1. The first scene I worked on was the ancient stone version and I began with the floor as it would be the nearest area of geometry to the camera. For this particular scene I used textures from the 3D Total Textures collection, namely V10 (Ancient Tribes and Civilisations) and V12 (Textures from around the World). In Fig. 4 you can see that the final floor texture is composed of two colour maps and a dirt map which I took from V5 (Dirt and Graffitti). I cropped and re-arranged the two images to get the look I wanted and then made the bump and specular maps to match. The dirt map is set to a Multiply Blending mode and given about 50% opacity with some red and yellow colouration under Image - Adjustments - Colour balance. (Click the image below to see larger version).
2. For the platforms that support the pillars I chose a large stone texture and then added a highlight along the edge to emphasize the chamfered edge on the geometry which was done on a seperate layer set to Screen blending mode. At the base of the stones I pasted in another dirt layer where they would meet with the floor as seen in Fig 5 . As this texture had a suitable scale and colour scheme it also doubled up quite nicely as the ceiling template. (Click the image below to see larger version).
fig.4
fig.5
3. The geometry at the end of the corridor that represents the back wall and doorway is far enough from the camera to avoid any detail and so the door itself was made using a texture which was a combination of three images projected onto a single poly. One for the wall, the door itself and the door surround which just helped bind it to the wall (Fig. 6) As this part of the scene is furthest from the camera I did not spend too much time on it as would prove pointless.
fig.6
4. The last and perhaps the most prominent part of the scene are the two rows of pillars along the two walls. For these I incorporated a number of textures from the Total Textures collection utilising images from V9, V12, V13 and V5. I did not worry too much about historical accuracy when it came to this scene and concentrated more on producing a detailed pillar that used a number of textures – in fact the textures draw upon cultures from North Africa and Europe to the Middle East. In Fig. 7 you can see the final template on the right and the numerous texture elements that were used on the left (some highlightd in red). The areas highlighted in red indicate sections that were cropped and used and once all the elements were scaled and in place I simply made some colour changes to match them more to the stone and mainly kept the blending mode to normal. I added some of the dirt maps from V5 along the top and bottom edges and also included a highlight along the edge of the pillar. In Fig.8 I made a second variation that used a few different textures which again can be seen on the left. The two tile layers at the top and bottom were set to Darken blending mode to look a bit worn whilst the others were set to normal.
This image was created using a few of the hundreds of textures from the Total Texture CDs - very comprehensive texture collections priced with the hobbyist in mind. To see more examples, download free
samples and read full details follow this link
