how to create textures?

[lee]

How are textures created like the commerce center has? Is there a tutorial somewhere explaining how to do it?

[loki1950]

There are a few tutorials on the wiki pretty basic the hardest part is unwrapping your model so you can actually start on the texture for it.

Enjoy the Choice

[lee]

Yes, I followed the instructions --- wings3d makes some kind of image with some drawings (the unwrapped model, I guess) on a background. I can work in the image in gimp, but gimp is working on the whole image and doesn't care about the drawings.

The textures I can make are, hmm, like wallpapers you could use for a desktop background. They appear on the model, but it looks ugly and I don't know what I'm doing. The texture for the commerce station, for example, is totally different. It looks like it is made from several images that have been put together somehow.

[chuck_starchaser]

The image from wings is probably the uv layout. You'd open it in Gimp, then add layers and paint on those layers at like 75% blend factor so you can see the layout underneath, for reference. There are gazillions of tutorials on texturing for game models if you google around. I did write one superrealistic texturing tutorial, but it assumes you know the basics and are trying to achieve greater realism. To explain everything about the subject from ABC's is a monumental task; it would take a book or two.

Easiest way to start would be to assign materials to your model in wings, then bake those materials to two separate textures: diffuse and specular. You use those textures as a basis to start texturing from. Best texture to start with is the bump map. It kind of defines everything else. Once you have the bump-map, you can open it as a reference underneath other textures you're working on. Eventually, the bump map is your main source for producing a normalmap.

But probably what you should do before trying to produce a texture set is work with existing ones; like take some poorly textured ship and improve the textures for it, or simply add a normal map; --which are badly needed.

[bgaskey]

I'm starting to understand what most of the textures do in game, but what is a normalmap (and bumpmap)?

EDIT: never mind. Yay wikipedia!

[lee]

There are gazillions of tutorials on texturing for game models if you google around.

Googling for it didn't give good results, that's why I'm asking here. I was searching for something like "create texture" --- maybe I just need better search terms.

I did write one superrealistic texturing tutorial, but it assumes you know the basics and are trying to achieve greater realism.

I need to start with the basics. Right now, I can "do something", but it looks ugly and I don't really know what I'm doing. It's apparently not something you could learn without explanation.

Easiest way to start would be to assign materials to your model in wings, then bake those materials to two separate textures: diffuse and specular.

Ok, but how do I do that?

But probably what you should do before trying to produce a texture set is work with existing ones; like take some poorly textured ship and improve the textures for it, or simply add a normal map; --which are badly needed.

First I'd need to learn more. That's why I looked at the texture of the commerce center --- it's an image with several layers, and the image looked as if it had been difficult to make. But I couldn't learn anything from it.

[chuck_starchaser]

There are gazillions of tutorials on texturing for game models if you google around.

Googling for it didn't give good results, that's why I'm asking here. I was searching for something like "create texture" --- maybe I just need better search terms.

You do.
Google for,

Code: Select all

texturing for game models tutorial

The more keywords you can give, the better the search results.

Easiest way to start would be to assign materials to your model in wings, then bake those materials to two separate textures: diffuse and specular.

Ok, but how do I do that?

Oh, man; how do you do what? Assign materials? Bake? I don't use Wings; I use Blender; so I couldn't tell you how you do either one. It's up to you to learn your tools, though. Even if you were asking how to do it in Blender, it would take several pages of writing to go through every detail. I mean, if you know the basics and were stuck with something in Blender, I'd help you, but I couldn't spend hours writing stuff for you that you could learn from existing tutorials out there. I mean, from your first post you're doing this: "How do I texture?" Come on! If you want to be a texturer, then learn your tools, find tutorials, subscribe to magazines, and ask a specific question when you must; but don't ask "How do I texture?"...

But probably what you should do before trying to produce a texture set is work with existing ones; like take some poorly textured ship and improve the textures for it, or simply add a normal map; --which are badly needed.

First I'd need to learn more. That's why I looked at the texture of the commerce center --- it's an image with several layers, and the image looked as if it had been difficult to make. But I couldn't learn anything from it.

Yes, texturing work needs to be done using multiple layers. I knew a texturer whose Gimp working master was made of like 62 layers, 4k by 4k; all to then produce a 1k x 1k final image. And that was for a small fighter. If you thought texturing was easy, think again. Texturers are much harder to find than modelers, and for good reasons.

[Fendorin]

if you want can send you PSD file off my own ship i create
but answer to this question: did you use photoshop or gimp?????
Texturing is like create a painting but with right and angular thing that all

unwrap model tutorial here:http://axvaude.free.fr/tutoriaux/wings2 ... gsUV01.htm

and you need to make some mistake : is better way for understanding !!!!!

[loki1950]

and you need to make some mistake : is better way for understanding !!!!!

Very true Fendorin it's the Homer moments that keep us going forward @lee just lots of practice and patience with your lack of initial progress.

enjoy the Choice

[lee]

I mean, if you know the basics and were stuck with something in Blender, I'd help you, but I couldn't spend hours writing stuff for you that you could learn from existing tutorials out there.

Don't worry, I know that it's not easy to explain and that I'll have to read some tutorials. The problem was only that I couldn't find them. Searching for "texturing for game models tutorial" seems to give much better results

[lee]

did you use photoshop or gimp?????

gimp

unwrap model tutorial here:http://axvaude.free.fr/tutoriaux/wings2 ... gsUV01.htm

Thanks! The screenshots they have will help --- I'll have a hard time reading French.

[loki1950]

If it's fairly technical French then run it thru babel fish it should give a good basis to start the deciphering.

Enjoy the Choice

[lee]

Well, I just tried it out ... It seems that the idea is to fill in the unfolded surfaces as drawn (Why don't they come as separate images or layers for that?) and also to create a background around them, but I didn't understand what the stitching and moving the surfaces is for. I'll just have to read more and to try things out.

[chuck_starchaser]

Stitching is a bit of a hack or trick to get around the difficulties of visualization during unwrap. You may put a few seams too many during unwrap, not realizing that some surfaces can easily unwrap as a continuum. Changing the seams at the unwrap stage is a bit difficult, so stitching the islands together is equivalent to getting rid of useless seam lines.

Speaking of the devil, how did you do the unwrap? Or, was it already done?
If you used some automatic unwrap tool, you may have a lot of work to do on it manually. Automatic unwrap tools often don't leave enough space between islands. If I use automatic unwrap, what I do immediately after is to reduce the uv layout to about 80% of the original size and manually move the islands to put a bit of space between them.
Another thing automatic unwrappers don't do is make sense. They place everything at random around the texture, which makes the texturing job extremely difficult, as it's very hard to tell what's what. I like to organize things so that, as much as possible, things that are close together in the model are also close together in the uv layout.
Last but not least, you need to rotate (NEVER flip; only rotate) the islands so that the z axis on the model (forward to back direction) lines up vertically in the textures, and so that the front direction points up (or "North" if you prefer) in the texture. This should apply to every island, except, of course, islands that correspond to front or back-facing polygons. Front and back facing polygons should be all together in one area of the texture, preferably at the top.
The reason for these last rules is that, during texturing, you might want to use linear blurs for dirt-marks and scratches, by starting with random speckles and then blurring them globally in a given direction (downwards by adopted VS standard). If your islands were oriented in random directions, to have dirt streaks and scratches that fade backwards, you'd have to apply blurs of different direction to each of the islands.
Of course, this only applies to ships. Stationary models, such as space stations don't have a front-to-back direction.

It seems that the idea is to fill in the unfolded surfaces as drawn (Why don't they come as separate images or layers for that?)

And if they did, what would you do to put them back together in a single texture?

[lee]

so stitching the islands together is equivalent to getting rid of useless seam lines.

Ah, that's what I started thinking it is for after playing with it.

Speaking of the devil, how did you do the unwrap? Or, was it already done?

Wings3d has a tool for that built in.

If you used some automatic unwrap tool, you may have a lot of work to do on it manually.

How else would you do it?

Another thing automatic unwrappers don't do is make sense. They place everything at random around the texture, which makes the texturing job extremely difficult, as it's very hard to tell what's what.

Indeed --- playing with the example model the French tutorial has, I couldn't tell but only guess.

Last but not least, you need to rotate (NEVER flip; only rotate) the islands so that the z axis on the model (forward to back direction) lines up vertically in the textures, and so that the front direction points up (or "North" if you prefer) in the texture.

Yeah, playing with the example showed me that it is important to know what direction a texture will have later in the model because the texture will be put into a direction. But how do you tell how the islands are facing?

Of course, this only applies to ships. Stationary models, such as space stations don't have a front-to-back direction.

Hmm, I'm not sure what that means. Can they not have a front or back side but have to look the same on front and back?

It seems that the idea is to fill in the unfolded surfaces as drawn (Why don't they come as separate images or layers for that?)

And if they did, what would you do to put them back together in a single texture?

Why would you want to put them back together (letting aside stitching)? Maybe I'm mistaken, but basically you have no more than an image, with parts (islands) looking different than other parts of it. You can even move these parts around as you want. What makes one part of an image appear on a particular part (surface) of a model when it's rendered? There doesn't seem to be specific information to decide that contained in the image file.

[chuck_starchaser]

If you used some automatic unwrap tool, you may have a lot of work to do on it manually.

How else would you do it?

Well, it seems to me Wings hasn't got much better in all these years. In Blender, you can (and should) manually mark the edges around sections you want to have unwrapped in one piece. You "mark them as seams", in Blender lingo. Then, you can start off with an automatic LSCM (unwrap) which generates UV islands, but respecting the seams that you marked. In UV Edit mode, you can grab islands and move them, scale, rotate them, pin them, un-pin them, stitch them, unstitch them, whatever. If you're serious about modeling/texturing, I'd recommend you wean yourself from the simplicity of Wings and grab Blender. It will be hard at the beginning, but it's a million times more powerful, all around.

Last but not least, you need to rotate (NEVER flip; only rotate) the islands so that the z axis on the model (forward to back direction) lines up vertically in the textures, and so that the front direction points up (or "North" if you prefer) in the texture.

Yeah, playing with the example showed me that it is important to know what direction a texture will have later in the model because the texture will be put into a direction. But how do you tell how the islands are facing?

I could tell you how in Blender, but not in Wings.

Of course, this only applies to ships. Stationary models, such as space stations don't have a front-to-back direction.

Hmm, I'm not sure what that means. Can they not have a front or back side but have to look the same on front and back?

When micrometeorites hit space stations, they do from any direction at random; you don't need to worry about the front-back direction, since it doesn't exist. You might still want to keep your islands having a common orientation just for the sake of neatness and consistency, though.

It seems that the idea is to fill in the unfolded surfaces as drawn (Why don't they come as separate images or layers for that?)

And if they did, what would you do to put them back together in a single texture?

Why would you want to put them back together (letting aside stitching)? Maybe I'm mistaken, but basically you have no more than an image, with parts (islands) looking different than other parts of it. You can even move these parts around as you want. What makes one part of an image appear on a particular part (surface) of a model when it's rendered? There doesn't seem to be specific information to decide that contained in the image file.

Because switching textures at run-time is very expensive. That's why most game models, most ships and stations, should use a single UV layout. That's why there's a lot of models out there that can't be used in games; because the modelers used a gazillion separate textures. To use such models in games you'd have to join all those separate meshes into one, and then spread the individual UV layouts around in one texture.
Switching textures is so expensive that I heard ID recently came up with a game in which all models shared a single texture, like 64k by 64k in size.

EDIT:
It's not the texture that has information about where each island goes on the ship; it's the other way around: When you "unwrap" a ship, you're adding U,V coordinates to each vertex, which indicate where that vertex is, in the texture.

[lee]

Well, it seems to me Wings hasn't got much better in all these years. In Blender, you can (and should) manually mark the edges around sections you want to have unwrapped in one piece. You "mark them as seams", in Blender lingo. Then, you can start off with an automatic LSCM (unwrap) which generates UV islands, but respecting the seams that you marked.

Maybe you can do that in wings, too. Blender has an extremely awful GUI, and it doesn't even work right: I can pan and zoom only so much, then it just stops working for no reason. Since I got to learn anyway, I could learn blender, but it's of no use when it doesn't work.

In UV Edit mode, you can grab islands and move them, scale, rotate them, pin them, un-pin them, stitch them, unstitch them, whatever.

I don't know if you can pin/unpin them in wings, but you can scale, move and rotate them.

If you're serious about modeling/texturing, I'd recommend you wean yourself from the simplicity of Wings and grab Blender. It will be hard at the beginning, but it's a million times more powerful, all around.

If it would work ... Maybe it's a known problem, I'll have to search.


EDIT: It works again when you place the lifebuoy back with shift-c. Why is that? And why didn't they make switching between zooming and panning seemless, i. e. so that you don't have to release the mouse button? It's awful ...

When micrometeorites hit space stations, they do from any direction at random; you don't need to worry about the front-back direction, since it doesn't exist.

But shouldn't they have a front and a back side in any case (and be protected by shields)? Docking bays or other features could be at one side, other things on another side.

It's not the texture that has information about where each island goes on the ship; it's the other way around: When you "unwrap" a ship, you're adding U,V coordinates to each vertex, which indicate where that vertex is, in the texture.

Then you could have them as separate images, you'd only have to put them together when you're finished editing them. Putting them together could be done automatically.

[chuck_starchaser]

Blender has several modes of zooming and panning you can configure. In its default mode, zoom doesn't change the view angle, but moves the observer, instead. There's a good reason why it stops: It assumes that wherever the center of camera movement is located is where the stuff you're looking at is. The trick is to make sure this is so.
Most important key to learn is Numpad-[Del]. First you highlight a vertex, edge, polygon or set of vertices, edges or polygons you're working on; and then press Numpad-[Delete], and that makes the selection's center be the center of camera zooming and rotation. When you're done working with those, you can select others and hit Numpad-Del, or you can Shift-C/C to get back to general view.

[lee]

That's good to know, thanks! I think I'm getting somewhere with blender:











That's supposed to be a fuel tanker. Do you think the design might fit into the game?

[chuck_starchaser]

Hahaha, that was pretty quick!

As for the question, I've no idea; not my mod.

[lee]

Hahaha, that was pretty quick!

Well, I followed the beginners tutorial and then started making something. It's fun

Texturing is another problem ...

As for the question, I've no idea; not my mod.

Hm?


Unfortunately, after adding retro thrusters and docking bays, it reminds strongly of a dog now :/ Hmmmm ...

[chuck_starchaser]

Hahahaha, if I ever see a dog like that I'll have a heart attack.
Looks awfully alien to me. I'm pretty sure if any VS race would include this in its style, it would be the Aera; but that's JackS' department.

But yeah, texturing something so smooth and continuous can be tricky, if you want to draw lines and stuff, and have them cross from UV island and continue in another. Then again, Blender does have a Paint mode; but it doesn't work too well; it's a pretty new feature. On the other hand, something so smooth you probably wouldn't care to draw too much detail on it; probably just a material, an ambient occlusion, and it's done.

[lee]

Hahahaha, if I ever see a dog like that I'll have a heart attack.

Don't worry, he doesn't bite ...

Looks awfully alien to me. I'm pretty sure if any VS race would include this in its style, it would be the Aera; but that's JackS' department.

Oh, ok. Aera have dogs?

But yeah, texturing something so smooth and continuous can be tricky, if you want to draw lines and stuff, and have them cross from UV island and continue in another.

I haven't tried yet ... It's a single object, if that matters: an extruded and modified cube. It's not really smooth, only rendered smooth. The subsurfacing hasn't been applied yet.

On the other hand, something so smooth you probably wouldn't care to draw too much detail on it; probably just a material, an ambient occlusion, and it's done.

Yeah, I'm thinking about making the "sled" white and the fuel tanks dark purple or some kind of rusty red.

[chuck_starchaser]

Hahahaha, if I ever see a dog like that I'll have a heart attack.

Don't worry, he doesn't bite ...

Thanks goodness!

Oh, ok. Aera have dogs?

I think the Aera ARE like smooth-looking dogs with 6 or 8 legs; but don't quote me on that; never seen one. They evolved from a tree dwelling species, I think I read.

But yeah, texturing something so smooth and continuous can be tricky, if you want to draw lines and stuff, and have them cross from UV island and continue in another.

I haven't tried yet ... It's a single object, if that matters: an extruded and modified cube. It's not really smooth, only rendered smooth. The subsurfacing hasn't been applied yet.

And you wouldn't want to apply it; not at that level of subdivision, anyways; that's probably like 100,000 polygons. Rather than sub-surf, which is a one-way street, you'd want to add MultiRes, which preserves your original mesh. You can export each multires level to obj, and so you have your LOD's. From the top multi-res level, of around 10 or 20 thousand polygons, you can add another multi-res level, but instead of exporting it to an obj, you use it to bake a normalmap from. That way, your mesh's top lod will be 10 or 20 k, but it will shade as smoothly as if it was 100k polys. You also use that 100k multires to bake the ambient occlusion, to get a smoother result.
Additionally, by doing it this way, you can mark seams at the lowest lod level, your original mesh made of boxes, and the seams will carry on to the higher lod's.
You probably want to add another modifier: Edge Split, set it to work From Edges Marked Sharp (turn off From Angle), and then, edges that you creased (with Shift E), you want to also mark them sharp (with Ctrl E -> Mark Sharp).
BTW, two things to remember with Blender:
For each object, turn off [Double Sided], turn off [Auto Smooth], and then max out the number under [Auto Smooth] to 80 degrees (it's 30 by default, and the number still applies as a maximum smoothing angle in renders even when [Auto Smooth] is off....
[Double Sided] needs to be off because otherwise you may miss flipped polygons that will appear as holes in-game; --i.e.: Flipped normals need to be fixed.

[lee]

And you wouldn't want to apply it; not at that level of subdivision, anyways; that's probably like 100,000 polygons.

Yeah, I didn't intend to --- I was thinking I'd have to keep an original and then eventually make copy that is subdivided, or smoothened.

Rather than sub-surf, which is a one-way street, you'd want to add MultiRes, which preserves your original mesh.

Ok, I just did that --- but I'm not sure what I need it for. I removed the subsurface modifier and set "Link and Materials" to solid rather than smooth. The model looks like this on MultiRes level 1:



When I switch to MultiRes level 2, it changes like this:



It has a lot more vertices and thus is a lot smoother, but what do I need that for? I might be able to work on finer details, but it would make it harder for me to work on it.

As far as I understand it, I could, for example, apply subsurface on MultiRes level 2 (or higher), but doing so would also change the model on the lower levels and eventually make it more difficult for me to work on it. The explanation about MultiRes I read[1] suggests it can be useful to switch down to lower levels when the display is getting too slow, but it's still fast with subsurfacing 3 (which is more than enough) and gets only slow at 4.


[1]: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Multires

You can export each multires level to obj, and so you have your LOD's. From the top multi-res level, of around 10 or 20 thousand polygons, you can add another multi-res level, but instead of exporting it to an obj, you use it to bake a normalmap from. That way, your mesh's top lod will be 10 or 20 k, but it will shade as smoothly as if it was 100k polys. You also use that 100k multires to bake the ambient occlusion, to get a smoother result.

You mean the texture would make the model appear smoother than it is because the texture has the shape the model has in a more detailed MultiRes level?

Additionally, by doing it this way, you can mark seams at the lowest lod level, your original mesh made of boxes, and the seams will carry on to the higher lod's.

Hmmm ... I want to work on the lowest level, but it could eventually be useful to be able to work on a more detailed level for some things.

You probably want to add another modifier: Edge Split, set it to work From Edges Marked Sharp (turn off From Angle), and then, edges that you creased (with Shift E), you want to also mark them sharp (with Ctrl E -> Mark Sharp).

Ok --- I didn't change any edges yet.

BTW, two things to remember with Blender:
For each object, turn off [Double Sided], turn off [Auto Smooth], and then max out the number under [Auto Smooth] to 80 degrees (it's 30 by default, and the number still applies as a maximum smoothing angle in renders even when [Auto Smooth] is off....

Ok.

[Double Sided] needs to be off because otherwise you may miss flipped polygons that will appear as holes in-game; --i.e.: Flipped normals need to be fixed.

Ah! That's the trick to avoid the holes!