Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: --Steve-O-- on March 24, 2007, 12:24:33 pm
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I've got a frigate of sorts for a first model and the only real bind I'm in is texturing it. I've done some good amount of searching and reading, and i have no idea which direction to take. all i really want to do for now just to get this thing off the ground is "borrow" some texture tiles from Freespace's VP files and lay them on this model so i can load it up and play with it some, see how it works and such, while still being able to make it look semi nifty.
these are the tools I've been using:
-TS 3.2
-Lithunwrap (I've played with it but still don't really understand it, the stuff I've read is kinda vague)
-PCS (if PCS and ModelView32 were to mate and rear a kid that would be awesome)
-all the new and shiny VPview and ModelView tools (came with SCP, very cool!)
-Good intentions and coffee
I have tried using TS's built in UV texturing feature and to say (in as family friendly manner possible) it both sucks and blows. it skews and bunches the textures rather horribly to the point where i think even Picasso, were he still alive, would have punched me in the eye. i like TS though...easy to learn.
so is there an easy way to thieve and lay textures?
or am i going to have to move up from TS, hunt down the free version of Photo Shop or like programs and learn the UV world right off the bat? guess learning now wouldn't hurt any.
so any help or direction pointing fingers to a good tutorial or post would be much appreciated!
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well, the hard part on lithunwrap is getting the diferent sections of the texture seperated, then makeing sure they are scaled properly. lith also has the disadvantage that in order to fully use it it needs to triangulate the model.
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triangulation=higher poly count D:
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not that big of a deal anymore.
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I still don't like having ships with 100,000 polies for no reason.
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I know nothing about UV-ing a model, but if you want to just get the ship to the next step you have two more primitive options: Paint object (which will throw a cover over the entire model )or if you are using the true view extension and have a subobject selected cover that), and Paint Face (so if you choose all the hull faces you can make a temp texture place holder and then move on to other areas like a bridge, or engines, extraneous details)
I only mention these two noob proceedures cause that's what I use in a pinch when I just want to see if the model is stable in game and I don't care about textures ATM. Also I do lots of cross platform conversions and many a time texture coords are lost so the model is RAW once again and until I do a new UV for it I have no choice.
I hope you found this post semi-helpful!
l8tr!!!
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yeah it actually answered a question that failed to exit my hands.
so Freespace can recognize textures applied in truespace.
all that needs to be done is convert the BMP back to PCX, rename it and reference it in PCS/MV32, or the Table, I'm guessing the former. i think i can manage that.
I've done more reading and i think I'm going to snag a free paint program to do this right. Any suggestions? i think i grasp the relation of lithunwrap and paint program. crap I'm rambling.
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also...
is there a cap on vertices and faces?
i just triangulated a copy of it and came out with 986 verts and 1960 faces for the hull.
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www.Gimpshop.com is probably your best bet for something free and legal as to a feature rich
paint program.
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Um... why would you prescribe GIMPshop instead of plain ol' fashioned GIMP?
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GIMPshop is nothing more than GIMP with a new layout made to emulate
Photoshop.
Thus...
1. If he starts learning it now, it will be much easier sometime later on to graduate
to Photoshop. At minimum, it would easy the transition if he encounters the program else ware.
2. There are far more tutorials on Photoshop, and many of them can be followed
without much in the way of "conversion" of the terms - using this modified form.
Two good reasons :D