Article#200720: How to Apply Textures onto a Footwear Rendering (using an iPad)?
Applying textures to a design is a powerful technique and a fun way of creating compelling and lifelike rendering in design. Texture is generally a visual reference of better understanding an object. Texture creates a visual illusion to a design.
Even though applying textures to a rendering is not always needed, but texturing does a design pop. It’s what brings a perfectly fine design up to enviable levels, a visual height. So what exact is texture in design parlance? Basically, texture is how things feel.
In footwear design, most time applying texture to a sketch is not a must-have task in the process. However, over the years, I do find there are times applying texture to a footwear design rendering has its advantages. When presenting a footwear concept to a team, there are people whom do not understand simple sketches or drawings. A better version of a visual lifelike footwear rendering is often make presenting a design easier to understand for the team.
Very often team members will ask the question what this shoe is made of. And the best way to answer this question is to show them visually. Because textures accompanied by light creates the effect how this shoe feels. Is certain area breathable? Is it water resistant? Is it tough enough? etc. All these questions can be better explained by applying texture to a design.
With this footwear design I applied few weather resistant swatches since this shoe is a training based concept. The forefoot part is a nylon woven mesh material that is breathable and resilient. The back half of the shoe is a nylon woven ripstop that can stand rough condition better. For the medial side of the shoe I applied a rubbery textured PU material that can create traction during training. And the heel counter is a two-layer construction. The inner layer is a distressed material that gives a tough stable look via the outer transparent TPU cover that functions as a visual window to the inner layer.
Below I split the video into 4 time stops.
Step 1 @37s mark: Organizing files by naming each swatch; rasterize each texture swatch image; locating each texture swatch onto layer group.
Step 2 @3:16 mark: Apply black & white adjustment and blend mode to each texture swatch to have texture swatches show through color palette of rendering.
Step 3 @6:11 mark: Final tuning each texture with other adjustments accordingly.
Step 4 @8:36 mark: (optional). Apply other layer effects (in this case liquified is used and brushes are applied).
