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.

        Tried making a rough map based on the model you showed.

        in blender its called a 'cavity map' i believe.

          DJM

          It is called cavity map in blender.

          I found out a cavity map is an AO map with short rays. Problem with baking an AO map with short rays in blender, is the rays don't reach far enough. But I am will try something and see if it works.

          Textools has the cavity map option. But the image seems too dark. Maybe it's correct?

          I tested the short rays by baking an AO map without cage, and using short ray of 0.0001. I then put the caged AO map in krita, and put the short ao map ontop of it in krita. I then selected the black part with krita's magic select tool and pressed delete. I ended up with the exact same results as the caged AO map.

          It didn't work in blender. I will look and try something.

          I used that method and it worked ok. Here is the new result.

          That's all I want to do with this model for now. I want to move on and work on different model.

          • DJM replied to this.

            This modeller- I would love to see stuff from you on the Godot Marketplace. You got talent!

            newmodels looking at other videos on his channel, it might help u with pbr texturing in blender.