shtuff and things

Thinking about improving the Artwork in Vega Strike, or making your own Mod? Submit your question and ideas in this forum.

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Tarran
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shtuff and things

Post by Tarran »

are primer/matte colours a combination of texture and colour, or a layering of colours?
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

The word "texture" has different meanings in different contexts. It can mean a file representing a rectangular array of texels, each texel typically having 3 color components.

Perceived colours are mixtures of "primary" colours: Red, Green and Blue. If you mix the three additively you get white.

Note that, what artists are taught in school may differ: The painter's primary colors are Red, Yellow, Blue, Black and White. Green is obtained by mixing Blue and Yellow. The reason for that is that when you mix paints, the mix is not light-additive. But additive mixing primaries are Red, Green and Blue, which coincides with the fact that we have photoreceptors tuned to the red, green and blue wavelengths.

But "texture" is used, outside of computer science, to mean "fine detail" of a surface.

So, I'm not sure what your question is.

"Diffuse" means the component of reflected color off a surface that scatters in all directions when light hits it. "Specular" is the component of color that is reflected symmetrically around the surface normal. A perfect mirror is specularly white, but diffusely black. If you paint a part of your ship black in the diffuse texture and white in the specular texture, it will look like chrome-plated...
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... 3822#73822
The exact opposite: White in the diffuse; black in the specular, will make the surface look like unpainted stucco, white and very matte. If you make both diffuse and specular white, it will look like unreal garbage, because there's no material like that.
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Post by Tarran »

by texture I meant surface detail.. I'm trying to get that feel of something like primer (like what you see on a car, before you paint it whatever colour). its a sort of flat grey. but I can't figure out if its a grainy texture that gives it that taste, or various colours.
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As have your brethern before you
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Upon the coldest sea
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Ahh, yes, I picture it in my mind...

What you need for primer color, I would say is gray with a tiny touch of blue, like RGB(0.5, 0.5, 0.53), for the diffuse texture; and pitch black in specular, to make it perfectily matte. Note that if you don't have a specular texture in your ship, and you're testing it ingame, you'll get some default specularity, curtesy of the engine, which will make your primer look like aluminium probably; I believe. AFAIK, you need to create a specular map AND paint that section black, for it to look matte (flat).
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Post by klauss »

chuck_starchaser wrote:Note that if you don't have a specular texture in your ship, and you're testing it ingame, you'll get some default specularity, curtesy of the engine, which will make your primer look like aluminium probably; I believe. AFAIK, you need to create a specular map AND paint that section black, for it to look matte (flat).
Actually, you can avoid that. Set reflect="0" and specular color to black (editing the xmesh).
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Post by Oblivion »

oi, chuck! :D welcome back.

I
f you make both diffuse and specular white, it will look like unreal garbage, because there's no material like that.
hmm... I guess this is why some of my textures look odd in Vegastrike. ;)

@Tarran:

I usually paint all my textures a gray, variations of it. The rest of the effects (roughening, bumps like bolts, panels, and stuff, can be added later with a special bump map which you can add either in-engine (if the engine supports it) or on the map itself (as you would do in VS, where bump maps are unsupported)) by using a bevel/emboss/bump function present in GIMP or photoshop and most graphics software.

Here's an example of the bumpmap of a turret I made for Angels Fall First:
Image

compare it with it's relatively smooth color map. (especially the two squares on the top left of the bump map, they are invisble in the map below but visible when ingame, as depressed areas).
Image

the final result, if you include a good specularity map like this:
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j200/ ... larity.png

is this:
Image
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Post by Tarran »

I seem to be having this problem (using gimp in winblows) of being able to produce decent metal textures. (if you wanted a ship made out of stucco, or granite, then I'd win hands down ) the metalishness of the skin is too thick.. too much..
Do you hear, that whisper, calling unto you
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As have your brethern before you
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Post by Oblivion »

okay, making metallic looking textures is quite easy. You just need a large tileable metal texture beforehand.

you can get them by making scavenging some metal textures and using gimp to make them seamless and tiled.

better yet, get strangelet's hull generator application, which is free. tho I forgot where i got it, and stranj's site seems down atm.

again take a look at the sample which has the wrong render lol.
Image
this is the correct render using those maps.

the entire texture uses layers of metallic textures modified with hull lines,cut away areas, paintwork, etc. so it's cheating a bit really, but it's the only way i know to create almost realistically detailed maps.

of course, you can use all gray files as your texture. But you need to draw your own linework on them... and.. you need the spec map to give it that shiny metallic gleam. with aff ships, i use an unsaturated version of the map for the bump map, then I apply gimp's Unsharp function (filters>enhance>?) to make the metal gleam in central areas and less so around the hull lines.

never use gradients when using bumps.. and ummm... avoid using noise to make metallic bumps. umm what else?

i really suggest making a metallic base (or several bases) first before unwrappinga nd texturing your model.

And also try to read strangelet's texturing tutorial available in the AFF site.
Here's to give you an idea of what i did using base metal textures, hull lines, and layers:
Image
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Post by Tarran »

is there an freeware proggy like zpaint?
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Tarran
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Post by Tarran »

@Oblivian

what is the most complicated model you have done?
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Post by Oblivion »

Image

the rakshasa, i think.

Here refined further by Strangelet for AFF:

http://ic3.deviantart.com/fs12/i/2006/3 ... ngelet.jpg


Oh, and the Enki, too:
Image
Image
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Post by Tarran »

ok.. say you have a rectangle where the left side is bigger then the right .. is there a way in gimp, to take an image/pattern, and fit it into that odd rectangle.. like changing the shape of the selection so to speak. (I can only seem to do it by two sides, instead of one)

-=Added on=-
also, I know that in wings3d I can create multiple skins.. if I attempt to take that into a format that vs can use, will I have to consolidate those skins, or will vs except that way of doing it?
Do you hear, that whisper, calling unto you
O'childe of the shore
As have your brethern before you
beckoning, to sail to those distant lands
Come
embrace me, your mistress
Upon the coldest sea
Oblivion
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Post by Oblivion »

Do you mean scaling?

I you want to scale, say a 1024x768 to a 1024x1024. Just select image>scale image>then click on the chain icon right beside the resolutions. When the chains are unlinked it means that you can change each of the res fields without the other field immediately compensating for it (the latter is uniform scaling).

Yes, you have to use only 4 maps optimally. unless your model has reusable submeshes (like turrets) or your model is really huge. The four maps:

The color map,
the per-pixel lighting/spec map
The damage color map,
and the The luma (glow/self-illumination) map,

so if you apply maps from different sources you can bake a set of maps from different sources. I dont know how to do it in wings or blender, consult the documentation. :)
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Post by Tarran »

this is scaling a layer

so, say I have a layer that needs to fit into a selection that's as follows
1024
<----->
700^ ^600
| |
| |
| |
v v
<------->
1024

well, if I put the layer into the selection, what I normally get is a the pattern cut off at an angle.. and what I'm wondering is if there is a way to get the pattern to conform to the odd shape of the selection
Do you hear, that whisper, calling unto you
O'childe of the shore
As have your brethern before you
beckoning, to sail to those distant lands
Come
embrace me, your mistress
Upon the coldest sea
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Post by Oblivion »

:?: i dont get it...

am i right.. you want to fit a square pattern into another shape? say, triangle and youw ant the pattern to conform to it?

well.. you cant.. unless you want to dig deep into warping and stuff, which i dont know much about either. The best way is to select patterns that fit the selection's shape best. like square metal patterns for square faces. Then you might tilt some a bit if the face is tilting. but say, you have a cylinder head, use a radial pattern. You cant fit a square map into a circle without making it look funny. :wink:
A Step Into Oblivion

Dreams of things that will never be,
Songs of thoughts only I can hear,
Leave me be to sleep forever,
To dream my dreams,
And sing my hymns,
Of things that will never be...
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