Texture creation tutorial

[sparhawk]

Maybe this exists already. If not it would be great if one of the texture artists could create a step by step tutorial for how to creating textures beginning at step zero. Meaning, what to take care of when photographing texture sources, how to covnert them to usable textures. How do you make them tiling and how to get them in-game.

 

I know that Sneaksie started on this, and I think it would be great if this could be expanded a bit. Also a section explaining how to use GIMP with it would be nice. I usually don't like Photoshop, because I prefer open source applications where possible, and I think for this it should be possible to use The Gimp as well.

[sparhawk]

Today I photographed several images of tree skins. Unfortunately only one was really usable. I took 12 shots and all of them had some problems, so I kept only this one as reference:

 

The others were either blurry, or they had lights on it. I forgot to watch out for this, and only noticed at home that the sun was shining on them, so the tree was bright on one side and darker on the other side. Well, I will work with this now and see how far I can get it.

 

Is this image good enough for a texture? The first step that I now try to do is, to remove the background. I wonder what's the best way to do this. I loaded the image into GIMP and thought I could replace the background with blue (255) because this colour doesn't appear anywhere in this image, so it would be a safe colour. However I don't know if this is a good idea, so I wanted to ask for advice. I guess I need to remove the background and replace it with an alpha so that it becomes transparent. Any idea how I can do this?

[Springheel]

I think it would work fine, though it will take some effort to make it tileable. I don't know anything about gimp, so I can't give you advice on specifics.

[PinkDot]

I'm not sure why you want to make the background transparent. What's the purpose of this texture? If you want to make tileable texture for brushes and models, you would normally just crop the middle part of the texture - triming out the background. When I do tree trunk textures I also resize the side parts, so the pattern gets flat instead of round. This makes it more blurry of course, so I have to sharpen it using filters and some other tools (cloning stamp for example). It's always better to make photos of wider trees or/and several photos of one and the same tree from diffrent angles and then joining them into one long and relatively flat texture. It's not an easy task for the beggining- brick wall would be much easier...

[Baddcog]

Yeah, there are deffinately TONS of texture creation tuts out there. I'd start by looking for Unreal sites. That's probably the best ever game for modding tuts in general. 3d, 2d, ect...

 

Like PinkDot said, you want the whole image to be a texture, no alpha. I responded quickly this morning in your other thread.

 

I think a decent tex could be made of it, one problem though. MOSS. Moss only grows on north side of tree right? I guess maybe south side in southern hemishpere. It doesn't like direct sunlight. So would the tex be hal moss, half not mossy? In that case it might be best to start with a plain non-mossy bark and just paint moss on half of it. Or just use a decal for moss on trees since that is possible.

[Crispy]

Moss only grows on north side of tree right?

That's the theory I've heard, but whenever I've actually looked at a mossy tree there doesn't seem to be any particular preference... Often tree-trunks are in shade anyway, so the sunlight wouldn't have an effect.

[sparhawk]

I think it would work fine, though it will take some effort to make it tileable. I don't know anything about gimp, so I can't give you advice on specifics.

 

Well, I don't need so much advise about gimp (though this would also be helpfull), but rather on the general process. How to go about this. For my first steps I don't want a click-here-and-then-there tutorial for a specific application. Rather something like. When taking a shot for a texture, make sure that the light is evenly distributed. Remove the background and make it transparent. For transparency use the colour X because ... You get the idea.

[sparhawk]

I'm not sure why you want to make the background transparent.

 

Because I know nothing of making textures, and therefore assumed that it would be a good idea to make it transparent. Otherwise the background would interfere, right? So I have to remove it. Would it be enough to make it simply black? I don't really know the difference. That's why I wanted to do this, so I get an idea about it.

 

What's the purpose of this texture?

 

I thought it would be obvious. I thought to create a cylinder, and then put this texture on it, to get a tree. Might also serve as the side for rough planks, where the bark hasn't been removed yet. I guess it has to be tilable, at least in the one direction, I assume.

 

If you want to make tileable texture for brushes and models, you would normally just crop the middle part of the texture - triming out the background.

 

What do you mean by "crop"?

 

It's always better to make photos of wider trees or/and several photos of one and the same tree from diffrent angles and then joining them into one long and relatively flat texture.

 

I did take multiple shots, frmo different trees, but I didn't make them carefull enough, so I had to delete them.

 

It's not an easy task for the beggining- brick wall would be much easier...

 

Yeah. I also plan to take other shots, but I have to start somewhere. It's really annoying that I always have to try and find a suitable texture for my modelling, in the hope of accidently finding one that fits more or less what I wanted. Its ver limiting, so I thought I could at least take a look and see if I can make my own textures.

[sparhawk]

Yeah, there are deffinately TONS of texture creation tuts out there. I'd start by looking for Unreal sites. That's probably the best ever game for modding tuts in general. 3d, 2d, ect...

 

I have to look for them. I tried to find some real absolute beginners idiots tutorials, but most of these tutorial already require you to know a fair bit of what you are doing. At least many assume that you know at least photoshop, which I don't.

 

Like PinkDot said, you want the whole image to be a texture, no alpha. I responded quickly this morning in your other thread.

 

Must have miss this posting, I look again. Why not alpha? My understanding is, that I have to wrap this texture around a cylinder. So when I remove the background and paint it i.E. black, then, when I apply the texture to a cylinder, then I will have the black bars on it, right? So shouldn't they be transparent, and only the actual bark should be a colour?

 

I think a decent tex could be made of it, one problem though. MOSS. Moss only grows on north side of tree right? I guess maybe south side in southern hemishpere. It doesn't like direct sunlight. So would the tex be hal moss, half not mossy? In that case it might be best to start with a plain non-mossy bark and just paint moss on half of it. Or just use a decal for moss on trees since that is possible.

 

First I have to find a non-mossy tree. As for the north bit. The image I shot on the ground from my neighbour, and the moss is facing directly to the west. So much for that myth. When I was with the scouts, I also learned this, but I never noticed that it were true. Whenever I looked for the mossy side on trees, there didn't seem to be a real preference. Maybe it's true for trees that are lonly somehwere, but in the forrest it's as of the case as not. I rather rely on the sun, for getting directions.