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Tigershark

Question on making new textures

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OK gents,

We've all gotten pretty good at making textures based on the original ones BIS provided.

My question is....what techniques do you guys use to make textures for units that don't exist in the game.

Do you use photos and wrap them on the model....do you hand draw them?

How did BIS make their textures?

Any ideas?

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It really depends on what your wanting to make? I'm assuming your wanting images for your new heli's. From the way it looks, they used photos for most textures. I could be wrong, but at least all the ones I've messed with look like they were done that way.

With a really hi-res model and the right lighting you could make your own textures from renders.

Ebud

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yeah bis used photos a guy traveled around to get photos of the tanks the hardest thing was the interior they told me

for a totaly new thing i get photos and edit them till they look good then i make them gif to keep it a scharp texture

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But you can't always find good photos, so sometimes you have to draw your own textures. I'm deep in texture hell right now, since no body but Sweden and Norway uses the kind of cammo pattern I need for my vehicles. In the Operation White Night MOD that is.

And there are close to no photos to be found on the net. Luckily, we have a guy in the MOD that is in the Homeguard (Compares to the US National Guard) so he might be able to get us some photos.

But for now, I'm finding myself in a hellish situation where I have to hand draw the basic cammo pattern. I have several .PSD files with the cammo pattern only, ranging from 128x128 to 1024x1024 with all the variations in between. Which means that whenever I need to texture something new I can just pull up one of those base cammos and start painting the details ontop of that.

If you are doing your own textures, I would suggest a similar approach, make one layer with the actual cammo. Be it plain olive drab or tigerstripes, then you make a new layer and paint details on, ah you get the idea. But I would recommend that you go out and find photos, since it's a real bitch handpainting the textures =(

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KTotte....what are you trying to texture??...thanks for you reply by the way...

Drawing our own cammo is something that Jellybelly and I are used to....but.....that was on top of the grayscale textures BIS made. Now I'm trying to share techniques....hopefully we all can learn from this.

Thanks for your input...it would be nice to hear from BIS or people like Mac and Maarfy for texture ideas as well....I'm getting somewhere...but I'm wondering if its the right approach.

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I am texturing + modelling the TGB 11 and 13 simultaneously, since they are pretty much the same vehicle.

http://www.soldf.com/images/s_tgb11.jpg

http://www.soldf.com/images/s_tgb13_2.jpg

TGB stands for Terrängbil, which is swedish for Terrainvehicle.

A pretty word for a light multi-purpose transport vehicle.

You could say it's the swedish equivalent of the HMMWV.

The 11 is the smaller version, which is primarily used for short range troop transports, and as a very light transport. It seats 6 + 1 driver, and has a very small cargo area.

The 13 however is 1 meter (app. 3 feet) longer than the 11, and thus has more cargo space.

Some of the uses (for both, 13 just does everything a bit bigger than the 11) is: Staff-vehicles. The higher ranking officers in the field are hauled around in them.

Radio-vehicles. Extend the reach of the regular platoon radios.

Medevac vehicles. Ambulances in short.

TGB11 only: Recon.

TGB11 only, a version called TGB 1111, which is a cab version of the TGB11, armed with a RB56 BILL Anti-tank rocket launcher. Pic below. Will make this later.

http://www.soldf.com/images/s_tgb1111.jpg

Anyway, since I don't have any of BIS's grayscales to use as a reference, I have to do it the hard way. Model the vehicles in 3DSM, use Unwrap UVW to get the texture placement, then use TexPorter to get that UVW map out as a reference JPG. Then, finally, I can begin with the actual texture painting over the reference JPG. When I'm done with that, it's time for texturing in 3DSM.

Since I'm still on the alpha version of the model, I'm not paying great heed to the textures, re-using the right side texture for the left side and so on. It's time for me however, to get more serious with it, so that the sucker can finally get in-game.

Oh, about techniques, I find that it's much easier for me to make realistic looking textures using the dodge/burn tools in Photoshop. When you fiddle with brush size and opacity you can create some very nice shadings and highlights on the texture, thus making it more realistic. Then, if you're really serious about it, you can use sharpen on some parts of the texture to make those parts look more worn, if you do it right (meaning not over do it) you get good results.

Now, these are just my speed-texture techniques, there are of course quite a number of other things to do if you want to get that perfect result. But more on that later, tune in tomorrow for the next episode of cool texturing with KTottE =D

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Tiger, you should use a digital camera, I do that, textures are pretty good. Next thing is remaking in photoshop (noise and dust). Thats all.

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Well now, this is more of a technical question about how O2 handles textures. I've asked this already, but no one wanted to answer it =(

When I import my already textured (not really my model, I'm just the one converting it) model as a .3DS file, I get the option to convert the textures. Which is nice, because I don't want to re-map the sucker in O2.

BUT, there is a problem. My textures all want to be .pac format. Every time I import O2 auto-converts to .pac format. No matter if it's a gif or a tga.

Now, one of the textures is a 32-bit tga, with an alpha channel. 85-90% of the texture is solid, but there is one part that has like 20-30% opacity, that is a window. Now, it's no good having that texture in .pac format, so I want it as .paa.

And my question to you guys is: How in the farkin hell do I do that?

I haven't found an option to convert to .paa when I import, and I haven't found a way to change the texture post-importation. The funny thing is, if I import that single texture manually (Texture mode, right click, load texture) it sure converts into .paa format, but not when I import it with the model. Now, is there some way other than pre-converting the textures using TexView to get this to work?

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Any takers?

I will give this one more day then I'll do it the awkward TexView way.

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you could just leave it as pac and texture the area you want to be a window individually (there are many window textures in the data folders)

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But that's just it, isn't it?

I don't want to re-map it in any way. So I'll guess I'm stuck with TexView huh?

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Well actually it shouldn't be a problem to pre-convert it with texview, i'm doing it also that way but i don't know exactlly if it will work with paa, but it works with pac........

Cy

Maslow

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Oh well, I guess I have to do that then. =(

This has set me back a week with that model. Flippin hell >:[

Edit:

It would be nice if you could explain how to do it.

I've tried converting all the textures to .paa before hand, which doesn't work.

I've tried changing after I import them. Taking the mSkin.pac (the texture in question...) and changing it to .paa with TexView.

And it doesn't work =(

So /me is an unhappy camper today.

BTW, I will NOT remap the model in O2, so don't suggest it.

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Well, it seems I have to. But I really don't wanna =(

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why not its just 1 minute or something

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Well, as I explained, it's not my model. I'm just putting it through O2.

So I don't want to touch another guys model =)

But I have to, so...

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Ok here's how I convert textures that have been maspped in 3ds max:

1. Once the model is loaded into o2 and the textures converted to .pac (or .paa), hold down the Ctrl key and double right click on the texture name in the Texture Library window. The part with that texture will become selected.

2. Right click in any of the view windows

3. Press the "E" key and the Face Properties dialog will appear

4. Click on the folder icon on the lower right hand side of the dialog and chose the tga or gif texture file. A warning dialog will appear asking if you want to overwrite the .pac or paa texture file in use.

5. Click OK

6. Click apply and then close the dialog.

You may have to refresh the buldozer window to update the texture. Sometimes i close the Buldozer window then reload it before the changes can be seen.

I hope this helps as having to remap faces can be a tedious affair.

Cheers

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