Texturing Folder Setup (Photoshop Action)

Mistry10

Hey guys I was using this action that i made in Photoshop to help setup my folders for when i'm starting to texture something. So i thought i would share it with you guys. It'll create a Diffuse,Spec,and Normals folder, then copy your uvs set them to screen mode then lock both those layers so you can't accidentally paint on them



Photoshop Action

1. Load Action

2. Import your UVs

3. Select that layer

4. Select “UVW” from the Actions menu

5. And now you have all your folders setup


Download Link

renderhjs

nice would be some JS that would export each layer-folder to its seperate local file (tif, tga, png,...) based on the folder-layer name. If I would have the time I would read my self through some of the adobe documentations and create a SWF panel.

nice macro though

Mistry10

renderhjs wrote: »

nice would be some JS that would export each layer-folder to its seperate local file (tif, tga, png,...) based on the folder-layer name. If I would have the time I would read my self through some of the adobe documentations and create a SWF panel.

nice macro though

i'll actually trying to figure that out right now. ( but using actions instead a SWF Panel).

kodde

In CS4 you have File > Scripts > Save Layers to Files
works just fine.

Can't you make an action that would create a new layer beneath each folder, run Apply Image, make all other layers invisible and run the Save Layers to Files script with the "Only visible layers" checked? Do you know what I'm getting at?

Ghostscape

renderhjs wrote: »

nice would be some JS that would export each layer-folder to its seperate local file (tif, tga, png,...) based on the folder-layer name. If I would have the time I would read my self through some of the adobe documentations and create a SWF panel.

nice macro though

vtools does this
http://home.insightbb.com/~jamestaylor/index.htm
</pimp_for_harl>

MoP

Nice setup script

Yeah, Harl's vtools do exactly what you say for exporting.
I actually made my own similar tools for work (with a few extra features and a whole lot less UI clutter!) but I don't think I can share them

renderhjs

hmm I might use that as a base and build a quicker access panel instead (Flash movie, containing the Javascript) of the script menu thing. I saw thema year ago but kind of forgot about them.

mikezoo

hey great script dude!
thanks for sharing!

malcolm

Just so everyone knows I am 100% against texture pipelines that require the user to store normal spec diffuse all in one .psd Also storing your spec mask in the alpha channel is a total fail.

Zack Fowler

Putting spec in the alpha channel doesn't save any mem but it does save your shaders a texture sampler if you're going to use greyscale spec anyway. I certainly wouldn't call it a "total fail".

Ghostscape

malcolm wrote: »

Just so everyone knows I am 100% against texture pipelines that require the user to store normal spec diffuse all in one .psd Also storing your spec mask in the alpha channel is a total fail.

What are the benefits to the artist for keeping them separate? Seems like it would be harder to iterate on the texture that way?

glib

Just so everyone knows I am 100% against malcolm.

metalliandy

I think the only time i would ever put everything in separate .psd's is if the file size was getting humongous and causing PS to really crawl.
I cant really think of any other reason tbh...

Pedro Amorim

im against all of you

Mistry10

mikezoo wrote: »

hey great script dude!
thanks for sharing!

glad you can put to good use.

malcolm

Putting spec in alpha channel as pointed out means greyscale spec also means pain in the ass to edit, no layer support so you have to keep making edits to your spec elsewhere and then cutting pasting into the alpha channel. For me it's annoying

As for the one map approach here are the downfalls I've encountered in that pipeline. You don't have to agree with my view but the only advantage I've found to the 3 maps in one is it's easy to find the source texture when browsing a folder since there is only one source texture.

-photoshop runs out of ram on large maps, too many layers all in one map x3-4 if you have reflection maps in there too, especially if you use 16bit source textures which I don't recommend.

-can't scale maps easily to different sizes, ie spec 1/2 size of diffuse.

-different maps usually require some kind of grouping/naming convention and some kind of script to save out the different maps into .dds format, usually much slower than just hitting ctrl s and seeing your work in game/3d app.

metalliandy

Personally i would save the packing of the spec until after the texture was finished and i was making final optimisations and the same goes with the resizing.
I work genrally at 2k and then resize down to whats needed after everything is done.
This also gives the advantage of having larger textures if needed.
And i normally make an action to save any textures that require many iterations so its just a one button save after the initial recording.

But i guess it horses for courses...Whatever works best for an individual is fine by me

malcolm

Making an action per texture isn't an option if you're an environment artist, way too much content to create and edit, and re edit, and edit someone else's work. You'd blow your whole schedule just setting up to do any work. As for the bigger source texture size, I've worked with a couple pipes that let you scale down by tagging the shader in the scene before export, standard shit. I haven't found it that useful on the environment side though, most of the textures end up being 512x512 on average so for the xbox360 games I worked on it's over kill to paint at 1024x1024. Although if it were a character asset I would definately recommend higher res and then scale down for in game if neccessary.

metalliandy

Making an action to save a texture only takes 10 seconds, then its a mouse click away :S
but i guess it depends how many iterations of a texture you need to do...if its only a couple then its prob. not worth the effort.