[aldo_14]

I posted this at sectorgame, but i figured it might be of use to a few people here too (postcount++);

@see also http://www.sectorgame.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=34668#34668

Offhand, my texturing is done over several layers; I don't do tiles nowadays, but the basic template tactics work with minor changes...offhand;

1/ base layer; colour segmentation

2/ shading/noise layer.  Basic light/dark shading combined with 5 noise and 2 pixels motion blur.

3/ colouration layer; overlaid colours (colour blend); this is more relevant for templating

3.5/underlay; I've just started experimenting with this; basically some form of abstract shape 'under' but on top of the colouration layers.  for tiled textures, try overlaying lots of thick rectangles of 20 thickness, at about 10% black or 5% white - this is sort of a B5 effect which adds a nice breakup to the surface

4/ white shading layer; about 10-20% opacity of shading using a round brush

5/ black grain; 20-30% opacity using a black grained (i.e. pixellated) brush.  This generally is used to cover up the white areas once 6 is done

6/ black shading; 30-40% shading, the 'inverse' of white.

7/vthin white; 4% or so very fine detail in white lines.  Just a surface breakup effect - usually take layer 8, invert it and shift 1 pixel to the side and down.

8/vthin black; very low opacity (5% ish) black lines filling in the gaps of the other more visible panelling lines.  This is a pain in the arse to do, and the actual value is debatable.

9/thin white; manually drawn white-offset lines to L10; about (IIRC) 10%

10/thin black; thin panels in between the thick lines, about 20-30%.  This is the lowest level of visible panelling

11/rust; brown 'star' paintbrush effects under the thickest lines, usually a burn layer at about 5-15%

12/charcoal; this is rather an odd one; basically take a medium thick black round brush, 'trace' round under the thickest lines, apply a charcoal effect and set to about 10-15% opacity

13/thick-1pt white; about 20-30% opacity white, tracing layer 14

14/thick-1pt black; 55-70% opacity black, tracing thinner but still very visible lines between the plates defined by 16; this usually follows the template lines so it's marking polygon edges.

15/thich-2pt-white; actually a 1pt white line at 20-30% opacity which traces 16

16/thick-2pt-black; black 2-point lines forming the edges of the primary hull plates.  Highly visible, and must be used sparingly for effect.  About 60-80% opacity.

16.5/
Additionally, I sometimes add a layer under the rivets.  this is basically a brown star under each rivet position, blurred and low opacity.  i'm not sure if it's necessary, though.

17/rivets; manually drawn rivets across the sides of the 16 lines (this is why we use 16 sparingly, and even then you only want a limited number of rivets).  Basically, take a suitably sized round white brush, and draw a circle with it (dot).  Then take the same size brush, make it black, and dot on top of the existing white circle very slightly offset.  And you have a nice rivet.  Set to about 90% to avoid it being too stark.

18/solids; stuff which isn't drawn layered but all in one do to be visually distinct.  I.e. gun barrels, engines, etc.  Drawing these is really a combination of the previous layers work on a single layer; for example a gun barrel is usually shading + noise + low opacity overlapping rectangles + some lines + white overlay + brown overlay + burn (latter 3 use a grainy brush).

19/ highlights; this is a new one for me; it's only seen on the Claymore so far.  Basically, take a white star brush and apply it across the lighted parts of the ships.  Set the layer to overlay (er, I think; might be multiply) and between 30-60% opacity to taste.

20/highlights 2; brighter version of 19; used sparingly for key parts.

21/paint; labels, decals, etc.  Draw to taste, select, apply some noise (or manually add white + black grain), then set to about 50% opacity.  finally, take an eraser (grain) and go about selectively removing the labels as if they'd been scored away etc.  You may want to move this down to under the thick plate layers.

22/text; as for paint; if we have the maps set out for this, apply some text using the same method as 21.  Yay!

23/Damage; damage effects like burns, scrapes, bullet-marks.  for bullets in particular; take a white 'star' brush, place it on the map.  Then place a black star on top slightly offset.  Looks lovely.  Might want to blur and set to about 80% opacity so it looks best.

24/glow soft; multiply blurred glow imitating lighting effects.

25/glow hard; solid glows.  i.e. bright red solid blocks for lights, etc.  Sometimes soft glows next to missile bays, etc.  Also engine glow effects.

26/ drawing aid; keep a copy of the map template in wireframe, sans the white bits (duh; i.e. so it's only the lines), low opacity and use it as an aid for the lines, etc.

Phew.  Rough principle I follow is really simple; at the end, you want to make sure no pixels have the same colour as their neighbours.  Obviously that's not a strict rule, but it's a good guide to get a nice mix of detail.  also, as with the vthin lines etc, you need to add incredibly subtle stuff to get the best effect overally.

I'll try and see if I can find a recent map which is small enough to upload as an aid, but I doubt I'll have one; they normally are rather huge in PSD format IIRC.

EDIT; claymore render; http://www.sectorgame.com/aldo/media/gtf_claymore.jpg - you can see some of the line mix, the highlights and the little decal scrapes etc here.  hopefully.

Bear in mind, though, this was a render with spec-maps, etc, so the actual model-map is somewhat less, um, 'vivid'.  Particularly RE: bump maps.

[Turambar]

Turambar method:  one layer, draw on it until i like it

[Col. Fishguts]

Yay for effort, but for the texturing-challenged some parts are not very descriptive. A step-by-step image documentation would be awesome (although even more work intensive)

[StratComm]

Wow, quite descriptive (and I hadn't seen it on Sectorgame yet).  Saving this for when I finally get around to learning to make custom maps.

[Herra Tohtori]

n00b question:

Starting from the scratch, from where do you know which part of the picture covers which part in the model? You see I have no idea how certain areas of a picture file are assigned to certain part of a model...

[aldo_14]

n00b question:

Starting from the scratch, from where do you know which part of the picture covers which part in the model? You see I have no idea how certain areas of a picture file are assigned to certain part of a model...

See layer 26.

and grab 3dex so you can check the model as you draw the texture.

Yay for effort, but for the texturing-challenged some parts are not very descriptive. A step-by-step image documentation would be awesome (although even more work intensive)

You're right, it would be a pain in the arse.  Plus I'd have to start a new model from scratch.

Turambar method:  one layer, draw on it until i like it

I used to do that (for a long time never using even the basic PS features), but I found layers a hell of a lot more powerful; particularly both in adjusting blending and also in temporarily making lines, etc, 100% solid to draw round/against/etc.  Also you can shift about detail such as decals to better fit the model.  And obviously go back and tweak stuff.

[Nuke]

my strategy is to section of sections using shape layers. then use blinding options to use a base fill (using my vast buildup of styles over the years). on some cases though (the htl phoenix) i just airbrush the underlying layers and it makes a more natural look. then overlayed the plate seams and rivits in seprate layers. anyway for each section i ususally do a base layer (airbrush or a shape layer with one of my custom styles applied) and several decal layers, which can contain painted text, rivits, vents, ect. i also have a number of brushes for special ocasions, the rivit brush for exaple can follow any path with rivits which makes paneling very easy to do. cept for airbrush i rarely lay down anything manually. id pur up one of my psds for analysis, if they werent several hundred megs.

[FireCrack]

19 should be overlay, multiply only darkens.

[Taristin]

aldo's method is my method, just 4x more complicated and in depth.  Hence why his models look realistic, though.

[neoterran]

maybe aldo can bring his in depthness to the new HUD 

[aldo_14]

I'll ask him....

Aldo says no.

[DaBrain]

Turambar method:  one layer, draw on it until i like it

No way.... I tend to use a crazy ammount of layers. If I'm lazy (50:50) I don't even name them and at some point I'm totally loosing the outline... 

[Scooby_Doo]

Don't forget to use layer sets, they will save your a lot of headaches.

[Nuke]

my most complex texture (being or the ragnarok line) is about 500 megs, well over a hundred layers and just as many spline paths. i arange them in layersets each representing a section of a ship (usually one per each contiguous chunk of uv space).plus a number of backfill layers which mask out the unwrapped background layer when i have it enabled (so i can view the completed map without being thrown off by any contrast differences imposed by the unwrap). usually a solid fill layer and a number of airbrused layers (i usually use a two tone brush with some metalic like texture applied) for backfill. my sections are layed on top of this and make heavy use of vector shapes, spline paths, and layer effects, or recently layers with no effects and fancy patterns drawn by stroking spline paths with advanced brushs. another think i started to do is to have additional layer sets which overlay the completed map for shine and env maps. they are either transparent or are set to multiply or lighten (depending on how shiny i want everything). from there i can copy the whole image merged and paste into the shine map and the env in its alpha chanel. i also keep a seprate layer for glows, this way i can try different different glow intensities and colors, i usually set it as lighten for viewing and normal for copying into the finished glow map. by tweaking the blending options of glow/shine/env layers/sets (to a degree, its not exactly wysiwyg) i can aproximate what they will look like without seeing the texture on the model ingame. it works well enought that i usually dont need to go back and tweek the effects maps when i load it into the game for the first time.