Preface

Be forewarned, this tutorial is advanced and is not for the faint of heart.

I created this tutorial ‘in the heat of development’ over a year ago as I worked up the face maps for the Monique and Larman models used in the Horrorthon BookReel™. It was created for internal use so that two other artists could create the face maps for two other models. Neither of these artists had much, if any, experience with flattening, decaling, using/creating layered maps or, with using Photoshop. While this tutorial is rather advanced as well as ‘concentrated’, I wanted my co-workers to do as much as possible on there own so… I explain pretty much everything and this is good -- you will likely learn a lot – but, due to this, it is a rather long tutorial. However, it is FUN stuff! I wanted to proof it, get rid of references to proprietary stuff, and test more before posting it but, the months were turning into years and so I decided to correct a few major things, make it usable if not pretty and get it out. Better this way then never. I believe and hope that it is usable and that most will find it of value.

There are many ways to skin a cat. This is the way I’ve come around to doing it in AM. Not a whole lot of books have been written on layered mapping and even less for doing so in AM. This system came from every book* I could find on texturing, filtered through what and how I found the different techniques to work in AM.

A few notes:

• After half a dozen sections I spin off into 2 methods: building the maps from scratch and using an existing face image and building them. They split off into two road and then merge back together. We decided to use the former method and so the latter method does not get all of the attention that it should have.
• This tut uses Hash Animation Master V10 and Photoshop V7 but I believe everything is transferable to other 3D applications and other graphics programs like Paint Shop Pro.
• Intended for internal use it refers to tracking/control documents and standardized folder structures – all of these references can be ignored (for instance I say ‘save to <model folder>/maps/head/wip/…’ -- you should use the filename as it is referred to later but, the path can be ignored, save files where ever you wish).
• For ease it was created in MS Word and saved as HTML – this should not be a problem.
• Finally I used voice recognition in places (I talked while working) and so stuff like ‘diffuse’ might become ‘defuse’ but, I believe everything is understandable.

If you find an error, broken link or missing image please report it to rusty@virtualmediastudios.com.

If you have questions you can send them to the above email and I’ll try to respond to them.

Have fun!

Rusty Williamson

*The techniques I use came from:

• The A:M 8.5 Manual
• Smith – Photoshop 5 3D Textures
• Capizzi – 3D Modeling and Texture Mapping
• Flemming – Animating Facial Features and Expressions
• Flemming – 3D Texture Workshop
• Demers – Digital Texturing & Painting
• Several years of my own trials and tribulations