[xXxPZxXx]

I have seen my share of mods and video games, now it seems that when it comes to textures there is a huge jump from "mediocre" to "really damn good" I would really like to know how to make that jump.

My all time favorite textures are done my nick marks. www.nickmarks.com I have taken one of his textures and just circled a couple things and numbered them for the sole purpose of learning. I didn't mean to "deface" them, take credit, and I apologize for even having it on my server. But I would do ANYTHING to learn this stuff, it makes me drool. If there are any problems anyone sees with this please just say and it will be taken down.





ok so getting down to it- how in the heck is something like this made? Some of his textures look SO 3D I think they were modeled THEN textured, then a top down pic was taken. I can see how most of those filter-raped textures are done by beginners. (I have done my share) and I can take digital pictures and make them tile. But what does it take to get here?

The parts that I have circled...

-are they hi-res photo's pasted into the texture?

-are they hand drawn?

-especially number 4 looks like a photo, if it is not then how in the heck is this done?

-number 3- this looks to me like it COULD be done more traditionally. Perhaps with a base color then some lighting effects? But how does the "bumpiness" fade so perfectly?

if anyone has some pointers on doing stuff like this or texture in general, Please post it I would be most appreciative.

-PZ-
*again I am trying to learn here so sorry to nick marks if I have stepped on your toes any, I know you visit here semi-regularly and your input would be priceless

[SporQ]

sometimes they are 3d elements, but i think the majority is using photographs to get textures, and messing with them in photoshop,

strangefate has a few good tutorials... http://nome.dhs.org/strangefate/Tutorials/index.html

[LoTekK]

the texture in question looks as though it may have been modeled, textured, and bumped, etc... i know that people do indeed use 3d modelling programs to do some textures, and this, in fact, is probably one of the most effective ways to create detailed textures... however, it does not have to stop there... if you wanted, you could model something, texture it, bump it, and then take the render into photoshop and touch it up from there... now, i'm no expert on textures, but when i was quite interested in modmaking, i spoke to a number of people, as well as looked through countless tutorials to learn about the process...

[edit] oh yes, sporq's post reminded me about the photograph bit... plenty of good examples of brilliant textures made solely from photographs and photoshop can be found in maps for unreal tournament made by a guy named Angelheart... his textures border on godlike, imho... [/edit]

[ January 04, 2002: Message edited by: LoTekK ]

[Anthony]

I'm just gonna answer in general how I made the jump. Jason Manley took me from using photo layers in photoshop to creating models in Lightwave and using Painter to create texture maps for them. So here's the basics:
Get Painter 6. Get some good papers(I know there are some that'll start you out at DonSeegmiller's site). Use the square chalk tool, using tons of papers, colors, inverting the papers, always leaning toward the texture and color you want the surface to look like. It just has to lean that way to work out. At least on beat up or aged surfaces. This gives you the color variation you need. The texture you posted, IMO, is severely lacking in color variation. It doesn't need to be a lot of texture on a relatively new object, but there should still be enough color and detail. You can start with a photo, but I recommend starting with a model and texture that. There are other ways to get nice results.

[Lunatique]

All the texture artists I've ever worked with uses photos and then paint/manipulate them. Rarely does anyone have the time to model something, texture it, and then screencap it as another texture.

[Jason Manley]

hey...

people do have time to model out textures...matter of fact we used almost NO photos for icewind dale , heart of winter, torn...etc...we used almost all prebuilt and mapped textures for all the titles we touched in my two and a half years there.

if you want textures that are generic then photos can work...and work well.

but...if you want very specific textures according to the vision of the concept artist...often there is no other way than to build them.

I would rather have a concept artist on my team that could do BOTH...that way if the couldnt find it..they could make it...and once you get good at it you can make as many textures a week that way as you could from working with photos.

jason

[suny]

uses photos, and manipulate them?
...
i'm geting sick of seing the same 3ds4 textures in every PC games everyday.
You know, metalox.jpg, plateox.jpg, and -arghh- diamondp.jpg...
Sometimes, i dream of a world without the 3ds4 world creating toolkit.

Another thing: with the increase of amount of polygons and the new lighting methods of next generation games (radiosity light maps, pixels shaders, shadow maps, multitexturing, and so on), we don't need "trompe l'oeuil" maps anymore. Or less.
nick marks textures are ok for low poly sceneries (like in quake), with no engine lighting, but are too dark, have too much contrast and lighting infos to be lighted.
So, the games texture work is going to be very similar to the CG texture work, with a difuse map with colors, textures and details in it, a shadow or/and a light map for the static lighting, eventually vertex colors, a bump map, a specular map and so on.
like in max4, yes.
so, if you put too much details and ligthing informations in you map, it's going to interefere with the engine lighting, and loose coherency (for example: a nice highlight in the texture map + a shadow map = a grey strain. not good.).
And, coherency is everything.
So,IMO, good textures are not overworked ones, it's not illustration, good textures are textures wich work well with the engine, with the lighting algorythm in mind, for the scenary, for the game.
Not easy.

S.

[Svanur]

I asked Nick once how he did those textures and he told me that he actually makes them in a 3D modelling package, to get the 3D look and lighting right.