[?] A few questions

[Exonar]

I find myself looking at a year where I have lots of time off, and decided that I'd might as well help out with PR in as many ways as I can. What I'm good at? Texturing. Everything and all that is Photoshop is second nature to me. I've started to read a lot of the tutorials you guys have put up (thank you for taking the time to create these by the way) and I'm starting to get the gist of it all.

What I'm wondering though is how I'm going to find work? I have zero skill in modeling (I might try to learn later) so I'm going have to pair up with someone who is my opposite - good at modeling but needs someone to texture their work. What will I need? I have 3dsmax, Photoshop, the editor and PR. Is there anything else?

I'm probably going to head off to the faction forums and offer my help, but any direction would be awesome.

Hope to working with you soon.

[Rhino]

Nice we need more texture artists

We can't start handing out tasks and with them models to any one until we see some solid work as I'm sure you can understand

There are a bunch of free models you can download for texturing purposes you can learn and practice texturing on, just need to look about with them you will normally find some models combined with texturing tuts.

You have all that you need as long as you have 3DsMax9 (not 2009) although you can work with other versions when texturing, you just can't make any modelling tweaks while doing it without meaning we would have to back port it back to max9 although its pretty rare for a texture artist to do any tweaks, but still best you work with Max9 w/e

I'm not the best person to give advice on texturing since its the one area I really can't do hehe but I'm sure some other people can help out

[Exonar]

Yeah the only thing I'd have to show for Photoshop work would be my sig if anything. But yeah, i'll get started. Any old say gun models that I can practice on? I still don't know how to UVmap so I need to start on that aswell. Darn, I have 3dsmax 2009, but I can still see if I can get it from my older brother's company.

[Rhino]

Yep, 2009 will be fine for viewing your work as you can load max9 models with max2009, you just can't load models saved with max2009 with max9 hehe, but you should still try and look at getting max9

For UV mapping, you dont really need to learn it as a texture artist but its a very good skill to have

For practice, like I said you can try and find some models to try texturing on, I believe this tut comes with a nice pistol you could try your hand at, as well as the tut itself should give a few tips: Creating a Weapon For Source download - Mod DB

But other than that, you could also try re-texturing models that are already in the mod, like for example you could give a go at giving the PLA vehicles a digital camo?



More pics: https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f18-pr ... ost1142602


Really up to you

[Exonar]

=D Alright I'll have a go at it.

[H.sta]

If you are looking for work, you should ask the Community Factions

they usually need texture artist, I know we will as soon as some more models are finished

[Exonar]

the links in eggmans tut are dead ones. Is he still around?

eggman;141293']

[...]

Texture Tutorials:
http://204.11.239.71/DFast/Tuts/BF2Textures.htm


More Texture Info:
The following are the notes I took from our conversation:

BF2 uses a formula where 1 pixel = 1cm in-game. Therefore when you unwrap objects you should take this into mind.

Vehicle Bodies: If a body is 7 meters long then don?t unwrap its UVWs to a 300-pixel space, at medium resolution. You?ll be looking at a blurry mucky mess. Instead unwrap it to 700- pixel space. Things that are not seen regular can be map to a much smaller space. They don?t need to hold to the formula as much, as they aren?t seen as much.
EX: Underneath or semi-hidden areas, the bottom of a turret, and so on.

Wheels: I would suggest making them a little bigger then the formula, so u can get a nice texture on them as there are usually a lot of these on a tank and can be seen regularly.

A lot of this is common sense. If a mesh takes up 75% of the model then for heaven sakes, don?t unwrap the UVW's to 1/5th of the allotted UVW space.

An example of the formula at work:

http://204.11.239.71/dfast/ukrTnk_Oplot_c.jpg

Here is the break down:
1. Bumbmap creation
2. Specularmap creation
3. Colormap creation
4. Shadowmap creation

Bumpmaps are just grayscale images that control height in a render, where as white would be the highest point and black the lowest.

The difference between bump mapping and normal mapping is that bump mapping uses grayscale, and normal mapping using RGB. However, you can make a normal map using a bump map.

Bumpmap:

http://204.11.239.71/DFast/Tuts/Oplot_Bump.jpg

Yea, basically think of specularmap as a non-painted vehicle. Like it just left the factory floor ready for the paint booth ? ?Bare Metal?

http://204.11.239.71/DFast/Tuts/Oplot_spec.jpg

Both my bump and my spec are all created in Photoshop in the same document.

I use my bump mapping to get exact placement of the finer details u see once it?s skinned.

Now here is the biggest reason why I do it like this - "camo"

Once all the details are in these beginning spec process u can start laying down color using the layer blend modes in Photoshop.

Of course one can always add finer detail on top the color layers to make them pop a bit better.

I generally will use a soft white on top of my color layers with a blend of luminance or what ever called.

http://204.11.239.71/DFast/Tuts/PSD_Overview.jpg

Generate shadow maps in your 3D program and save them to import for the model.

Now the specular map controls the shine as u know, so once the vehicle skin is completed, I turn off the color layer and bump layers, then I do a curve adjustment to that folder.


http://204.11.239.71/DFast/Tuts/Oplot_spec_final.jpg

Static Model Textureing Tutorial
Texturing BF2 StaticMeshes

Also, quick question. How to I take an existing mesh and open it in max and apply texture to it?

[Amok@ndy]

you need the Bf2 Tools for 3ds

google or have a look at bfeditor.org

search for sth like 'POE Bf2 Tools 3ds max'

[Rhino]

you need the Bf2 Tools for 3ds

google or have a look at bfeditor.org

search for sth like 'POE Bf2 Tools 3ds max'

much simpler to look at your texture in the BF2 editor and just set it to reload change textures than trying to apply the correct texture to the correct part of the model etc.

[Exonar]

I just downloaded those tools and installed them, but i'm stuck from there. I get a "-- Unknown property: "importMeshFile" in undefined" when I try to import the type 98 con file.

much simpler to look at your texture in the BF2 editor and just set it to reload change textures than trying to apply the correct texture to the correct part of the model etc.

I get a "please install dx9.0c" or something when I run the editor :S. I have the latest dx installed. Currently googling this problem.

Edit: Fix'd thanks to a thread on this forum. https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f388-p ... s-7-a.html

[Rhino]

Because the BF2 tools dont work with Max 2009.

And run the editor in XP compatible mode.

[Exonar]

Thanks got it working! I'm going to start on those re-textures on the armor. Do I need to make a texture for each lod? Or does it somehow sort itself out?

[BloodBane611]

The vehicles are created such that all the LODs work off a single texture sheet, so you just need to do the one.

[Exonar]

Just one more question... What DDS format do I export as? ARGB 256 is crashing my photoshop.

[Amok@ndy]

google for the WTV Program it can open and show all .dds files and tells you the format of them

you can also convert .dds to .psd without loosing the alpha informations by using a DDS Converter

[Sniperdog]

Just one more question... What DDS format do I export as? ARGB 256 is crashing my photoshop.

The type of dds you need to save as depends on the texture layer you are working on. You can see what format a .dds file is using WTV as mentioned above.

http://developer.download.nvidia.com/tools/wtv/WTV.rar

Just look at the textures of any vehicles currently in PR to get some idea of how the different layers are set up.

If you want to which textures are associated with a given mesh you can use this tool:

http://www.buijs-leur.nl/bfstuff/bfmeshview/

Just look at the texture addresses on the left side after you open the mesh you are curious about.

[Exonar]

I'm liking this BFmeshviewer. Though when I open something with different parts, for example a tank, the turret and .50 are inside the tank.