankhg7266]

Don't mind me, just leaving a comment for the algorithm containing words like Awesome, Informative, and Great Video. Thank you for the tutorial. Was fun watching this now.

[@CyclonicTuna023]

I know of a school here in the Netherlands (I applied for it), where they do actually teach you to handpaint normal maps. Its pretty cool actually. You get a much better understanding of how it actually works.

[@Strubey]

Great video! Another good thing to keep in mind is that when you're working with metals and have the metalness set to 1, the "color" slot controlls the specular color, not the diffuse color since metals generally don't really have a diffuse component. So it's usually a good idea to keep that map in grayscale unless you want a very specific metal like copper or gold.

[@rKringtonezone]

I am literally waiting for this for almost 2-3 months and guys do it for me. God blessed you sir you are my mentor after mike Hermes . thanks for this video.

[@FlippedNormals]

Thank you so much! Mike is also great :)

[@leevigalita847]

Nice video! Would have been cool to drop some words about the differences between Metallic and Specular workflows when it comes to PBR. I see a lot of people thinking that specular maps are something from the past, and who don't understand how it works in PBR specular. Keep up the good work!

[@jeromyperez5532]

Yeah, I had to point out to my students how we use Specular in PBR workflows. I think it is useful that they pointed out how different shaders use different specular/gloss/metal maps, but without a few specific examples kind of feels like a throwaway point.

[@jassem500]

@@jeromyperez5532 can I know what collage is teaching graphics design or what where is 3d art is being thought ?

[@JavierGonzalez-qg5el]

You guys knocked it out of the park again. Thanks so much for this.

[@FlippedNormals]

Thanks a bunch Javier!

[@ramsharma8958]

this is great video ,this is what i searched in the whole internet but finally found here...great work guys,thank you guys very much

[@VicVegaTW]

Personally such good timing for my current stage. Thanks! Lighting next?

[@TheRealSamKumar]

Bless you. OMG Hope you get more views and subscribers. I literally can't explain how glad i am to see this video

[@FlippedNormals]

Awesome, thanks a lot Sam!

[@jezelf2774]

Height maps - Displacement/bump/normal - usage depends on the platform/goal and distance from POV. No point in using displacement if the final result a normal map will do, if you couldn't see the difference in any circumstance. In games (my area) , I consider displacement/bump as levels of details. For example, you can use a tiled displacement for rocky terrain, then add a tiled normal map as a detail map for when you get up close. They can both be the same shapes/source data, but at different scales and tile. In games, Normal map generally rules over the others. In Unity you can import a height map and convert it to a Normal map in the engine. This is helpful because you can author a single texture for a displacement and normal map and modify the normal intensity in the engine to be more creative based upon hat you're seeing in the engine. When you bake out a normal map, from another program like zbrush or Xnormal, you're 'locked' to those height values, which may be too subtle in the game engine and it need s bit bit of a push (even though you've correctly work to it being 'physically correct' ), with Unity there's an intensity slider and you can edit it quickly - I'm mainly referring to environment stuff here. Characters should be fine baking a normal map out. People are making really cool displaced stuff in Substance Designer, but it's impractical for games *atm* because the poly count the displacement requires is huge - but I'm sure in 10 years it'll be the norm. BTW you can paint Normal maps - well, edit them. You use the channels, regard them as gray scale with lighting coming from a direction (and use masks sometimes) then put them back into the channels. I wouldn't recommend it as an authoring technique; the values matter - but OK for any tweaks or edits if you can't eliminate it before a bake etc or there's a persistent few pixels that are causing problems. TBH it *is* bad practice, and not a good workflow in a team, cause if there's change later it has to be done again - so *always* better to fix in the source, but if it's just you and and there's little time for a deadline or it's a tiny edit, it can help as a last resort. Cavity and curvature maps can also be used on a height or albedo map, it's a cheat, but means everything lines up if you may want to subtly modify/exaggerate - e.g to use stylized cartoony stuff. In games, AO maps are not always used unless the scene lighting is locked. (shinning a torch in a dark room will 'break' an AO map) For this there's Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) and so you don't need the separate texture.

[@anthony_smysh]

Many thanks for this comment. Very cool and useful insides 🙌

[@samyabraham5642]

very informative video i never have been able to understand what maps is. Especially normal one thanks a million times for that video

[@FlippedNormals]

Thanks a ton, Samy! :)

[@chrisddawson]

This is a helpful video. Even for someone who has done this, both in the physical world and in the CG world, I found this a great resource. Thanks!

[@Plentiy]

Das beste Video zum Thema dass ich gefunden habe. Vielen Dank!

[@rKringtonezone]

I Learned substance painter from substance videos but not 100%. So I love to see your tutorials on substance painter core series .

[@jack-hale]

Oh my god thank you. I've been sculpting for years and have No idea where to start with shading, rendering, texturing, ect. Hopefully this will send me on the right path

[@FlippedNormals]

Awesome! We hope this helps :) We have a full Introduction series to Painter coming out soon too.

[@kidehoward93]

thanks for clarifying the uses/differences between bump, normal, and displacement!

[@FlippedNormals]

Happy to help, Kide!

[@woah9839]

Feeling like some things are a lot more clear now. Thanks for taking the time to explain this all!

[@lockenessmotorsports818]

Brilliant definitely getting the full tutorial when it comes out can't wait :)

[@gamedev251]

thank you so much, super helpful, and one of the tutorials I can listen while resting my eyes XD

[@FlippedNormals]

You're welcome 😊

[@makentoarts986]

It's amazing explanation. Thank you!

[@NightWarp]

Well done! Would have liked to see more of the bumb/normal debate in painter vs outside painter as its a part where i struggle a bit more but thats just me. More painter stuff please!

[@lando6583]

great video! thanks for keeping it general and abstract. I'm a unity developer and found this immensely insightful!

[@fivemeomedia]

thank you! i remember when learning 3d this was the hardest subject its very hard to get clear info on this so thanks for this

[@kimellis3468]

Good teamwork! Great help. Thank you! : )

[@kylisation]

NIce, been waiting for someone to explain the various maps!!!

[@FlippedNormals]

Fantastic! We hope this helps then :)

[@BlueprintBro]

Fantastic. I'm new to all of this stuff so this was so informative. Great explanation.

[@MI3dART]

Amazing info! Learned a lot from it and it's very thourough!

[@tylermiller9212]

I'm messing around with Unity and it seems that it's pritty easy to tell the difference between maps used for movies and maps used for games. Also, you can use these maps for sprites in games to provide more detail.

[@bivanzone]

This video is probably the best and most informative videos about 3D art I have ever seen. There is so much valuable information, not a second is wasted. Thank you so much guys, you have my subscription! But I'm just clueless about one thing. How do I create these various maps? Where do they come from? I imagine you can create them via modelling, photo editing or just straight up painting. I'm using blender but thinking of getting substance.

[@ItsNuree]

Thank you for this! I have a few questions of my own, but I'll go and do more research about it. What matters is that I enjoyed watching, and I learned a bunch. Just wanted to add that your interactions with one another is genuinely fun and engaging. I wish I can have similar friendship with someone

[@temptor7585]

normal maps and bump maps are a godsend in video games

[@cowclucklater8448]

You can paint normal maps you just got to do the colors separately and understand normals very well. Its hard though so most of the time you want to generate it unless its for something easier to paint, and theres reason to paint it.

[@nadinheinke]

This was very helpful to watch, thank you

[@theophileeyong787]

I already know this stuff, but I just had to come and leave a like. Love what you guys are doing!

[@johnnydarling8021]

18:40 Considering that the Metallic Map is basically only going to ever be set to two values, is there a more optimized way of formatting it?

[@skrap5008]

I actually took notes from this. Thanks chads!

[@jclefbouncyrock]

Thanks, guys - great tutorial!

[@handsomeman-child8751]

So a vector displacement map is basically what sculpt maps in Second Life are. They're essentially textures that appoint vector positions using values of red (x), green (y), and blue (z). They are limited to grids of 32x32 which means you can only have have a total of 1,024 points. I'm surprised you guys say there's little documentation considering they were first implemented over a decade ago. Maybe they just became so overshadowed by other rendering methods that almost no one bothered to experiment with it anymore.

[@KRGraphicsCG]

Love this video... always find your videos cool and informative :D

[@gnightrow4020]

This is Such a Useful Tutorial Thanks

[@Sukotto82]

you answered my question in the first 2 minutes and 15 seconds. I was simply trying to add a few different colored armors of existing armors in the game of kenshi and I changed both the colors in the diffuse and the normal maps with horrible results. I was just wanted to change the color not the texture or light reflection and such and I guess all I need to do is change the color of the diffuse and leave the rest alone. now to test this out and see what happens.

[@julie_mg]

In case anyone is confused - as I was initially - the 'albedo' map as explained in this video is actually the base colour map - as its a PBR Metallic workflow / I think / newbie to 3D and learning from different sources atm.

[@kendarr]

Yeah, Diffuse, Albeto, Base Color, all the same thing, different names likely from different generations of artists, but they are all the same, also the bump map (the black and white) is also called Height

[@namai-ki9681]

Thank you so much for this video! Very helpful.

[@everabyss]

Very Nice video Benefits me a lot.

[@FlippedNormals]

Thanks a lot! Glad it helps :)

[@everabyss]

@@FlippedNormals Please keep up the good work and I also appreciate the fact that you guys paid attention to Blender 2.8 :)

[@Learco1996]

Cool! Please continue making videos of substance painter, are very useful

[@ogarga666]

no words for you guys. thx

[@abhishekvijay8804]

Still remember the time I thought normal map is made just like albedo in Photoshop

[@jackliu8991]

normal map in chinese sounded like "hairline map" and I thought it's for making cg hair (it can be use for that tho haha)

[@dsofe4879]

well there are ways/tools for making normals in photoshop...

[@fernwehmind]

you can ?

[@kevbri11]

@@fernwehmind yeah, look it up

[@dsofe4879]

@Nicholas Hansen What do you mean, "not true"? Generating normal maps from height maps is literally a bone-stock feature of photoshop, not to mention all the plugins there are.... Maybe you mean baking normals? I'm not aware of any way to do that in Photoshop, but baking from a high-res mesh is by far not the only way to generate a normal map.

[@geraldballesteros3839]

Thank you Henning and Morten! I hope I got the names correct. :)

[@FlippedNormals]

You did :)

[@andrewbyrnes6389]

So I should use a vector map on my shirt fabrics so I can cover the material in miniature ears?

[@cgimadesimple]

super informative video!!

[@ink_redemption_jack4244]

Can you guys make a video on parallax map and other missed out maps

[@GameArtsCafe]

Shouldn't tangent VDMs not have to worry about position and scale? I thought this was the purpose of tangent, same with Scalar displacement.

[@TheNewjanaful]

Hi, how can i create the ID map? DO you guys have a video about it?

[@ProgInternetExplorer]

cool vid, understood most of what I wanted to, ty

[@markkuykendall1751]

Y'all mentioned how vector disp maps are just coming into wider usage now and are still not particularly well documented. A similar dynamic on the gaming side of CG exists with Bent Normal Maps.

[@abdh621]

Thank you 1000 times for this.

[@katalinos100]

Wait , Is Bump and Cavity map not the same though ? Just with different style of map creation ?

[@pathikbiswasvisualart]

Very very helpful.Thanks.

[@andrzejmalik2424]

Hey! It's interesting that you decide if the material is metal or not based on electricity conduction not really on looks of the material. That said how would you qualify graphite and shade it? It conducts but it's not metal. This may be theoretical question but at some point you may have to render high guality detailed pencil so there will be graphite to render.

[@wraithe5367]

where would you use fuzziness map/F[uzz map?

[@vanhertenouterwear]

So with the AO map, would the color in the dark areas come from the environment, or change according to what color is available in the environment or maybe a combination of color from the object and the environment?

[@rkanu.a]

I was curious to know the baking resolution used in the texture and the resolution used for Maya models for nice and clean texture without geting pixilations...thanks and great video......

[@Agherr08]

many thanks, very useful!

[@vidarvaggen]

Very educational. Thanks!

[@FlippedNormals]

Happy to help!

[@yeta3d]

Great video. Thanks

[@ashishdhakal4087]

Hello Can you guyz tell me more about creating and making vector displacement maps ourselves ( are there any espical software apart from photoshop). Just willing to learn more about multichannel displacement map Maybe it could help me understand more deeper if we figure out how is it actually created

[@jacktoddy9783]

Totally crazy like super cool !

[@FlippedNormals]

Awesome, thanks for watching Jack!

[@blast2000]

then,what is the good way to use AO,if it's not multiply :)

[@paymansalehishafa6884]

Would you still use a normal map if a displacement map is already in use?

[@murrowboy]

Can you really select the bolts for the ID map? It's in green like the rest of the fans.

[@swarmX]

Ive always wanted to incorporate XYZ for those hi rez textures, but placing them has never clicked with me. Can you guys consider maybe going over incorporating XYZ into workflows? And the best practices for it?

[@FlippedNormals]

Good idea! We'll be sure to do that.

[@swarmX]

@@Anton_G_604 Damn, thats a bit of a shame. Theres so many softwares to use in a pipeline im honestly not looking to bust my ass learning mari, and especially not mudbox (however i have heard its good for texturing)

[@josh-ed7je]

@@swarmX You can learn Mari in about a hour tbh. Its not a hard program to learn or use at all its just doesnt have the prettiest UI. But it is hands down the best software if you want to project images like XYZ.

[@navegandollegueaqui1258]

Good video,, the world of 3d is fascinating, sorry for my english ,,, greetings

[@mayteexxis]

15:20 I've seen a post on artstation of someone who handpainted a normal map. I never thought it was possible

[@mayteexxis]

@Guilherme Oliveira magazine.artstation.com/2019/04/handpainting-normal-maps-in-photoshop-with-nick-lewis/

[@mayteexxis]

@Guilherme Oliveira I know right? He must have deeply studied the height information each shade of the color thing gives because I still don't understand how he did it

[@VicVegaTW]

Can you try the Unity Delighting Tool? I have tried it and its great but it leaves some artifacts for some reason. All you need is the base colour (albedo), normals, bent normals, ambient occlusion, position and mask. Just chuck em in as far as i can tell?

[@purposeoflife47]

Great Info

[@roxonogueira]

This is incredibly helpful, specially for someone who only works with render engines. For example, how can we plug metallic and roughness maps in a v-ray material? They're not the same as reflect or glossiness maps, right?

[@mus_cetiner]

Nice video team.

[@FlippedNormals]

Thank you! :)

[@nxtlvl2116]

so what the use for specular weight in arnold !! it's have roughness too ? i saw a lot of artist that use specular in face texture and then add roughness mask under the eye and nose and other glosse area !! why >?

[@sgm7650]

"YESSSSS" That was me in the first seconds of the video xd. And mostly what I don't understand is the differences between similar maps like SPECULAR AND GLOSSINESS (sounds like the same to me :v) Or Normal and WORLD NORMAL (LIKE WTF)

[@giaco89]

Looking for that texturing tutorial guys! :)

[@FlippedNormals]

Thank you!

[@Tronx431]

What a bright yellow map, i have no idea what type of texture map that is

[@julianhartinger4449]

Pretty awesome and helpful video- i have learned a lot. But i have one little question- what is the difference between a cavity and a displacement and/or bump map? As i understand, they are all responsible for the "depth"? Do i get this right?

[@funnyanimalworld7579]

i have never heard about some of these maps like position map

[@alikhawar520]

I think the key to getting the best albedo maps lies in photography itself. The stuff or people you photograph, can be lit evenly from all sides, using the softest light in order to avoid the the highlights and shadows. The highlights and shadows in the photo at 3:15 were caused by a somewhat small and hard light source. And even if you use polarizing filters, you cannot get rid of them.

[@alexanderrupprecht8934]

Could you please make a tutorial on how to use the multichannel faces from texturing xyz with substance painter(allign all the maps to a specific mesh in general)?I only found a pipeline for mari.Great video btw:)

[@mateuszwodarski4073]

if anybody changing gpu or plan do it - i would gladly adopt old one. I promise to clean it every week and do not overheat it too much. Btw. great channel and vids. Have a good one.

[@merna9615]

thanks a a lot !

[@FlippedNormals]

You're welcome

[@ofekdavid1757]

you guys are awesome thank you so much!

[@FlippedNormals]

Thank you!

[@d4psa1]

The map you are referring to as "albedo" in this particular example is not actually an albedo map, but a "base color" map - PBR Metallic workflow uses a base color map instead of an albedo map, since the map also has the specularity of metals added to it as color values, and the different materials (non-metals = dielectrics, and metals = conductors) are separated in the shader using the metallic map as a mask. An actual albedo map (Used in the PBR Specular workflow) would show all metallic surfaces as completely black, since metals don't have any diffuse reflection (albedo), and their reflectivity (specular) and color would be stored in the specular map instead.

[@d4psa1]

Also at 26:00 - 26:26 you say "Ambient Occlusion ... Has nothing to do with lighting" which is just completely incorrect - ambient occlusion map is exactly a map that simulates how easily a ray of light from an ambient light source can reach a point (directly or via bounce reflections) on the surface, and the more geometry there is that occludes a specific point on the surface, the darker that point gets in the map. They are mostly used for enhancing or replacing a GI (Global Illumination) rendering solution, since GI is fairly performance intensive to render, especially in real time, which is why shaders in virtually every modern game engine can use pre-computed ambient occlusion maps to add more realistic shadowing to objects rather cheaply. AO maps can _also_ be used for texturing purposes in programs like Substance Painter, since they are useful for generating different effects, like dirt accumulating into crevices, or masking edge wear effects.

[@FlippedNormals]

Thanks for clarifying between base color and albedo. Regarding AO, we stand by what we said. The values it generates has *nothing* to do with lighting, and everything to do with the geometry. You can definitely use it to fake GI or to darken shadows, but that has nothing to do with how the map was generated. An AO map is a mask which can be used for a bunch of different things, including adding GI and additional lighting.

[@d4psa1]

@@FlippedNormals I really appreciate what you are doing, and value your skills and knowledge, especially in terms of sculpting and pipeline. Your videos and tutorials are generally very well made and beginner-friendly. But I feel like recently your (free) videos have been either way less useful, or riddled with inaccuracies - your earlier videos had a lot more info and tips I found very useful, and I felt I learned new things from those. Nowadays I find myself cringing at your videos from time to time... As you are doing this as a full time job now, maybe you could consider hiring experts to talk about things you yourselves are not as experienced with, to avoid spreading misinformation, and to provide your audience the most useful knowledge and skills possible, in exchange for their time/money.

[@pottuvoi2]

​@@FlippedNormals It is a shadowing term of a white ball surrounding the object. (It was originally designed for shadowing/occluding ambient light and as you said it's really horrible hack.) ILM used bent normals in combination with them for directionality and thus a lot better quality when they first time used them in Pearl Harbor. renderwonk.com/publications/s2010-shading-course/snow/sigg2010_physhadcourse_ILM.pdf

[@julie_mg]

thanks for explaining - I found the albedo map explanation in the video confusing.

[@miloschjovanovic]

Hi! Thanks for great tutorials! You said that using displacement maps will drastically slow down the rendering time. Can you please explain what would be the best way to use bump and displace maps together? For example, we have retopo model in maya (that should be animated) and high frequency one i zbrush that we use for creating maps. How to export bump and displace map from ZBrush and use in Maya? What would be pipeline?

[@AMAN-rr7md]

how we can create other maps from albedo map downloaded through intrenet please make a video on it

[@DU5HU]

#AMAN You can check out this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/jHLNeKd7a5xrpZI

[@JakeshandleYT]

How do i set up the ambient occlusion. Is it painted or just generated?

[@FlippedNormals]

You have to bake it. Click on the croissant icon

[@JakeshandleYT]

@@FlippedNormals i do like croissants