Texture samples.

Hi All,
Still working on my shoe designs and need some help.

  1. I’m using Illistrator CS and want to load some scaned textures but I can’t seem to figure it out. I know I can do this in photoshop but I want to do all my work in Illistrator. can anyone help?

  2. Also can anyone tell me how to scale my texture down? I have a swatch I scaned but I have a feeling when I figure out how to load it the size will be to big. How do I scale it down so I can make it look real and tight.

  3. Once the texture is loaded and I want to add shade and highlights to it how do I do so without making it look like its just a layer. What I mean is if the texture was rubber how would I add shadows and highlights to the bumps in it?

Thanks all I really need the help to take it to the next level!

Why donn’t you want to use photoshop?

Import your illustrator linework into photoshop and you can do all of that stuff way easier. Proper tool for the job.

Maybe I dont know the proper steps but it seems that I can’t get the detail with photoshop. When I go to fill a spot from my ill line work in photoshop I can’t get rid of the black lines, or it seems to loose detail.
(YO) can you let me know what is the best way to keep it detailed? Maybe show some examples of how you do this.

also I want to see relativ’s Illistrator line work but I can’t open it? Does anyone have ideas?

Thanks

-Make sure when you do your lines in IL, make sure you “close” all of your shapes you may want to color in PS
-If you’re losing detail, you may not be doing your IL linework big enough or lineweights heavy enough. .5 will turn into a grey line in PS at 300 dpi. Use 1pt or higher.
-In PS, put your IL lines on one layer, magicwand select white with non contiguous checked to get rid of all white at once. If you did your lines with no white fill and make your PS document with no background you won’t need to do this step, just open the IL doc from photoshop.
-When you make an area selection in PS, expand the selection by .5 (if you did your lines as 1pt). Do that with all of the parts, then you can hide the IL lines and all of your borders will meet seamlessly.
-I’d really recommend doing the scanned textures in photoshop also.
Good luck.

Skinny!
Now this is why I love core…I had no idea to expand the area by .5 to hide the line! Can you or anyone do some more posts on tips and tricks.

Thanks!

I use feather and smooth a lot. Sometimes a 1point smooth and a .5 point feather is all you need to take the rag out of a selection.

I actually use .25 point Illus. line weight, but I bring it in at like 500 dpi and then sample it down… I don’t like my line work to show much. I don’t really have any showable ones with my newer techniques right now. A few weeks.

YO,
Why do you bring the IL in to PS at 500 dpi? Does this really improve the line work? Doe this print better in the end?

Do you have any other tips for adding shadows and highlights to texture so it looks like it’s bumpy like the texture? I have noticed in the Portfolio section many people who went to school in France seem to really rock in sneaker/shoe design, and have this step down.

Thanks

Yo,
Forgot to add but is there anyway of creating cool effects using any kind of channels, or alfa’s?

thanks

I use channels a lot in the form of save selections. They work as masks when doing airbrush shadows.

This guy has a similar style to what I do currently:

He is in France, but I think he’s British.

I bring the linework in at a high dpi and then resize the image down to like 35o dpi. I think it brings it in smoother, but could be superstition.

Here’s a quick one that’s in my portfolio using the no-lines tech.


Might look a little washed out depending on your monitor. Drawing the lines in IL took about 10-15 min, then rendering another 25-35 min. Personally I don’t like photoshopping my hand sketches (not clean enough). The time it takes for me to do the sketch clean enough by hand, I could do 3 in IL that’ll make selecting areas and putting in parting lines in PS really easy.
Putting parting lines in can help take the realism up a notch.
-Use these commands strategically and you can get some really nice results: Expand, Contract, Border, and Feather.
-Using the 4 commands above, you’re not really doing any freehand movements so you can get really nice highlights that follow your contours precisely, so anybody can do a nice rendering, all you’ll need is a decent understanding of light and shadow.
I did this just with a mouse but I’m going to try to get a wacom next month to practice with a looser look. Years of only drawing in IL with a mouse have had bad effects on my drawing muscles, hopefully using a wacom will help remedy that since movements are similar to regular sketching.

Yo,
Can you tell me the proper way to use the Mask to create better shadows and highlights. Not to fimiliar with channels…teacher really didn’t go over them and I’m not sure how to apply them. I have seen the guy from France’s stuff…he’s good huh. I wish I could find some good demenstations to see how he goes about his steps. Any Idea?

Skinny,
Not to sure what you mean by border, Contract and such can you tell me more. I like the rendering…how did you get the white to shade so well?

thanks
newid

select an area with the magic wand
-go to select-modify-contract. contract say…6 pixels
-go to select-modify-border. border 3 pixels
now feather that selection 1 pixel and you’ll have a good selection to use for your highlights that follow the contour of your shape. You can then just use the airbrush to fill it in and you’ll have a nice faded highlit edge, without having to try to draw it by hand or using a wacom.
-don’t forget to use the lasso tool to clean up some corners of your selection if they get a little rough.

a good thing to use alpha channels for: you make selections and contract and border and whatever to get a nice complicated path selected for easy highlight work …sometimes corners get a little weird so you have to go back in to sharpen them up, or get rid of some area you don’t want for whatever reason. After doing whatever combo of processes to get your selection perfect, go to alpha channel and fill it in white. Now whenever you need to make that same selection, just use the alpha, instead of having to go through the whole process again.
-it’s basically a way for you to save a selection and come back later, like a stencil almost.

Hope this helps, any more I gotta charge!

hey, wasnt aware of the discussion forum on the ‘core’ sweet, wish this was around whilst i was at uni.

Im the designer of the link Yo , posted, yup im british but designing kicks in France, will be out of here soon though…

Regarding rendering techniques, I usually sketch about, trying to find 'that ’ idea, scan it in hook up with illustrator and trace th elines, creating somethig crisper and more flowing. Once im happy a fill all the large same composant areas in and get rid of the lines seperating the peces this allows for a cleaner photoshopping. Try to use REAL bright colours - pinks, yellows fluo green, cos in photoshop its easier to selection these parts and have clean edges at the intersections.

Once im happy i export the file as a 300 Dpi jPEG? opent e badboy up in Photoshop at about an A3 image size, again cleaner, but the ol computer dies pretty often, from there i use composant scans i ve collected over the years, putting them into the ‘shop’ i can deform them with a spherisation tool to give a rounded 3D effect, i use a seperate layer for each piece, then create a mask and play with the shadows. another gfood tool to get more realistic shadows is the contrast +/- tool (looks like a black lollipop) this increses the darka nd light tones whilst at the same time keeping the texture.

From there finish all the shadows highlights and drop in the stitch lines and little branding details - usually done seperatly and imported, Hope this helps guys, good luck.

TOmfoolery :smiley: