How to make an abandoned house in Blender - Tutorial

this video is sponsored by polygon high quality assets to make better renders faster [Music] first things first we need house reference so google some photos of houses and paste it into the free software pureref rather than start blending with an empty void i like to add something to act as scale reference so i appended in this correctly scaled human which is cc0 and i've linked to in the description then you just start modeling the basic shape of the house which in my case is two stories and l-shaped to create the angled roof first enable auto merge then select two edges and merge them by pressing s to scale then the x or y axes and then 0 to smash them together then you select those faces separate it to a new object and add a solidify modifier then to create the eaves you select the outside edges then double tap g to loop slide and then press c to disable clamping which will let you drag it past the point it started while retaining the edge now for the clapboard siding while you could use a texture with displacement for that it'll look way sharper and way more optimized if it's modeled so we're going to select the bottom edge of the house duplicate it move it to its own object extrude it upwards and then recalculate the normals to clear any mesh problems then to create that angled slope we're going to select the bottom row and press alt s to scale it along its normal and that is one clapboard that goes all the way around the house so we just add an array modifier and a solidify modifier to finish the rest but now the obvious problem how do we fix it clipping through the roof one way would be to apply everything and then manually cut it away with a knife but that's tedious and i want to keep things non-destructive so instead i'm going to use the base house object as a boolean to do this you select the siding then add a boolean modifier with intersect mode and fast approximation then you select the base house model as the boolean object which will make it act as an envelope cropping anything that goes outside of it all we need to do now is make the base house model slightly bigger than the siding which you can do by going into edit mode and pressing alt s then make sure the boolean object's viewport display is set to wireframe and that it's disabled from rendering the outliner and that is how you do non-destructive clapboard siding now for the windows and doors which you'd be a fool to model yourself because it's far too time consuming and finicky instead use the arch mesh atom which blender comes with which gives you easy parametric objects which you can add and then properties that can be altered after the fact and what i like most about the archimesh add-on is that each window and door comes with its own boolean cutout so to make that work without citing you select all the boolean cutouts move them to a new collection then select the siding and add a new boolean modifier set that to difference fast approximation and then the new collection now all the windows and doors will perfectly cut through the siding and that's the hard bit the rest of the house is really easy by comparison so you put on some good music and start modeling any extra details you see in your reference i added a concrete slab with a staircase that i also got from archimesh then i added in some extruded cubes as banisters and railings some angle brackets on the eaves and a scrappy little plane that i extruded and then sheared around the corners of the roof to create the gutter i also duplicated a board and then resized and rotated it to create trimmings around the windows and doors and of course add a bevel to everything since that helps catch the light and makes it look more realistic in your renders once you've finished modeling high five yourself grab a water and then get ready to mess this thing up for this next part you'll need some good reference of abandoned buildings now you can source it for free from places like the abandoned porn subreddit but i recommend going paid if you can afford it like this pack that i found from photobash not only will you get multiple angles of the same subject but most importantly it'll be high resolution so you can zoom right in to see the details then copy and paste everything of relevance to your ever expanding pure rf board here's a few tricks i've learned to make houses look old number one old houses are lumpy you can create this effect by first adding multiple cuts along each plank to create squares then apply the array modifier and add a displacement modifier first in the stack then for the displacement texture use a cloud texture at low strength adjusting the size of the cloud till it matches the board warping from the reference and you can do the same to the roof and the concrete just keep the strength low unless you want a house that looks like it's from dr seuss number two siding usually has discrete cuts which become more pronounced and more sloppy with h so in edge select mode select some loops and rip them by pressing v and moving them ever so slightly then on a few of them press ctrl number pad plus to select the rest of the plank then press r to rotate it ever so slightly number three it wouldn't be abandoned without a broken window or two which you can do by first adding in a reference photo of one into the scene and then adding a plane then edit that plane and use the knife tool to trace the broken glass all the way around until you're back at the start then delete the center face until you're left with the edges and then add a solidify modifier for some thickness and since nobody wants to let in the zombies duplicate some of the trim boards to make a quick barricade behind the glass number four make it wonky railings aren't straight poles aren't straight nothing is straight and some things are straight up missing this is one of those rare moments where you can be creative with some storytelling so have fun and there it is a house that looks like a rental now for the all-important texturing which on an abandoned house like this will do 90 percent of the heavy lifting there are two ways you could texture a building one would be to paint directly onto one texture much like substance painter but this isn't ideal because you're then limited by the resolution of your texture and if your object needs to change distance to the camera or say a character needs to walk right up to it in a game then suddenly you can see the pixels and even with an insanely large 8k texture map a building like this will still look blurry so the best method for texturing buildings is one that games have been using for years painted masks with tiled textures tile textures are great because they create free resolution you can use a small texture tile it a bunch and it looks sharp even if you walk right up to it and here you can see a side-by-side comparison of an 8k painted texture versus a 2k tile texture the tile texture is not only sharper but because it's smaller in resolution it uses 14 times less memory but tiled textures also look really really boring so if you load in a second tile texture and then paint a mask to reveal different parts of each texture you create something far more interesting and if you do fancy stuff with the shaders you can even make the blending look good but you know what's better than blending two texture sets blending five rather than paint onto one black and white image what games do instead is use the red green and blue channels as three independent masks so your red paint becomes the blend between textures one and two green blends in a third texture blue blends a fourth and if you paint it into the alpha channel you can even blend in a fifth texture the resulting mask looks like hell but when you separate the channels and put it through a shader magic occurs and this is how video games create cities that look realistic from afar but still sharp up close a key ingredient to this workflow is finding a set of textures that work well together and it's why game studios will typically make their own as they can ensure that they work cohesively together so i've got the next best thing it's polygon we spoke with some texture artists in the game industry to create a set of painted wood for this exact workflow it's five texture sets in five stages of wear paint only slight chipping heavy chipping almost raw and raw extra attention was given to the chipping to ensure that it peels in relation to the wood grain as this happens in real life and because the set is seamless and doesn't contain any panels or wood breaks it can be used for everything from house siding to cabinetry and while it comes as white it comes with an id mask so you could change the color to anything you wanted for our house we're gonna pick these three the fully painted stage zero texture the half painted stage two texture and the raw wood stage four texture and unless you're planning to put the camera closer than one meter to the wall 2k is really all you need remember that every time you double the texture size you are going to quadruple the memory at render so while it's attempting to go big keep it light and not only will it render faster but you'll be able to paint with less lag each of the texture sets come with a full set of pbr maps which is good but it's going to be really tedious if you had to load in all of the texture maps for three materials so to make it easier there's the polygon material converter add-on which you're going to download in the link below this will import and set up the materials for you with one click you just install the zip then go to your material panel and you'll see the add-on appearing there and then this empty field at the top here is where you're going to point to the folder location of your unzipped polygon files then you'll see all the materials appear beneath it and with one click it will load in all the maps for you with the correct normals inverted gloss and apply it to the selected material so we're going to do it for all three materials but we're actually going to create a separate new material for our siding and add those materials to it so to do this go to the node editor and press shift a to add and then under group you'll see that the add-on has created a new node group for each material which is basically just all the maps neatly loaded into one box which makes it really easy to combine now something you might not have ever wondered before is how do you actually combine multiple sets of pbr maps together it's easy if you've got two textures but what about eight what about twelve well that would be a tedious process too if the add-on didn't also give you this other node group the pbr mixer which does exactly this it simply combines two sets of pbr maps into one with a simple factor input at the top you'll see this group appear in your back end anytime you add a material using the add-on so we just need to connect them now you're going to put the cleanest material into the top input which in this case is the stage 0 solid paint version then we're going to put the heavily worn version in this case stage 4 raw wood into the bottom the chip paint version leave that aside we'll use that later then you take the outputs from that and plug it into the printable shader and we won't see this on the mesh until we uv unwrap it which is really easy to do it's just you smart uv project and then in the uv image editor just make sure you rotate all the planks so they're horizontal and it should be fine then just add texture coordinate and mapping nodes to change the scale to whatever looks correct on the house you should now see that if you change the factor value from 0 to 1 you're correctly blending between each texture set which means that just like the mix rgb node if we plugged a hand painted texture map into that factor input we would control where each texture set is displayed so let's do that add an image texture node and press new and since this is just a mask 2k should be more than enough resolution and since we aren't rendering color we want to set the color space to non-colored data and then connect this node to the factor input now if we were to paint white you'd see that it's working what is black is one texture and what is white is another but if you remember from before we want to paint into the red green and blue channel separately and then use those channels to blend between different texture sets so to do that we want to add a separate rgb node then take only the red channel and plug that into the factor input then if you paint with not white but a completely red color it will then paint only into the red channel and leaving the other two alone which means this now functions exactly like that black and white mask yet you still have these two other channels here to blend between two other texture sets or use it for any other hand-painted effects that you want in your material setup so if you started painting with this you'd probably notice that while it works it's pretty hard to create anything that looks realistic because the soft gradual fading paint into wood is not how real paint peels real paint peeling is binary it's either paint or it's either wood it's not really anything in between so normally the solution to this would be to just get fancy with the brushes but remember that we're now painting into this low res texture mask and just like before if you wanted this to look sharp you would have to increase the resolution to something crazy like 8k so what to do well the answer is one that might surprise you and a trick that i'm honestly surprised worked as well as it does which i'm going to share right after talking about polygon whether you're making an interior a building exterior or a nature scene polygon has a range of textures models and hdrs for rapid scene building your render will only look as good as the quality of your assets which is why customers like oscar winsky trust polygon to help them create jaw-dropping environments click the link in the description to get access to a range of free textures that you can start using in your work today so the solution to our resolution problem color burn color burn is that blending mode that you probably cycle through on your way to the more useful blend modes and while it definitely doesn't get as much play time it's our saving grace for this exact problem because if we add a mix rgb node to our mask set it to color bone then any texture we put into the bottom here will affect our falloff areas of the brush stroke so for this we're going to use that stage 2 texture peel if you wanted to go the extra mile you could actually use the red channel of the included id mask and that way it'll look really sharp but the roughness output is easier and it's good enough now it's working but it's a little too subtle so if you add a color ramp node after it with constant fall off and put the white somewhere in the middle there you'll get that punchy binary look to our paint and wood now if you were to paint with a low brush strength you can see that with the color burn it eats away into those gray areas creating a really satisfying peel paint look not only does this method use the high resolution tile texture in our mask but it's also much easier to paint with because you aren't constantly changing brush settings best of all you can repeat the color burn step for any number of other textures you want to influence the mask for example in this case you can see that while the paint peel looks cool something feels off it's almost like we're painting onto a flat wall rather than onto siding and this is because paint peels primarily from prolonged exposure to the sun and due to the angle of our planks some parts of the planks are going to be hidden in shadow and therefore receive less peeling now you could use a small brush to meticulously paint this in but i found this process so tedious that i spent days trying to find a better solution and i'm proud to say i did and this is it if you select the bottom edge loop of each plank then go into vertex paint mode then firstly invert it so it's black then press vertex select mode so that you're only painting onto what we just selected then press fill it'll put this white fill only on those vertices we selected and create this gradient effect from the top of the plank down to the bottom so if you now go back to the shader duplicate that mix rgb color bone effect then add in a vertex color node set to the vertex paint that we just created now the lighter parts of that gradient will have more weight than the darker parts and now our painting process is not only easier but much more realistic you get to use these big simple brush strokes that automatically create detail in the right areas as you go to complete our paint peeling effect just add a bump node in between the final normal map then connect our mask output to it through an invert node then you'll have bump on the paint so it actually looks layered on top our peel paint shader is now complete and we could start painting now but actually it'd be easier if we just finished the shader to include the green and blue channel painting and then start so essentially these channels give you options they can be whatever you want them to be like maybe the story of your house is that it went through a fire so you might want one of those channels to control a burn blackening of the color map or maybe you want to create a mismatched paint color touch-up job which is so common for old houses or maybe the roof is so damaged that it's leaking blackened water down the side of the building so really just look at your reference and decide what extra details you need for this scene the house is in a wet seattle environment so i want one of the channels to paint moss so i downloaded this moss texture from polygon used the add-on to bring it in like before and then set the correct scale i added it to the rest of the material by adding another pbr mixer after the wood and then connecting the factor input of that to the green channel then i duplicated one of those color burn mix nodes and then use the moss texture itself to drive it then finally i fed it through a color ramp for extra contrast and unlike the peel paint moss is actually more likely to grow in the shadows so i used another color bone driven by an invert of the vertex colors but if you ever find that color burn is a little too strong of a blend mode like in this case overlay is a nice substitute that's a little smoother then for the blue channel i wanted to create a wet mask to paint water leaking down the building so i started by taking the blue channel and then putting it through a color ramp to boost its contrast then i put that into the factor value of a mix rgb node set to multiply then i put the final color map into the top and then that value at the bottom there drives how dark the wetness is that's only influencing the color map though so i then duplicated that mix igb node and made it impact the roughness as well and now the darker this value is the sharper the reflection will be and it creates quite a nice effect and this is the final shader that we will now use for the painting it is a lot of nodes which i'm sure is overwhelming if you are new at texturing but there's no vector math in here or complex equations to figure out it's basically just taking channels and then using it to change different parts of the material so with the hard part done we can now be creative you'll paint by swapping the fully red green or blue paint but if it's set to the default blend mode of mix then painting any new color will override the previous so what you actually want is add which allows the color to be added on top of other colors and to remove the paint of that color surprise surprise it's subtract you want to paint in material preview mode but by default there will probably be some lag so there's two things you can do to improve it one is to set the ev viewport to only show the diffuse color so it's not trying to render bump and gloss and everything else while you're painting and the second big thing is to disable the solidify modifier in the viewport which will remove half the vertices and only paint on the front face of the mesh and then your painting should basically be in real time and while not necessary if you have a graphics tablet you will get faster results in less time no question about it because of a little thing called pen pressure clicking your mouse is a binary on and off action but using a stylus means that you're able to alter the intensity of each stroke now i have a cintiq which is nice if you can afford it but honestly any tablet will be better than a mouse for years i used a wacom bamboo which was like a hundred dollars even back then new and it was a hundred times better than a mouse so if you browse ebay or facebook marketplace today you'll be able to find second hand tablets that are cheaper than a mouse to prepare for this tutorial i probably texted the house 10 different times and each time was better than the last so i definitely recommend playing around first just to familiarize yourself with how it works and then start again by filling the texture with black so let's talk results poor texturing is almost always the result of playing it by ear you don't want to just paint what looks cool look at your reference and try to understand it for example paint on a house doesn't just peel randomly it peels according to sun exposure and moisture so one side of the house should have more peeling than the rest and there should be little to no peel paint under the eaves also moisture will typically occur around windows doors and the corners of buildings because that's where watertight sealant is most likely to fail these are two little things but they'll make a big difference to the believability of your texturing moss will appear where it's dark and wet so wherever water might splash or pull on the floor is a good place to put it and i also like putting some under the windows so it looks like the water leaked from the sill above it and leaks are more likely to appear beneath structural damage but honestly it can appear everywhere i've replayed the seattle scenes from the last of us while working on this and i realized that almost every building had a leak texture but it still looked plausible because of course rain can go sideways and hit the side of the house and while reference is important you also need to know when to simplify and exaggerate if you compare game texturing to real life reference you're immediately struck by how much more detail is in real photos but this is deliberate to make it more readable my first texturing attempt looks straight up noisy because i tried to add all the detail from a photo and it was just too much for the eye to understand so simplify and exaggerate create some big sections of peel paint then some medium sized sections and a few smaller details here and there this will let your eye explore the building without feeling exhausted from all the chaos and by the way if you find that your brush feels too hard remember that the color burn technique works in the mid values so you need to use a lower brush strength and then you'll get all that texture detail start to come in for the balcony and window frames first merge them unwrap them then use the same siding material but make it its own material copy so that you can then use a new 1k mask texture to paint it separately for the house foundation i used this brick texture for all the sides desaturated it and darkened it and then this concrete texture for the top we want the same moss leaks from the siding but copying all those nodes across would be tedious so instead just group the mos and the leaks into a node group then add that node group to the new material and be much easier to add in then create a brand new 1k mask texture and do the painting just like before moss at the bottom leaks from the top then for the roof i used this new texture set from polygon which just like the siding was designed to go together i used only the clean and fully mossy versions which i blended between with the red channel and for the green channel i used that to blend in this photo scanned leaf flooring if you use a tiny brush with some jittering you can then paint in the appearance of smaller leaves scattered around the roof and i actually found this pretty fun to paint with you make the leaves gather where they logically would like down the ridges around the gutters and then you paint the moss texture underneath that then to make the roof appear less flat you want to use displacement so take the displacement output put it through a displacement node then turn on true displacement for the material then last in your modifier stack add a subsurf modifier with adaptive and the leaves will then pop off the roof and a final optional step is adding ivy it's a bit beyond the scope of this tutorial but just quickly i use the iv generator add-on but instead of the terrible leaves that it comes with i used this new leaf atlas from polygon which was modeled onto new objects then scattered across the iv stem with geometry nodes it's a bit of extra work but it does look good so if you want to copy the nodes here they are and we did it the rest of the scene is up to you but in this case the seattle last of us inspired scene it was trees plants a hydrant rubbish they were all collected from various asset libraries and then used a set dressing across the scene to create the final animation [Music] big thanks to two of my staff pavo pichizuski for creating the artwork and bill barber for breaking down the workflow guys if you enjoyed the video click like and subscribe then check out some of my other scene workflow videos which are on the screen right now thank you for watching and i hope to see you in a future video

Channel: Blender Guru

Views: 1,149,840

Keywords: blender, tutorial, modelling, texturing, blender texture painting tutorial, poliigon, texture painting, last of us, lou 2

Id: 1aNnERnHRZg

Length: 25min 38sec (1538 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 26 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/b_a_t_m_4_n]

Nice! Thank's Andrew!

[u/ocularevolution]

One of the finest tutorials I've ever watched! Madness.

[u/LonelyMusicDisc]

good as usual!

[u/MyBikeFellinALake]

Next step is animating those trees! I think the Grove does this for you

[u/RastaPsyc]

watched,liked and shared, thank you for all the lessons!

[u/Orcen-Arxevius]

Nice one man i oddly miss the sad atmosphere of that game

[u/bobemil]

Love the style!

[u/Dominus_76]

i have no idea what i saw and how it worked but i agree 100% with what just happened

[u/SkullB0ss]

Thank you sir