Blog 4 - Texturing the Monitor

Today we finished texturing the front of the monitor and learnt some new techniques that should really help when texturing our objects later on.
Coming back from last time we worked on the monitor when we only had the Base and Alpha maps completed, to now creating two more groups to complete the texture fully and these were Specular and Normal.

The specular map was easy to do as all you do at first is duplicate the Base group. From here i just had to lighten or darken parts of the monitor that would be lighter or darker, from example the little LED light i made pure white as well as the monitor screen, but the rim and edge of the monitor were more of a darker gray colour.
Though this isnt the only thing a specular map does, it reflects light and can make objects look shiney, but if its used right, can make some objects look very realistic and more legit. Like to make an object look as though its made of gold, it should be coloured in a brownish orange and the specularity should be a bright yellow to make it seem more legit.

Next was the normal map which was even easier to do than the specular map, though this was mostly down to the fact that it was an easy object to create a normal map for, and much like the specular map, i started by duplicating the Base group. Because a normal map's job is to capture the look of depth on a texture using different shades of black and white, my monitor didnt have much to offer so i was left with creating my logo coming out of the monitor and the LED button going inwards into the monitor.
As i said before, a normal map uses different tones of black and white to create a depth look, with white being a high look, black being a low look and grey being neutral. So keeping this in mind, i drew around my logo in white, the button in black and everything else like the screen for example was coloured a medium tone of gray to keep it inbetween.