Creating Scratch Textures ("From Scratch")
polycounter lvl 18
Hello. I have been modeling for a little while now. Low poly items, starting off someone's created model, trying to teach myself how things are done. (No, I don't steal other people's models, as I have yet to release any of my own.) Anyway, onto the point: So you have this new Special Ops marine (or whatever) and you need to make a new texture. Is there an EASY way to go about figuring how the face will wrap, where you have to put the textures for the limbs and stuff? MAKING the textures isn't too hard for me, I just don't know how to make the textures appear on the new models correctly after heavily modifying the base model. Please don't give me a "Jesus, noob, use 'search'." response. You can belittle my knowledge but at least give me SOMETHING that qualifies as an answer to my question. Thank you for your time.
-- Faulken
-- Faulken
Replies
First of all, what program are you using? Are the uv's on the model already laid out? If not, that's the first step.
The easiest way, but not always the best, is to use a program like Body Paint or Deep Paint. Then you just paint right on the model.
Asking for the easiest way to do something is usually not the way you want to approach something new. What's easy for one person might not be easy for someone else. Plus it sounds like you just want someone to give you the answers without putting in any effort yourself, which may or may not be the case. People offering helpful hints don't want to think that the person they're helping is going to ask about every little thing and not try to figure stuff out on their own.
Now that the sermon is over, the basic workflow for texturing an object is 1) unwrap the uv's and lay them out in a logical manner, 2) save the uv layout as a bitmap image, like .tga or .jpg, 3) Paint some stuff on the bitmap, or create a colored checker pattern, 4) save the bitmap and apply it to your model, 5) see where the stuff you painted falls on the model, and 6) repeat from step 3.
And I know this isn't what you want to hear, but there are a ton of unwrapping and texture painting tutorials out there, a little searching goes a long way.
- Open up the object you're texturing.
- Create a procedural checker material and assign it to the model. You'll need to adjust the numbers for the tiling of the checker pattern so they're equal and so the pattern repeats enough that it'll show up clearly on the model. The numbers depend on the scale of the model. I usually end up using about 20 though. Make sure you activate "Show Map in Viewport".
- Go into the face or polygon sub-object mode.
- What you want to do is select groups of polygons that are mostly on the same plane, with as little curvature between them as possible. You want these groups to be as large as possible without angling too far away from the same plane. When you have a group like this selected...
- Apply a UVW Mapping modifier to the stack.
- Where it says Mapping, in the parameters rollout, choose Planar.
- For Length and Width, put in equal numbers.
- You now have two options... You can pick the X, Y, or Z axis, whichever is closest to being perpendicular to the polygons you selected, and then activate the UVW Gizmo (click the + sign on the UVW modifier) and use the Rotate tool to rotate the plane to match the angle of the polygons you selected. <i>OR</i> you can click on Normal Align and then drag your cursor over the selected faces until the checker pattern appears even and free of stretching.
- Apply an Unwrap UVW modifier to the stack.
- Click on Edit, to see your UVs.
- If the UV points you just made aren't selected in the Edit window already, select them (click and drag around them with the move tool from that window).
- Move them off to the side somewhere for now, so that they won't overlap the next set of UVs you set up.
- Collapse the stack or add a Mesh Select modifier.
- Repeat the process of selecting flat-ish groups of polygons and assigning the UVW Mapping and Unwrap modifiers to them and moving them off to the side somwhere. (When you Unwrap them, only the currently selected polygons will appear-- so you won't see the ones you just did before. That's why it's good to move them off to the side). Do this until the whole area you want to have mapped has been mapped, and now has an even-looking checker pattern on it.
- Collapse the stack.
- With no sub-objects selected, apply an Unwrap UVW modifer to your mesh.
- You should now see all the UVs you set up, where ever you put them.
- You want to get them all inside that square area on the grid, and you want to connect the groups together so that you don't have seams where they're split.
- To connect them, select each group separately (by moving clicking and dragging around it) and move them close to eachother. It should be showing you which points and edges are together on the model by shading the ones that belong with the ones you have selected. Select different groups of outer edges so you see what's what. When you know which edges go together, it's time to weld the points. Move the groups as close together as possible, so that the corresponding points overlap (or very nearly overlap at least).
- Go to Tools > Target Weld
- Select a single point and drag it to its counterpart. The cursor should change to let you know you're over a point and that a weld will be performed.
- Connect as many points as you can without radically changing the shape of the polygons they make up. (That's the tricky part)
That's about it. If it doesn't apply to what you're doing, or if it's just inaccurate or obsolete, then check your manual and/or do a search.
Personally I tend to go for a grid with interlocking circles and some noise for the ultimate in accurate unwrapping. There was a nice one that someone had on the old forums but I don't think you'll be able to get hold of it. They're not terribly difficult to make though.
Uniform Pixel Density
The various areas of your texture sheet should not be disproportionatly large or small. You want to spread the pixels (previewed by your checker map) across the model as evenly as you can manage. This will make your textures appear crisper and more realistic.
However, an exception to this rule is the common practice of isolating the head on a seperate texture map. Frequently the head is the focus of much attention in game, especially if it will be used for in-game cinematics.
1 other thing I do to help my texturing process is to bake lighting onto my texture. Either radiosity, or just some good shadowed omni-lights. This serves as a great guide for value on your surfaces.
Im not going to go into detail on these topics, as what the other guys told you should keep you busy for quite some time.
-- Faulken
Some of these might be more advanced than where you're at right now, but stick with it. And some of these are for specific programs, but the overall theories still apply.
Second Reality Tutorials
Box modeling a head
Game art
Head modeling
Rorshach's How to skin tutorial
Collection of articles by Paul Steed
Collection of tutorials on PlanetUnreal
Modeling a real-time game figure
Harlequin's skinning tutorials
UV mapping in 3dsMax
http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/cottages/bk-coffeehouse/tut-max-mapping.shtml