Source textures come in the following flavour. One VMT which is a plaintext file with parameters. It's what the engine looks up. And then you have the VTFs which are the actual textures.
Most TF2 weapon textures have just one VTF, it's just the diffuse with the phong map (or spec map as Swizzle calls it in the tut) in the alpha channel of that diffuse.
If you have a normal map, then you'll have two VTFs, one for diffuse ad one for the normals.
BUT ALL THIS only if you plan on converting the textures.
It's prefectly fine to submit a PSD with all your layers, and that's a single file.
Betty Hime you should get GCFScape (http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?p=26). With this tool you can look into Valve's texture files. Mostly they don't even have any normal map files for their models (just shared flat one). All of those textures have ao baked on theme (only tiles don't have any shadows on). You should submit one .vtf file with your texture and a source (PSD) file just in case Valve would like to fix something Cheeezy Don't know about the game, but the best choice would be to test textures in model viewer inside Source SDK, there you could refresh instantly after pressing F5
Try going over the edges with a small brush set to low opacity. It's always a good idea to look at textures from the game that are similar to the ones you're trying to make.
Hi there! another quick question. When uving I've noticed in some peoples thread that for the symetrical sides of say a gun handle, they have been putting the same uv ontop of the other? Is that right? Or is this really not reccomended? I was just wondering, as I tried it but I got some really strange black squares when I ao baked it, so I figured perhaps it wasn't possible...
It depends on if the player is going to notice... two sides of a gun handle would be fine but obviously you don't want to go overboard so that the player notices a lot of symmetrical texture.
As for your AO you should either delete the offending geometry or UVs (of course only for your render) to avoid it... after all they're the same
I'm having some problems with rendering, I was hoping I could direct you to my thread as I guess its harder to look through everyones individual thread.
Its at the bottom
If you are using maya. I usually select one point then hold ctrl, go to 'to shell' and it selects all the uv vertex of that object then you move it around like any old thing 'w' wtc.
Can you guys see the small hue variations in some of the textures?
There is a trick I learned to achieve this without all to much thought.
* Just add an overlay layer on top, put in a 128 gray value, and add a noise filter to it (disable monochromatic so you get a coloured noise, add in a value of like 40). Then put this layer at like 5 to 7% transparancy.
* Keep this layer on while painting in the layers underneath, now if you now keep colourpicking (alt in photoshop) the colours you will see that it uses the colour noise in combo with the base colour you are painting with and add subtle hue variations. It can help add a bit of life to the textures.
* Offcourse disable the noise layer after you are done so it wont appear in the texture.
I have a question, does Valve use AO Maps on parts of weapons that are glass or rubber (aka envmapped or tonemapped)[Like the glass on the needle gun or I think also the dispenser]
I'm using what is essentially the engineer's gloves texture on a rubber handle for one of my items and I'm not sure whether Valve would apply an AO map to that shiny part.
There's no AO on transparent stuff. Doesn't matter if it's shiny or not. If you had AO on transparent parts of models, you'd get weird artifacts and it'd just look weird.
Hey Swizzle how did you get past the .vmt and .vtf file types to view the texutres? I can't seem to find a way around it.
I have the problem that, once I've decompiled the weapon models, I only have vtx files instead of vtf, any idea how I can get these? Fantastic tutorial btw:)
I have the problem that, once I've decompiled the weapon models, I only have vtx files instead of vtf, any idea how I can get these? Fantastic tutorial btw:)
vtf is found in the gcf file "team fortress 2 materials"
How does the cloak meter work with the Dead Ringer? I noticed it's not part of the texture and there doesn't seem to be any other textured applied to it in the v_model.
How does the cloak meter work with the Dead Ringer? I noticed it's not part of the texture and there doesn't seem to be any other textured applied to it in the v_model.
Ho yes, I encountered that problem when I made my custom watch for the contest, the way the cloak meter work is hardcoded ingame, there are two type of cloak meter, the linear and the circular one.
There are only a few way to edit it, one way is to edit the position of the 2 two bones named "bottom_left" and "top_right" which fix the bounds for the Vgui (yes the cloak meter is a Vgui element). You can also edit the position in the QC file if you dont want to redo all the animations.
Replies
Well thats all i needed a yes! And is the ao bake our specualr map? or is it entierly different?
The specular can be based off from the diffuse you make (which also include the AO)
Sorry you probally think me incredibly stupid now but to clarify, I have
1. flat uv with ao multiplyed on top
2. a diffuse pass? (which i'll have to look up how to do
Is that right?
Thansk again.
You set the AO layer to Multiply above your diffuse.
so i only need to sumbit one texture file?
Source textures come in the following flavour. One VMT which is a plaintext file with parameters. It's what the engine looks up. And then you have the VTFs which are the actual textures.
Most TF2 weapon textures have just one VTF, it's just the diffuse with the phong map (or spec map as Swizzle calls it in the tut) in the alpha channel of that diffuse.
If you have a normal map, then you'll have two VTFs, one for diffuse ad one for the normals.
BUT ALL THIS only if you plan on converting the textures.
It's prefectly fine to submit a PSD with all your layers, and that's a single file.
Thanks very much!
Is there a console command to reload the textures? I have been resorting to restarting the game.
Cheeezy Don't know about the game, but the best choice would be to test textures in model viewer inside Source SDK, there you could refresh instantly after pressing F5
http://racer445.com/media/tutorials/edgestrick/tutimage.jpg
Just use the High Pass filter in photoshop.
Thanks in advance... again!
As for your AO you should either delete the offending geometry or UVs (of course only for your render) to avoid it... after all they're the same
Its at the bottom
How do I edit this terrible UV map? I hate it: no room to give the shaft a good texture at 512x512.
Someone asked this in the questions thread, whether it's allowed to use non-square maps.
Jesse said it's prohibited.
I don't see why though, Source supports asymmetric map sizes perfectly well.
This is blender :S
P/s - Loving the brush. Has the exact feel I've been looking for.
Do you have a link to that brush? I don't see it in any of the standard brushes and it'd be real nice to have.
done and done.
http://www.teamfortress.com/contribute/tips.php
There is a trick I learned to achieve this without all to much thought.
* Just add an overlay layer on top, put in a 128 gray value, and add a noise filter to it (disable monochromatic so you get a coloured noise, add in a value of like 40). Then put this layer at like 5 to 7% transparancy.
* Keep this layer on while painting in the layers underneath, now if you now keep colourpicking (alt in photoshop) the colours you will see that it uses the colour noise in combo with the base colour you are painting with and add subtle hue variations. It can help add a bit of life to the textures.
* Offcourse disable the noise layer after you are done so it wont appear in the texture.
I'm using what is essentially the engineer's gloves texture on a rubber handle for one of my items and I'm not sure whether Valve would apply an AO map to that shiny part.
So when you say shiny stuff you mean shiny stuff that is also transparent?
I have the problem that, once I've decompiled the weapon models, I only have vtx files instead of vtf, any idea how I can get these? Fantastic tutorial btw:)
vtf is found in the gcf file "team fortress 2 materials"
Ho yes, I encountered that problem when I made my custom watch for the contest, the way the cloak meter work is hardcoded ingame, there are two type of cloak meter, the linear and the circular one.
There are only a few way to edit it, one way is to edit the position of the 2 two bones named "bottom_left" and "top_right" which fix the bounds for the Vgui (yes the cloak meter is a Vgui element). You can also edit the position in the QC file if you dont want to redo all the animations.
$attachment "controlpanel0_ll" "bottom_left" -0.80 0.55 0.00 rotate 0.00 -0.00 0.00
$attachment "controlpanel0_ur" "top_right" -0.50 0.85 0.00 rotate 0.00 0.00 0.00
To change between linear and circular cloak meter, you'll have to edit it in the vgui_screen.txt found in tf/scripts
And you can also modify the textures that can be found in: tf/material/vgui
the textures are : Pocket_watch_BG, Pocket_watch_BG for the dead ringer
and flagtime_empty, flagtime_full for the CloakandDagger and default watch.