ALTextures 1: DEM [DIFFusemaps progress screenshots]
Some WIP screenshots. I've started back in 2017, and completed these textures only in 2019. That's because
- 8192p is a lot of 'texture' to cover. 8192p is equal to 289 x 289 centimeters canvas, except that I don't work JUST in 'brush strokes'; I work with pixels.
1 pixel in Photoshop is 0.36 milimiters. Imagine if you had to cover a 3 meter canvas with a pen; that's often what I have to do.
- I had to make three 8192p textures (Eva torso; Eva limbs; Lilith torso\arms), two 4096p textures (DEM head\face, Lilith legs) and then some more.
- Obviously, I can't make textures 24 hours a day. I'd go insane. So I only work with textures when i can.
Note: further screenshots only showcase the creation of the base diffuse map; it does not include AO editing, DIS map creation, normalmap creation, color\overlays\other stuff creation, etc. I have files saved, though. It goes from a period
3 Dec 2017 to 19 Jan 2018:
20 Jan 2018 to 21 Jan 2018:
26 Jan 2018 to 31 Jan 2018:
1 Feb 2018 to 3 Feb 2018:
5 Feb 2018 to 11 Feb 2018:
As I said, that only covers the creation of the very basic diffusemap, which took me ~1.5 months of everyday work. I didn't take screenshots everyday, but I did work on the textures every day.
If you think that is a lot of work, multiply that by 4. Because this diffusemap doesn't go in the game "as is".
You may have seen a piece of DEM Lilith textures; I didn't finish them in that month, or, in fact, in 2018. I only finished Demonica Lilith textures in 2019.
Any refinement, color, eyebrows, pubic hair, freckles, dirt; everything was done later, and it was just as much work, if not more.
FYI: saving an 8192p canvas in DXT1 takes me 4 minutes of real time. Saving a working 8K .psb with layers takes ~1-2 minutes, and at some point, Photoshop is going to complain and just exit without saving anything (including cached files) due to RAM overload, no matter how much you've got (I've got 32GB of RAM). How often do you 'quick-save' in a videogame?
Add around 2-5 minutes to load up the game each time you need to test something, because Nifskope just can't replicate the lightning conditions.. etc etc
