SPYRE's I'll Teach you a thing or two!

Spyrewolf · Post by **Spyrewolf** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 4:26 am

Well it all done, as not to pollute my game thread i have posted the site here, the tutorial is soly for textures at this point and i will get onto the terrain side shortly, but you can all practice the making textures untill i get back with the 3d side of the tute. your going to have to create 3 texture for the next tute.

http://spyrestutes.110mb.com/spyrepage1.htm

let me know what you think of the site

and place any textures you created in here i want to see if this has been helpfull. or if there is confusion.
Have fun

PS please ignore the odd gramatical hiccup and spelling mistake....

Agentarrow · Post by **Agentarrow** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 4:35 am

Cool. Thanx spyre!

Post by **bernie** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 11:56 am

Thanks Spyre good tute. This is an area where I really need to practice. I also need some help and practice with UV's as well if you could include that with the milkshape tute I would appreciate that enormously.

Post by **Jay** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 12:48 pm

wow, cool! I don't have photoshop, is use texture maker, but the greyscale techinique is really powerfull! You can use it to create totally new variations of textures!

Here is a sample of what i mean. The top left picture has been used a as a greyscale blended with the top right picture, and the bottom two came out! They may not look good enough already, but i will certainly perfect this technique! It's just too good to get lost!

(EDIT: This is not exactly your technique but it's very similar, the greyscale gives the shape and the colorfull gives the colours)

Spyrewolf · Post by **Spyrewolf** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 1:14 pm

Yeah it really can make a good textures using that technique.
try not to use photo's exactly, they'll end up looking like photo's my suggestion is copy segments and erase other bits out if you don't have a stamp tool or heal tool at your disposal.

however your textures came out quite good, keep playing with things and you'll produce some winning results!

if you don't have photoshop, GIMP would work with this tute as it has most of the features photoshop does, and they're not all to disimilar, except that GIMP has a different UI that take alot of getting use to.

@bernie: if its terrain you worried about for UV's then you in for a treat, there's no mapping required for the terrain tute!

As for character UV, that is an artform in itself, It is a tutorial I can set up(later) but ...to be honest my UV mapping still needs work also, I alway create horrid seams and cheat by redesigning certain area's if you looked at some of my models it becomes blatantly clear what I have done.

Nor do I use texture space effectively. I think i'm gonna hunt for a program I saw on the polycount forums a while back it looked interesting, I assume your using Lithunwrap or Ultimate unwrap. this is an area of mine i do need work at too, but like modelling the more you practice the better you'll get.

I'll see what i can do for you though, I could pop together a basic tutorial. but i wouldnt garantee the quality.

Post by **bernie** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 1:26 pm

Yes I use lithunwrap but I really don't understand it. I've been lucky with some of the things I've done so far and it really has been luck and not judgment. I also mess around with milkshape's mapper and sometimes it comes out ok but most times its just a mess.

vrageprogrammer · Post by **vrageprogrammer** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 4:57 pm

WHOA...Great tut, even I didn't know that!!
(p.s-I dont know a lot of things...like when the spaghetti's done and ....)

Agentarrow · Post by **Agentarrow** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 6:06 pm

why do they say spaghetti is easy? I always seem to dry it out, or it isn't quite done, or something always seems to be wrong with pasta.

vrageprogrammer · Post by **vrageprogrammer** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 6:32 pm

I know what you mean..

psYco · Post by **psYco** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 7:00 pm

The site is great man, really good photoshop tutorial for textures, and I see youve produced some fantastic results with your method. Also the site is so very nice and stylish.

Spyrewolf · Post by **Spyrewolf** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 9:11 am

thanks for the kind words there psyco.

-Just a quick update guys,
sorry there hasn't been action on this yet, but'll do my best to get something up soon. real life is getting in the way again,

-but I PROMISE i'll get these done. I'm perfecting my technique further, to make things ALOT easier for you guys,

I drafted a tute, but i/2 way into it it got real complex, - also please note, as mention earlier the more I do this, the more i am begining to realise that this is
NOT a very quick process, I sorry if i misinformed you all earlier,

the result is still Easy to produce, i made a 2 walls in my game thread which took 10 mins for me, but a whole terrain you'll be looking a 1 hour - 1 hour and a 1/2,

It still is a good method, produces more interesting shapes than what you can get from a bsp. (due to the whole concave issue) plus it speeds up compile time this way also. this is what originally drove me in this direction, waiting 10 mins for a level to compile really hurt my development time, plus with dynamic shadows you get a great shadow effect also (i'll cover the lighting and setup in RF in a future tute as well)

It gives great looking terrains, but you have to spend a good 15 minutes preparing (exluding textures you'll have to create) but'll Give you guys a couple of resourses to play with once i get the tute up, I'll also put into practice a tip I learn't from spending time on polycount, I learn't this from Ben Mathis site,
Ben is a regular on polycount.

http://www.poopinmymouth.com
It is regarding texture 3rding, I'll give you guys a template to help create great terrains use only two base textures,

you can create more textures to enhance your terrains further but using the 3rding technique is very powerfull, and saves alot on textures. originall I had
6 textures this techique brought that down to 2. -always important when considering load times. and file sizes.

So again sorry I haven't been more proactive on this, but i will do what i can and let you all know once this has been acheived. hopefully This tute site one day will hae some good comprehensive information to help out for all the "RF" tricks.. this is things you may be unaware of (like federico's water tute for example)
- a trick that was very well done. I have another trick for water too (different) I have been mulling with hopefully this when done should give an effect of an ocean with waves, (don't expect farcry) think more Killzone on PSP. (damn tried to find an example but have been unable to do so, so far), most ofthe images look rubbish, guess you half to see in action :/

Sph!nx · Post by **Sph!nx** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 4:54 pm

Thanks a lot, Spyrewolf. Nice work. Bookmarked!