Method Request- Slate Rooftops?!

[Pablo Diablo]

Not sure if this goes here or under "Tutorials" (with the 'question' tag)?!?!

I'm not quite sure how to do this and am looking for some input-

Working in Photoshop, for either single buildings or village layouts:

I am looking to do a slate or tile rooftop on a building and am having trouble getting good results. I would guess that it should be a seamless pattern, and then apply a grunge overlay (clouds w/ multiply or something similar) and either a deep bevel/emboss (which has the benefit of fitting the global light source) or a custom shadow layer...

...But I'm getting not-so-good results! Any hints / thoughts? I feel like my base texture is no good... Are there any web resources for shots of tile roofs? Or do people have a method for making a texture and divided slate shingles?

Any input is appreciated!

PD

Edit: Oops! Yeah, I suppose a reference would be good, hm?
www.dungeonartist.com has a lot of good stuff, but I can't bookmark individual pictures....

And you guys have already thrown out some great suggestions! Thanks!

[RobA]

Please post what you have so far. It would give people a better idea of what you are trying for...or post to a image of what you are trying to achieve :)

-Rob A>

[ravells]

Try this (sorry, I'm knackered tonight and can't do it properly):

Go to Mayang's free textures and find a texture of a slate roof you like.

The image will not be squared off as it will have been taken from a digital camera. You will need to use perspective correction to make the image square so it will tile.

Then you need to take a rectangular selection and copy you have corrected the perspective to a new image. It's better if you don't try to follow the edges with the selection as this actually makes it more difficult to seamlessly tile - go for the middle bits.

Use the offset filter on the new image so that the edges are in the middle of the picture and use the clone brush to repair the damage and make the the image seamless by patching up the middle. (This is the most time consuming part - don't touch the edges)

That should do it. You may have to clone a bit more if there is a tile which stands out and will be noticeable in the seamless tiling. As you may be only thinking about tiling horizontally, then you might get away with making your initial square selection on the horizontal seams.

Couple of pics below

Image 1: the original image with a selection
Image 2: the image with the perspective correction applied
Image 3: the selection from the Image 2
Image 4: the offset filter applied.
Image 5: Cloning done (badly and fast) and the tiling texture. Note the shadows repeat,this is where you'll need to be a bit more subtle with the cloning than I was.

[Paul]

If you're looking for a photographic rather than stylized look, you might start with a photograph of actual slate to serve as your baseline texture. There are a bunch of sites devoted to 3d modeling where you might find such a thing, some of them free. It might be worth 10 minutes of googling, anyway.

From there you might go with a staggered irregular grid to indicate tile overlap, and some subtle highlighting to bring out some of the edges.

Here are some tile grid patterns you might go with:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/174/402553373_510129c7f6_o.jpg
http://www.artsparx.com/images/fr_roof01.jpg
http://www.sxc.hu/pic/m/k/km/kmccool/784706_castle_roof.jpg

Added: the fun of simultaneous posting. Ravells' input is better. ;)

[ravells]

lol quite (re the simultaneous posting). But it was a really quick and dirty tutorial.

The best tutorial on methods of making all sorts of textures came from a book called '3d game textures' if you amazon it, it's really worth buying.

Ravs

[Pablo Diablo]

Thanks for all the great suggestions and mini-tutorials, guys!

I edited the post above, but you've given me a lot of great ideas and approaches to try!

PD