newmodels 4096x4096 16bits

That's a bit of an oof in terms of memory budget in particular. You might be able to achieve a similar visual quality by dithering and then converting to 8 bit but achieving a significant reduction in memory cost vs slight visual degratation.

    Oh, been busy working on water pump today. I want to get that texture lower.

    Here is some hair I put on it. Not very realistic as of yet.

    I imported the texture into krita for resizing. Not certain about dithering in krita, but the model looks almost the same at different resolutions. Maybe it's the distance from camera?

    Here in top left corner is original, 4096x4096 16bit.
    Top right is krita's 2048x2048 using bilinear filter downsizing it.
    Bottom left is krita's 1024x1024 using bilinear downsizing the 2048x2048
    and bottom right is krita's 512x512 downsizing 1024x1024 using bilinear filter.

    After I put the images together I then down sized it using bilinear filter to 1920

      9 days later

      original design, but i would do some more work to improve the textures.

        DJM

        Do you mean the normal map, or diffuse. I agree the paint is not too good. I am not that good at painting, but I can try to make the diffuse map better. Not certain how to improve the normal map.

        It's hard using blender for painting, if I could only have krita's tools inside blender.

        normal map is fine, the diffuse is just 3 colors painted on the model. its way to clean. use your normal map to bake cavity maps and occlusion and use those to add detail and color variations on your model, just my 2 cents 😉

          DJM

          I tried extracting the blue channel from the normal map in krita, and then adjusted the levels for creating a cavity map.

          And then stuck that with an overlay node in blender, blending the diffuse.
          I baked an Occlusion map, but not certain how to use it.

          newmodels alot better allready, are u using free software only? u can create a smooth curvature map in 'material maker' from your normal map. im also sure u can bake a curvature and cavity maps with blenders 'textools'
          a simple trick is to overlay the curvature map over your albedo in krita to add detail.
          but for best results its best to use a pbr texture painting tool for your materials

            If you are going to make this a fur covered creature then perhaps consider adding some stripes or color splotches like on a painted horse or such perhaps?

            I did add the curvature map that was made with textools.

            I like the idea of putting stripes or splotches on it. Most cats I seen have stripes.

            I made some changes. Here is the new rendering.

            DJM

            Thank you for telling me about the AO, cavity and curvature maps. And thank you for telling me about textools. Oh, yes I am using only free software. Krita, Blender and Ubuntu.

            • DJM replied to this.

              newmodels no problem,
              but u can still improve your textures
              heres' an older model of mine on sketchfab, not perfect but should give u an idea
              https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/minion-86aafeda2505498c9524131c72d8520d
              if u look at the albedo and roughness theres' highlights and dirt based on the curvature map and occlusion
              and also some handpainted highlights.
              keep experimenting, cause textures make up for more than half the look of a low poly model
              there is offcourse no 'right' way to do it, and everyone has their own workflow

              Here I did more work on the diffuse map. texTools does not seem to be making the cavity map correctly. But maybe I have the settings wrong. It creates a map but I have to edit it in krita, adjusting the levels.