Texture making...

[--=PsyXandeR=--]

Are there any good resources dedicated to texture making? I have googled a bit today but nothing useful turned up. Any hint / link would be really nice. Thanks!

[Raynor]

You might want to contact with Diehard from UnrealTexture.com. He's doing some pretty awesome work on Unreal and Unreal Tournament S3TC textures.

[Myth]

http://www.cgtextures.com/

Is the best site full of awesome photos which can be used to make textures. I have to admit that I've used it a lot of time. You may find similar ones whit those in my texture pack. You can also find tutorials. There are very nice photography tips in the tutorials section.

All you really need is a decent digital camera and photoshop/gimp. 90% of the textures in 3d games were made in photoshop. Go around the city, or town, or wherever you want. This is the way most mappers do it, because you also get to see lots of interesting buildings.

Another method of texture creation, which is more common around programmers, is as simple as: write a program which generates textures using different algorithms. In the hands of a real professional these can be actually very realistic, and you don't even need a camera, just your basic C++ compiler. There are also free programs and plugins that do this. Most professional graphics programs like GIMP can generate 'perlin noise'.

Well, I hope this helps. Practice makes perfect, there isn't much to talk about, start your favorite graphics program and start experimenting. Don't forget to test your textures in UnrealEd, they might look very different there.

Edit: If you want to try generating textures from scratch, try this: http://www.spiralgraphics.biz/genetica.htm
It's simple to use, especially if you're familiar whit UT3's material editor.

[--=PsyXandeR=--]

Thanks! I already know about cgtextures, I was wondering about actually drawing textures rather than using existing images and simply modifying them.

@Myth - I have seen couple of good techy texes in your latest tex pack, I was just wondering if those are photobased or hand-drawn?

[Myth]

88% of them were 'hand draw' and combined whit some base textures or generated textures. Many of them use a base texture from UTtech1.utx for example. A few of them use textures from the website I mentioned, so those are based of photobased pics.

[--=PsyXandeR=--]

Ah thanks! That answers my question now!

[Diehard]

My answer will be short for the moment. But i still am trying to see if i can make some usefull tutorials in time.




As program i use Photoshop 7, which is also what Hourences still is using. Its a good and solid version to work with. Its old but works just fine. For maintenance on my texture collections i use a very old version of ACDSee version 2.4 And recently i tried version 9 but that one cant even see files larger than 300 Mb, well, i dont have files smaller than that LMAO. So crappy old version 2.4 is the way to go




But in general, i often use a digital camera to get all kinds of base textures, and you can think of photos from all types of grass, rocks, pebbles, bark, metal surfaces, concrete, brick walls, puthole lids, soil, mud, wood, fences, rust, tarmac roads, rusted painted metal, doors, walls, etc.

As for taking the photos, make the photo from a straight angle so all perspective is gone, like this example: Perfect Shot

and a bad example is this one: Bad Shot

Also, never ever use flashlight, this will ruin the texture because it will give a balll of light that fades to the edges, and you cannot repair that. Flash is no go !!!




And everywhere i go, i always look around for things that can be usefull, thats pretty much 24/7 i am on the lookout. And now i got a semi professional 10 megapixel SLR camera and awsome tripod, but lots of the textures from the URP and UTRP project have been made with my crappy old 4 megapixel camera. And that did the trick just fine And nowadays you can get a good digital camera for a few bucks, or try get and expensive one for cheap on ebay. If you got a digital camera your work is already done for 50%, so its important. Canon has very affordable good cameras, so you may have a look at those.




When done i transfer the photos to my computer, and i used to start off with a base size of 2048 x 2048 pixels. Nowadays i often start off from 4096 x 4096 pixels, so i can also make bases for the upcomming Extreme End S3TC textures. But if i were you, limit yourself to 2048 x 2048 pixels, thats in 99% of the cases more than sufficient. The first thing i do is make the photo square by painting the missing parts, and like any other texture artist, i use the Clone tool for that. After that is done i make the texture tilable with the help of a third party Photoshop filter called the HalfWrap filter which you can find on this link: Photoshop Plugins




That filter flipflops the layer around in such a way that the sides all of a sudden are sitting in the middle, and again with the Clone tool i start making the seams invisible by painting on it. When done, i apply the filter again, so its flip flopped back to its original position. Than i often make the texture a bit sharper because cloning can make the texure look fuzzy. And i usually use Filter ---> Sharpen ---> Unsharp Mask. Than if needed i change the color a bit, more green, or more red, or more blue and yellow, whatever is needed. I usually use Image ---> Adjustments ---> Selective Color and set that one to Neutrals. Sometimes this doesnt work and the picture starts to bleed(difficult to explain here now) and in those rare occasions i use: Image ---> Adjustment ---> Variations And that one looks like its more easy to use, but i would advise to use Selective Color as your base for changing colors




And this consumes tons of hardrive space, but i save each step into a layer.

So
- Layer 4 (top layer) is named: RustedMetal04 (being the new name for that new base)
- Layer 3 is named: Col -10, +5, +5, 0
- Layer 2 is named: Unsharp 180, 1
- Layer 1 (bottom layer) is named: IMG_9364 Tilable (IMG_9364 being the photos number)

I also save the file under that name, so in this case its named: RustedMetal04.psd

The advantage of doing that is that you always can go back into history and make changes if needed, you also always knows what photo you used as base, and with alot of photos a couple a years later you will find out, its super important. As said the downside is lots of harddrive space, but too beneficial to not do it.....




In that way you can make hundreds or thousends of bases. And textures are simply made out of several bases. I collect those in a new file that will have the name it will also have in the utx package like this one, and the filename is mlbPipeWall7TES.psd:

This texture (UTbase1 package, texturename: mlbPipeWall7TES:




Is entirely made from this foto:




And this rust made of several other rust photos(used to make all the pipes)




These scratches:




And this circuitboard i got from the net:




And i used this example before on several forums, because it indeed points out that you can make pretty much anything, out of anything




For the shadow that is casted on the pipes i simply use the default Shadow function from Photoshop, The pipes and other shapes are cut out of the base textures and to keep the pipes as example, i recolored them so they look all different. For the plates i used the Emboss fuction to give them a 3d look and they apear to be thick(seeing the edges).




An important remark for the Eboss effect, the Photoshop default setting is Screen for the highlights, and Multiply for the Shadows. Tom make it look real you need to change the highlight to Color Dodge since this gives a much more natural look. Screen mode will make it look like plastic. You also need to dissable Use Global Light If you dont, the shadow will come from the wrong angle (same aplies btw for shadow casting).




The pipes are a different story, you can use Emboss as well, and certainly in the beginning you probably use that alot. But at the end its better to create the highlights and shadows using the Dodge tool(for the highlights) and the Burn tool(for the shadows) Normally(95% from the time) i set the Exposure to 40% and the Range to Midtones But you have to toy around with them to see what best works for you, but those setting aint bad for most occasions.


And another good example from painting with dodge and burn is this UT texture:




For the metal base i used this photo:




And this foto from the glass next to my frontdoor, with a white paper taped behind it(so i could take the photo without seeing whats behind it)



I did cut out all the shapes, like the door, the text(50H and 25) and the warnings, and changed the color of the metal so it will have the colors as can be seen. The side all around the door as well as the doorhandle i painted those using the Dodge and Burn tool, effectivelly its "just adding" highlights.

Dodge and Burn tool is a must to master ! But start using Emboss and over time try to use as much as possible using the Dodge and Burn tools.


And a few small examples of how to take photos:


Crumbled houshold tinfoil, and i used that metal alot for the upcomming update for the DecayedS package




I was biking by, and saw this container, went home, got my camera, asked for permission if i could take photos on their terrain. Took 2 hours to get permission (was from the government) And i was allowed to take photos, and took some 300 shots from far and real close by.




Took a small round tub and added a bit water to it, threw it in the freezer, let it freeze up, added more water, that hot so it would crack, let that freeze up again, and redid this several times in about a 3 day timeframe. After that i took it ouside in the sunshine so i had enough light, i layed it down on a black piece of plastic, so any reflection would be gone, and took somne 50 photos from it.




And this is the result, a perfect tilable real cool piece of ice :




And of course you are gonna tell me you dont have Photoshop, but no harm done, the same things can be done with other programs, and if needed there is a free professional program called The GIMP, and if needed you can get it from this link: The GIMP That program is as proffesional as Photoshop and a good alternative. But if you got Photoshop, no bad thing, or try download it from the net



And i have been following you from time to time, and you collected a bundle of already made textures into a new package. So i only asume your interested in it for some time now, and yeah, maybe its time for you to give it a go yourself. And personally i learned alot from taking a texture, and trying to redo it from scratch. And i am sure, your first attempts will look horrible(like mine as well ), but if you keep trying it will come to you pretty fast. Another good way to make textures, make a small map, and try make all the textures yourself, and maybe limit yourself to like 20 textures. But try to refuse any third party materials !!!


And i know its in Dutch, but here are a few other examples from photo to finish:

http://www.unrealtexture.com/General/Website/FotoVoorlichting/FotoVoorlichting.htm
.
.
.

[Creavion]

Interesting presentation DieHard, very detailed!

Anyway I am looking forward for some certain remastered textures from you, those genearth rock textures which are used in the unreal beta aztec map as bark textures (GenEarth.Rock.Rock1b + Roc2_o~1)

[Diehard]

Interesting presentation DieHard, very detailed!

Thanks, lol, i am just uncapable of making a short post

Anyway I am looking forward for some certain remastered textures from you, those genearth rock textures which are used in the unreal beta aztec map as bark textures (GenEarth.Rock.Rock1b + Roc2_o~1)

Aw, thats always dangerous lol, if i make an S3TC version of that one, it might not look like bark anymore, well i try keep it in mind lol. PS, ill try prepare some stuff for you, as well as on my forums, for which i created a new one at this link: http://www.unrealtexture.com/General/We ... m.php?f=59
.
.
.

[papercoffee]

WAIT? WHAT!!?

You made the Genearth pack (also the whole Gen-packs) ??????

[Creavion]

Not only the Gen packs, every unreal and ut texturepackage (and langs.utx from rtnp^^) was so far remastered by him and he is still not finished yet. This is what I call truely stamina!

Aw, thats always dangerous lol, if i make an S3TC version of that one, it might not look like bark anymore, well i try keep it in mind lol. PS, ill try prepare some stuff for you, as well as on my forums, for which i created a new one at this link: http://www.unrealtexture.com/General/We ... m.php?f=59

I am sure you will master this well as like all the other stuff so far.

But question: What stuff?

[papercoffee]

Not only the Gen packs, every unreal and ut texturepackage (and langs.utx from rtnp^^) was so far remastered by him and he is still not finished yet. This is what I call truely stamina!

Ermmm.... he remastered it or did he the original Gen-pack??

[Creavion]

He did the remastered ones of course...

[papercoffee]

Ah ...ok!

This is what I call truely stamina!

agree

[THUNDERBOLT]

I also use textures from GeneticaViewer



and http://www.textureking.com/