I'm trying to create a plush toy felt look for some 2d game art & was wondering if anyone could help me out here? I guess it'd be possible with shaders but the engine I'm using doesn't support them (plus I don't know anything about them) I did google but couldn't find much about how to achieve this, largely because there were hundreds of results with lines like "someone felt such and such" - the main problem I'm having is how to get a reasonably realistic cloth look, an example of what I'm trying to achieve would be the characters from the Comfort fabric softener adverts that appeared in the UK not so long ago: Any suggestions?

I really don't see that much of a fabric effect in that character. I think your best bet is to post your art so we can give you the best advice. The most "general" I can get is to use a series of patterns/textures/brushes, probably in a stipling effect, possibly with specific layer styles, and absolutely emphasizing the highlights (basically: duh)

Post the image and we can get into some real specifics.

Fair enough. I agree there's not much detail but was hoping people might have seen the ads. I found a better example:



and a few felt pictures that are helping to inspire me.

I haven't started on the art yet so can't post any of my own work - I'm no artist but am capable of reasonable results with a lot of effort so my approach has been to 'research my subject' before I draw anything.

If it helps, the first image is pretty close to what I want to achieve, the theme of the game involving finger puppets.

edit: also the 2 images at the bottom of this page, however I don't own a copy of ZBrush.

[Edited by - DrewGreen on May 7, 2006 8:13:06 PM]

Try making brushes from those felt photos. You can also try http://www.creativemac.com/articles/listarticle.jsp?type=downloads, but since you are going for a specific fabric and effect, making your own will be easiest.

you don't by any chance have 3ds max 7 or higher do you? because for cloth i simply setupm my material on a mesh and then do a cloth simulation on the particular cloth i am going for (and where i want ti to crease) then i render that and then put that into photoshop and make that a texture, works perfectly every time.

Genius! So simple it's embarrassing.
That site is a great find by the way, I've found a couple of brushes that look like they'll do the trick nicely, so I'll try a combination.

Jarrod: Unfortunately not. Not really a 3d guy, I've got milkshape but that probably won't cut it.. thanks for the tip though.

then do you have photoshop 7 or higher? obviously you have photoshop but i think only 7 or higher has the features needed for this. basically do the following;
1. create a 512x512 start image
2. put a basic color as your background
3. create a new layer
4. draw semi-thick black lines in in a pattern that you would think would look good as creases in the cloth.
5. add a gaussian blur to it untill the lines look almost like shaded/blurry shadows
6. go to the blending properties of the layer you're on and go to bevel and emboss, change the technique to chivel-soft, change it to down, and mess with the rest of the settings untill it looks good.
7. go to the base color background layer, blending properties and then texture, and add whatever texture seems to look good, make the depth very little to make the texture subtle.

and there you go, you'll get something like this, but better, i only took 30 seconds to make that but if you actually take your time you can produce some good looking cloth textures.

Thanks I'll give that a whirl - it's a definite timesaver over the usual airbrushed shadow/highlight method I use.

If you're simulating fluffy cloth effects in 3d, then look up "subsurface scattering". It is a method of simulating light transfer inside semi-solid materials like pillow fillings, wax, clouds etc. It can also be used to simulate a felt surface, which consists of tiny fibers that transfer the light about in a diffuse manner.