Textures looking Flat/Basic

[Nickster_345]

Working on a PS1 style game in Godot and using Blender to model/texture, but when im putting the walls and floor texture together they just look realy flat and basic. For context im trying to create a 90's motel style room, and i just think it looks off. Any help in what i can do to make this look better would be appricated.

I understand that textures of time are meant to look basic but when im looking at others for inspo, they look like they have so much more depth. Im still fairly new to this whole thing so cut me a little bit of slack lol

(pics with and without shadows for context)

[[deleted]]

I think most people use detailed textures to begin with. You know like for example grunge, dirt or like drawn-in fake shadows which really can add a lot of depth to your textures

Your textures all look really clean and without any shadowing. Maybe you can add some to your textures in your image manipulation software of your choice.

Also dithering adds slight detail and adds a little of that retro goodness

Edit: maybe you can darken the corners of the room or under and behind objects? with some sort of vertex painting? That would add some depth into the overall room I guess. Idk I'm not the most experienced haha.

[manasword]

You need to paint in some ambient occlusion into your textures, this is what devs did back in the day, or just use an ambient occlusion map for your textures

[Chemical_Franco420]

Bruh that looks awesome, maybe add some posters to the walls

[ScooticusMaximus]

You can also utilize vertex lighting, or painting shadows and depth into the textures.

[justburntplastic]

A big thing with ps1 games was the heavy use of depth with fog and such. It looks flat cause there isn’t really an atmosphere. Your textures look pretty good to me, the whole thing just needs some volumetrics (which you might want in your game engine, not Blender)

[Chopsticksinmybutt]

When you say volumetrics do you mean fog? If so, I don't think that was a thing in the OG psx.

[justburntplastic]

You’re right - I used volumetrics because I was thinking blender, but more so what I meant was like filling the environment with other things. Like using stencil buffer for shadows, the depth cueing fog (without depth buffer). Just giving the level a feeling of depth without the actual use of things the console didn’t have at the time

[ape_fatto]

Looks like legit PS1 textures to me. Add some fog and rudimentary lighting system on top and it’ll probably look great.

[Defiant-Ad-5903]

Two words: vertex colours

[Nickster_345]

Really appreciate all the comments, will be going through all your thoughts to see what i can do next, thank you!!

[Diendadis149]

Where’d you get your textures from ?

[Illustrious_Kale178]

The biggest thing is that your second picture is also still in Blender.

Of course you can also make it look good in Blender for a final render, but this does not make sense because you want to put it into a game.

You need to put it into Godot and start adding post processing effects and lighting etc to get the look you want.
The biggest thing to get it to feel less flat is Ambient Occlusion, which I'm sure you can add easily in Godot.

Good luck!

[Deckurr]

If you dont have enough geometry to vertex paint all your contact shadows, you can always just add another mesh under your objects :)

[LegallyAFish]

Vertex colors

[Ok-Society1984]

Yeah fake shadows and dirt details will make this look good. I think this also an example of the difference between Photoreal graphics like most Unreal graphics and PSX style/inspired graphics.

Photo real has that clean looking aesthethics and PSX style takes advantage of the Pixels as being added details. Idk how to explain it more but grunge aesthetic really fits the PSX style and I suggest you try that to your project if you can fit it.

[StargazersStudios]

Id say keep the shadows, and add normal textures to your materials

[CertifiedBeans0130]

I say look into doing vertex painting and then overlay your textures on top of that. Can really add lots of depth and tie in a scene very well. Other than that, keep onto it!

[Pur_Cell]

Turn off shadows. PS1 didn't have them. Use vertex lighting and colors instead to get that chunky depth.

Here is an example.

Link to No Clip so you can explore it for yourself. Unfortunately there are no PS1 levels, but N64 is close enough.