Tin
22nd Sep 11, 10:23 AM
Just wanted to create this so people can look at colouring their textures in a slightly different light!
Quite a few textures I've seen so far (no disrespect intended) are rather basic and involve sticking a colour over the grey texture. I'll start with putting up the basics and hopefully expand on this over time.
PLEASE NOTE!!!!! THE TEXTURE USED IN THIS POST IS A WORK IN PROGRESS AND HAS NOT YET BEEN FULLY COMPLETED. IF THERE ARE AREAS THAT DONT APPEAR TO BE FINISHED ITS BECAUSE THEY AREN'T!!!
The Base Texture
So this is what most people are starting off with, the base texture as found in the game files. As an example, I'm using the librarian texture. I'm using a torso as an example, but this also applies to any other texture your loading.
http://files1.guildlaunch.net/guild/library/168088/textureguide1.jpg
Not much to say about this stage, although there is one important thing that people don't seem to realise. You can RESIZE this texture if you like, it does not need to stay the same size. Although it would need to stay in the same aspect ratio (as a square you would need to increase both height and width by the same amount). I havent tried resizing it non-uni formally, and can't see a reason why you would want to, but I'm guessing it would throw up some problems!
Why is this important? Well, if you are planning on adding details to the armour later on, these may show up better ingame. Most people realise that if you get a really small image and stretch it it loses detail, the same principle applies here. Basically if you place a logo onto your armour, when the game upscales the texture it may look pixelated and lose some detail. Increasing the size of your base texture helps reduce this. Also if your say adding text to the armour, at the standard size it may be too small and your text becomes unreadable. Re-sizing the texture at the start helps you get around this.
Stage one - Basic Colours
Right, to stage one! This is the first thing to do really to get an idea of where you are going with the texture.
http://files1.guildlaunch.net/guild/library/168088/textureguide2.jpg
At this stage its just a case of laying in the basic colours. In photoshop this is done by doing the following:
Creating a new layer (at the top of the Screen, Layer -> New Layer)
When you get the new layer window popping up, you want to set the "mode" drop down to "multiply". Don't worry if you forget to do this, as this can be changed once the layer is created. Simply left click the layer in your layers box on the right hand side and on the drop down menu on the top of this section amend the layer to multiply.
Once this is done you literally take a paint brush with your selected colour and start laying down colour all over your armour!
Sometimes with a texture it is difficult to tell what part of the texture relates to what part of the armour. Like in the middle of the chest piece on this example, there are two C shaped things but what are they for??? If you ever get confused, the easiest thing to do here is to paint them a really really bright colour that contrasts with the rest of your work (like here I would use something like a bright red), save the texture and boot up the game. It's then easy to spot the bit that's painted red, go back to your texture and paint it the correct colour!
Unfortunately, this is where most people seem to stop. If you used this ingame, you would have a passable texture and it would work just fine, but it looks "flat" and you could make it alot better. If you also collect the tabletop figures, you wouldn't just stop at a base coat! Which is a clue to where this is going next.......
Stage Two - Colour Correction and Shadows
This is when you can really make your texture start to come to life. If you open up one of the already completed ingame textures, such as Titus' parts that are coloured, you can see that the texture is not just one full solid colour. It is made up of many variations of the same colour, simulating lighting, grime and wear. This is what you want to be aiming for. Again, here's my example with the start I have made on this.
http://files1.guildlaunch.net/guild/library/168088/textureguide3.jpg
You want to be aiming at giving your texture some "shape". Imagine how it will sit on your model, and try and replicate sections of wear or deep shadow. Doing this will help the areas that are just drawn onto the model rather than modelled in look 3d and help the overall look of your finished marine.
In this example, the way that I have done this is similar to the way I have done stage 1. I have created another layer on top of our previous colouring layer and set this to multiply (exactly the same way as stage 1, if you need a refresher scroll up and come back here!).
This time though, I haven't just plonked colour all over the armour, its done in a much more subtle way. For this I select a darker colour than the original (if you want to quickly do this, click the eye dropper on the left hand menu, click it on the colour you've already painted down, then on the colour selector tool on the right hand side click the actual colour and just go down a bit from where is already selected!) then select the paint brush tool. I also use the softer brush for this bit (if you click on the brush size, I use the one that looks fuzzy at the sides rather than the solid circle)
With this selected, I then adjust the opacity of the brush (this option can be found just on the right hand side of where you change the size of the brush). What this does is make whatever you paint kind of "see through" instead of just being a flat block of colour.
There is no hard and fast rules as to what you adjust the opacity to, just experiment and if it looks too much just hit undo, adjust it and try again! I normally go something quite low around the 10% mark and build up the colour with a couple of clicks.
Remember to be looking for areas of shadow or potential wearing spots whilst your doing this!
Stage 3 - Highlights and finer detail
Once the shadows are done, time to add the highlights!
http://files1.guildlaunch.net/guild/library/168088/textureguide4.jpg
This is the stage I'm at with this example texture, and as more is done I'll update this section. However, you can see how this is shaping up and the effect that is being aimed at.
In this example, I have created another layer but this time left the layer as "normal" instead of multiply. The aim of this stage is to build up highlights on the raised areas and also to lay softer colours down to simulate paint kind of wearing off the armour. You could use this to simulate general wear and tear, bullet marks etc. The idea is that if there is a scratch on the armour, it would be a lighter colour than the area around it as there is less paint there and more metal showing through. The pre-coloured textures are an obvious great example of this.
For this, I used a really low opacity brush and just started to paint over my texture. Using the low opacity keeps the detail below but as you are painting over the top also means you can paint out details that you want to appear as worn.
Also, to help you create the effect you're after there are loads of brushes available on the net to simulate things such as rust. These change the shape of the paint brush from a normal circle to various different shapes. These can be found easily with google searches ( http://lmgtfy.com/?q=grunge+brushes ) or another good resource is www.deviantart.com
There are many guides online showing how to load these brushes into photoshop, but its basically you download it, double click the file, restart photoshop (sometimes not needed) then just click on the brush size and scroll down to select your new brush (will normally be at the bottom).
With these brushes, you can then select a suitable brown/orange colour and start building up rust onto your armour! Remember, although this is a sci-fi game for best results you want to look toward real life. You wouldn't just get a random patch in the middle of an open section, for example, but your more likely to find this where water would gather, such as the rings on the side of the chest piece.
Unfortunately due to time restraints and the stage my current texture is at I can't go any further at the moment, but just doing the above should help you get a decent texture into the game! When I have a bit more free time I'll add to this so check back! If there is anything else you need to know before its done, a quick google search can bring up guides for almost anything. Texturing is nothing new, and there's 1000000000's of people that have been doing it for a long time for other games. 99% of it will be relevant to what your doing.
I've also got some textures I've already done, and I'll start a thread up shortly with the mods to download!
Things still to cover:-
Scaling icons so that detail isn't lost (use of vectors in your work)
Placing logo's/pre done work on your texture (making it look like it "fits" rather than being shoved on top like a sticker)
Covering the different texture files, specular maps/normal maps etc
If there's anything else you want covered just let me know and I'll try my best! I may not get back to this very quickly though, got a hectic month or so whilst moving house.
Hope this helps out someone in even a little way!
Quite a few textures I've seen so far (no disrespect intended) are rather basic and involve sticking a colour over the grey texture. I'll start with putting up the basics and hopefully expand on this over time.
PLEASE NOTE!!!!! THE TEXTURE USED IN THIS POST IS A WORK IN PROGRESS AND HAS NOT YET BEEN FULLY COMPLETED. IF THERE ARE AREAS THAT DONT APPEAR TO BE FINISHED ITS BECAUSE THEY AREN'T!!!
The Base Texture
So this is what most people are starting off with, the base texture as found in the game files. As an example, I'm using the librarian texture. I'm using a torso as an example, but this also applies to any other texture your loading.
http://files1.guildlaunch.net/guild/library/168088/textureguide1.jpg
Not much to say about this stage, although there is one important thing that people don't seem to realise. You can RESIZE this texture if you like, it does not need to stay the same size. Although it would need to stay in the same aspect ratio (as a square you would need to increase both height and width by the same amount). I havent tried resizing it non-uni formally, and can't see a reason why you would want to, but I'm guessing it would throw up some problems!
Why is this important? Well, if you are planning on adding details to the armour later on, these may show up better ingame. Most people realise that if you get a really small image and stretch it it loses detail, the same principle applies here. Basically if you place a logo onto your armour, when the game upscales the texture it may look pixelated and lose some detail. Increasing the size of your base texture helps reduce this. Also if your say adding text to the armour, at the standard size it may be too small and your text becomes unreadable. Re-sizing the texture at the start helps you get around this.
Stage one - Basic Colours
Right, to stage one! This is the first thing to do really to get an idea of where you are going with the texture.
http://files1.guildlaunch.net/guild/library/168088/textureguide2.jpg
At this stage its just a case of laying in the basic colours. In photoshop this is done by doing the following:
Creating a new layer (at the top of the Screen, Layer -> New Layer)
When you get the new layer window popping up, you want to set the "mode" drop down to "multiply". Don't worry if you forget to do this, as this can be changed once the layer is created. Simply left click the layer in your layers box on the right hand side and on the drop down menu on the top of this section amend the layer to multiply.
Once this is done you literally take a paint brush with your selected colour and start laying down colour all over your armour!
Sometimes with a texture it is difficult to tell what part of the texture relates to what part of the armour. Like in the middle of the chest piece on this example, there are two C shaped things but what are they for??? If you ever get confused, the easiest thing to do here is to paint them a really really bright colour that contrasts with the rest of your work (like here I would use something like a bright red), save the texture and boot up the game. It's then easy to spot the bit that's painted red, go back to your texture and paint it the correct colour!
Unfortunately, this is where most people seem to stop. If you used this ingame, you would have a passable texture and it would work just fine, but it looks "flat" and you could make it alot better. If you also collect the tabletop figures, you wouldn't just stop at a base coat! Which is a clue to where this is going next.......
Stage Two - Colour Correction and Shadows
This is when you can really make your texture start to come to life. If you open up one of the already completed ingame textures, such as Titus' parts that are coloured, you can see that the texture is not just one full solid colour. It is made up of many variations of the same colour, simulating lighting, grime and wear. This is what you want to be aiming for. Again, here's my example with the start I have made on this.
http://files1.guildlaunch.net/guild/library/168088/textureguide3.jpg
You want to be aiming at giving your texture some "shape". Imagine how it will sit on your model, and try and replicate sections of wear or deep shadow. Doing this will help the areas that are just drawn onto the model rather than modelled in look 3d and help the overall look of your finished marine.
In this example, the way that I have done this is similar to the way I have done stage 1. I have created another layer on top of our previous colouring layer and set this to multiply (exactly the same way as stage 1, if you need a refresher scroll up and come back here!).
This time though, I haven't just plonked colour all over the armour, its done in a much more subtle way. For this I select a darker colour than the original (if you want to quickly do this, click the eye dropper on the left hand menu, click it on the colour you've already painted down, then on the colour selector tool on the right hand side click the actual colour and just go down a bit from where is already selected!) then select the paint brush tool. I also use the softer brush for this bit (if you click on the brush size, I use the one that looks fuzzy at the sides rather than the solid circle)
With this selected, I then adjust the opacity of the brush (this option can be found just on the right hand side of where you change the size of the brush). What this does is make whatever you paint kind of "see through" instead of just being a flat block of colour.
There is no hard and fast rules as to what you adjust the opacity to, just experiment and if it looks too much just hit undo, adjust it and try again! I normally go something quite low around the 10% mark and build up the colour with a couple of clicks.
Remember to be looking for areas of shadow or potential wearing spots whilst your doing this!
Stage 3 - Highlights and finer detail
Once the shadows are done, time to add the highlights!
http://files1.guildlaunch.net/guild/library/168088/textureguide4.jpg
This is the stage I'm at with this example texture, and as more is done I'll update this section. However, you can see how this is shaping up and the effect that is being aimed at.
In this example, I have created another layer but this time left the layer as "normal" instead of multiply. The aim of this stage is to build up highlights on the raised areas and also to lay softer colours down to simulate paint kind of wearing off the armour. You could use this to simulate general wear and tear, bullet marks etc. The idea is that if there is a scratch on the armour, it would be a lighter colour than the area around it as there is less paint there and more metal showing through. The pre-coloured textures are an obvious great example of this.
For this, I used a really low opacity brush and just started to paint over my texture. Using the low opacity keeps the detail below but as you are painting over the top also means you can paint out details that you want to appear as worn.
Also, to help you create the effect you're after there are loads of brushes available on the net to simulate things such as rust. These change the shape of the paint brush from a normal circle to various different shapes. These can be found easily with google searches ( http://lmgtfy.com/?q=grunge+brushes ) or another good resource is www.deviantart.com
There are many guides online showing how to load these brushes into photoshop, but its basically you download it, double click the file, restart photoshop (sometimes not needed) then just click on the brush size and scroll down to select your new brush (will normally be at the bottom).
With these brushes, you can then select a suitable brown/orange colour and start building up rust onto your armour! Remember, although this is a sci-fi game for best results you want to look toward real life. You wouldn't just get a random patch in the middle of an open section, for example, but your more likely to find this where water would gather, such as the rings on the side of the chest piece.
Unfortunately due to time restraints and the stage my current texture is at I can't go any further at the moment, but just doing the above should help you get a decent texture into the game! When I have a bit more free time I'll add to this so check back! If there is anything else you need to know before its done, a quick google search can bring up guides for almost anything. Texturing is nothing new, and there's 1000000000's of people that have been doing it for a long time for other games. 99% of it will be relevant to what your doing.
I've also got some textures I've already done, and I'll start a thread up shortly with the mods to download!
Things still to cover:-
Scaling icons so that detail isn't lost (use of vectors in your work)
Placing logo's/pre done work on your texture (making it look like it "fits" rather than being shoved on top like a sticker)
Covering the different texture files, specular maps/normal maps etc
If there's anything else you want covered just let me know and I'll try my best! I may not get back to this very quickly though, got a hectic month or so whilst moving house.
Hope this helps out someone in even a little way!