Good paint program for photorealistic character textures?

wackedoutbiker · Post by **wackedoutbiker** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 11:05 pm

Although I haven't laid a single vertex yet, the drawing technique works for me for the most part! I'll post the results later...

But I have another problem: Since I have Paint Shop Pro 4, I don't think I have any tools in there that would help me make decent character textures...are there any good free tools out there for such a thing? I know that Photoshop's burn and dodge and blend tools were used a lot in the tutorial Spyrewolf posted (thanks again), but I don't know of anything similar that's free. Besides, the realism level wasn't as high as what I'm aiming for.

Any ideas?

darksmaster923 · Post by **darksmaster923** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 12:31 am

gimp?

psYco · Post by **psYco** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 2:23 am

Well, photoshop can be used for ANY level of realism... It is after all the tool of the pros, I believe it was used in the making of Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl which has graphics more real than any i have seen in my experience (which is vast when it comes to games

) [Im only basing this on a montior i took a glimpse at in the "making of"

anyway i know its a bit pricy but if you can get your hands on it... it really is an amazing tool that with experience has virtually no limits

also I have used PSP in the past (i dont remember the version i think it was before 4) and with some practice i belive you can make some good photorealistic textures (created obviously using photos) take a look around for tutorials specific to the software and you might be able to find you can do what you want with tools you already have access too

scott · Post by **scott** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 4:13 am

sorry for the cross threading, but to mention from the spaming and more detaild reply other than one word, well now is a good example, the least you could of done was give a web address and mabe explain why the person should use it. or if you have mentiond it before post a link to that thread.

i hope this helps, http://www.gimp.org , its a free paint edeting programme, i havnt used it much myself but the time i did use it it didnt look too bad.

Juutis · Post by **Juutis** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 9:29 am

I personally use mainly airbrush and layers. As long as the program has them, it can be used to get very realistic textures. Though I'm not quite there yet...
Anyway, It's more about your skills in texture painting than the program. I would personally recommend Gimp, to which scott already gave the link. It's a lot like Photoshop but free!

Spyrewolf · Post by **Spyrewolf** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 1:13 pm

for painting yes Gimp is by far the best choice it as just as powerfull as photoshop,

if your after photo-realism, try using shaders in 3dmax, then bake them to a singular texture so it may be imported into RF, i don't know Max all too well, but i know this is the technique the guys over at polycount do for engine like RF.

here an idea, Pior stuff is amazing! here is technique that can be ported over to RF.
http://www.pioroberson.com/tuts/tut_tex ... tricks.htm

scott · Post by **scott** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 7:45 pm

i have never used it only was told about it, from the guys at microsoft, they have made paint 2.0 or something like that, it isnt an official release from microsoft, they developed it in their own time aparently, and its also free, i think it requires .net frame work version 2 to work wich is just an update from microsoft.com

just found it, its called paint.net found at
http://www.getpaint.net/index2.html

wackedoutbiker · Post by **wackedoutbiker** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 6:30 pm

I don't have 3dsmax, it is too expensive for me...besides, is there a different program that can do that cool technique that doesn't cost so much? (preferably freeware)

EDIT: I'm not sure if MeLODy would work, but I'll look for some tutorials for it...

Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to try if it is capable of the shader baking thing...

hike1 · Post by **hike1** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 1:53 am

http://terrymorgan.net/download.htm

Something called Deep Paint 60MB, pretty
nice.

wackedoutbiker · Post by **wackedoutbiker** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 1:56 am

That looks pretty cool but do I have to pay out the wazoo for that!?

And I've looked at ZBrush, but the price is $489! Holy %$#&!

Is there a similar tool that is freeware that can do the same thing?

Here's an example of what I'm talking about: (low-poly and high-poly models)

http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=12475

scott · Post by **scott** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 3:39 am

i have just made an exelent high resolution textures for a cutscene using photoshop, but after looking at paint.net i could of made it in that and its free!
i saw one pice of work some months back where a guy created a painting in paint, thats righ standard paint, he made sections that represented what he wanted then went through each pixle to make it look real, it took him along time and he had saves of the different steps he went through.

here is a pic, i will look for the original site.
http://www.deviantart.com/view/17908194/

but this just shows that it dont matter what programe you use, textures can be made with anything, its not the programme its the user, while the programme just saves time and makes it easier.

hike1 · Post by **hike1** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 4:10 pm

Deep Paint is free, at least the version I link to.

darksmaster923 · Post by **darksmaster923** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 4:45 pm

no, you just link to a right hemisphere page. and nothing in right hemisphere is free

wackedoutbiker · Post by **wackedoutbiker** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 8:20 pm

Is there any kind of similar tool that can do the same thing as Zbrush, except that it costs less or nothing? I would sommth out MS3d models I make or edit, but that would take forever and there's a ceiling on the number of polys one can have in a model (65,000, I believe?) for the bake technique?

And is there a freeware tool that can do the texture baking thing mentioned in the pior oberson tutorial? Because Max costs a hell of a lot.

hike1 · Post by **hike1** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 1:28 am

http://www.righthemisphere.com/products ... pPaint.zip

Also try Google 'free deep paint'

And read the 1st 3 lines of the RF FAQ

http://terrymorgan.net/rffaq.zip