Finishing The Bridge

From the original mesh I created, before I could use Mudbox to begin sculpting, I needed to fix the UVs. At the moment they were all over the place and not well placed for applying a detailed texture to.

I fixed the UVs using planer mapping on the X, Y and Z axis. A checker texture was applied to see and ensure the sizes of each part of the UV's were even all over the model. 

Now that the UVs were fixed, I could export the model to Mudbox to begin sculpting, I began by first creating multiple layers of subdivisions, this allowed me to add more detail by increasing the number of polygons of the model, I started on the basic lower levels first by adding some shape changes to the model

 I then moved onto the higher levels and added increased amounts of detail on the basic changes, some of the things such as dints, warps of the wood, chipped corners etc. I finished up by moving up and down the layers to smooth out the model.

 I moved onto painting the Specular Map onto the model based on the geometry, overall the model is made of wood so it would not give off that much shine, so I used a dark colour for the spec map, I flooded the layer black and then used the dry brush tool to paint over the ridges as they would shine slightly more.

Now that the normal and specular map have been created, I needed to extract them from the model and save them as seperate .targa and .tiff formats to apply them to my model back in Maya. 

With the specular and normal maps created, I now needed to create the diffuse map also known as the texture map, to do this I downloaded a basic wood texture and a basic green moss texture, I then created layers and seperated them, I first applied the moss layer onto with an overlay applied to it, I changed the opacity down to blend it in with the wood texture.

I then created a copy of the moss texture, set it to overlay and opacity down to 60%, I then used the rubber tool on about 15-20% opacity to remove some of the moss details, this was done to add some variation to the moss layer, because in real life, it doesn't evenly grow everywhere, there are some places where more light/water is available so it grows in more concentration.

Ordinarily this would be enough variation but I found it was not enough, I used 2 filters which were Render:Clouds and Render:Fibers, I also set both of these to overlay and brought the opacity down to blend them in with the textures.

 I then created a normal map based on the original wood texture, I then brought in the normal map created in Mudbox using the sculpting I did, I brought the opacity down to subtly merge both details.

 I then went back to Maya and applied the diffuse, normal and specular maps back on to the original model, I added some lighting to see just how well it looked, I found the model still looked too basic.

 I decided to add in abit more variation to the model, I did this by adding in some extra edge loops on the existing edges, and then distorting them using the scale and transform tools. Giving me the final finished look I desired for the model