Photoshop/GIMP, Textures, and You(r BAT)!

[Gn_leugim 853]

Hello everyone

Are you new to BATing? great, this is for you! are you not? also great, it's for you too, you may learn and give to learn on the process!

So, first of all, this tutorial or shall I say, set of topics, are not design to teach you how to model, how to apply texture on models, set UWV maps or any kind of modeling done in Gmax/MAX!

For that matter, you can find excellent tutorials or you can find more information on the BAT essentials too.

Other useful tips on modelling and applying texture on models can be found here:

 

So, what is exactly the point of this topic? To introduce you to Photoshop/GIMP techniques to create good textures for your models. Why create? why not use textures found on texture databases such CGtextures? Because only in very rare circumstances already made textures fits good the game grand scheme! most of them are taken from real places, and they fit those places nicely, but they are not your BAT. also, the game has it own criteria regarding saturation, hue and luminosity, on which most textures need to be worked upon. And on my usual work, I rarely use them, and only as patterns overlay and other stuff, not as base textures!

But, lets say that you have a particular texture you want to use and it does not look ok, maybe you may want to take a look at these steps in how to fix textures.

Nevertheless , that is why it is commonly said that good textures are not found, are made! And also remember! This are just simple stepped basic demonstrations, Further experimentation and personalization are not recommended, are mandatory!

So, what you need?

º Photoshop/GIMP to start with. this will be the main tool on usage.

º Some tools like brushes and patterns found here. you can however find more and use more!

º Some texture/image databases such as http://www.cgtextures.com/, http://www.imageafter.com/ and http://grungetextures.com/

Contents:

1-Wall Basics

1.1- Noise Effect

1.2- Gradient

1.3- Texture

1.4- Overall Variance

1.5- Weathering

1.6 -Colour correction

2-Tile Roof Basics

3-Asphalt/Concrete Roofing

4-Using a Texture as base texture

5-Wealth Basic Specs

6-Grungy and Decaying Paradise

7-High Wealth Details

1- Wall Basics

Some of the most important items on your bat are walls! they, together with roofs compose much part of your bat, and the larger and most visible items on a BAT. Therefore, more than other items, textures play a huge role in how a BAT looks, good or bad. In my opinion Walls and roofs are where you are more likely to spend more time making and tuning textures right.

So, let's say we want to make a plaster wall texture. First step, is to get a base colour/tone for the texture. We should find one that meets the overall game's colour pallet (will upload mine as soon as I can).

So, make a new file and size it so, for each meter on bat, it has 20 pixels (i.e. if the wall is 10m long, the file shall be 200 pixels wide). This is the ratio mts/pxl I use, and it works fine, but you can use others, try it out. it is important, though, you use a consistent ratio there after.

Fill it with the colour you have choose:

If you apply this texture and look in game, it does not look good does it?

No, it looks rather bare, cartoonish and stands out to much!

1.1- Noise Effect

Lets get rid of the bare look. we gonna make that colour looking better by adding some variation on the colour. one simple way to archive this is to go to Filter, Noise, Add Noise. Set it to monochromatic, Gaussian and 10%. Then, go again to Filter, Noise, Dust & Scratches, set both parameters to 10 and OK.

Save it, and apply it to gmax and see on game:

Subtle, but is improves the texture largely.

1.2- Gradient

One of the most dramatic effect you must include in any texture is a gradient! It came back to the time of simple sprites for early games and it a major improvement on any texture!

So, the easiest way to archive this is to create a new layer (Ctr+$%&^!+N), Select the gradient tool, select the white to black gradient, apply it on the layer. Change the layer setting to Multiply and change the opacity to about 20%

And in game looks something like this:

Again, a large improvement!

1.3- Texture

Now, the texture is still detailess, and we want a plaster looking texture. For that matter we are going to use some filters and layers.

First, create a new layer, Go to Edit, Fill, select grey 50%. Select the Layer and make it Clipping Mask (alt+crtl+G)

Then, go to Filter, Texture, Texturize. Select Sandstone and fill in the following parameters. Set the layer to Overlay:

In game shall look like so:

Why make this on a separated layer? and not apply it already on the base layer? well, because this way you have more liberty to change the texture/base colour, without having to remake all over again

1.4- Overall Variance

The noise effect is good for having some variation on the colour tone, but you may also want some variation on the luminosity, and on all building sometimes. To do so, do as follow:

start by resetting the colours to white and black. Create a new layer set it to Overlay, 25% opacity, go to Filter, Render, Clouds. repeat this (or just press ctrl+F) as many times you wish to archive the result you want.

1.5- Weathering

The whole mighty weather takes its toll on any exposed surface. And so it shall not be forgotten when making a texture for a BAT.

There are two major events on weathering we should consider:

1- when it rains, ground particles are pick up by falling rain drops and as these splash and scatter, they scatter the particles with them. If the water hits a wall, most likely the ground particles will be attached to the wall. Also, as the bottom part of walls are more likely to be moisten, moss and other stuff may grow on that area. like the following example:

2- water leaking from the top of surfaces. a bit like the above, but this time due to water poring down the walls, from the top. like the following picture shows:

In the end usually both take part of any wall. in any wealth set, there should be some weathering visible. more on low wealth, less in the high wealth though. In both pictures you can see that time, and careless have taken it's toll and have changed the appearance of the walls. remember this!

So, how to mimic these?

Create a new layer. with white color on, load the brushes SS_Driping, that you can find in the site mentioned on the top. now, choose a brush, and apply on the top, once or twice, try not to be repetitive. change brushes a lot, size of them too. then load the SS_Scratchout and apply on the same way, on the bottom.

You shall end with something like you find bellow. Select the smudge tool and smooth and personalize out the top drippings:

Now lets give it some colour and texture. Double click on the layer, to open the layer style window. select overlay pattern, with a grunge overlay (you can find many on the net and on the sites said above) and set texture too, as seen on the pic below:

In game preview:

Doesn't it look better?

1.6 -Colour correction

Here is where more people fail, IMHO, they just forget to correct their colour settings to match up with the game. It is very common to find oversaturate textures, bright colors, standing out textures, that gives the look of cartoonist BATs.

Luckily, there are several tools to help us out. From them, we will use: Curves layer, Brightness/Contrast Layer and Hue/Saturation/Luminosity Layer.

First of all, you need to calibrate your Photoshop for gmax, i.e, create a .acv file for your textures. More details can be found on the link, READ IT, DO IT

Now, you can apply those curves at the end of the line, when the texture is done, but I find it easier to add it as a Layer on the texture .psd file. For this, and before you create the layer, you have to load the .acv so open the curves map window (crtl+M) and load the file you created. then press cancel. now the file is on the memory and can be loaded at the layer. Click on the circle under the layers, and from the list select Curves...

Now double click on it, and you will find a drop menu on the top, open it and select your file from the drop list.

REMEMBER, this layer shall be on top of everything, most of the times.

To create the other two layer, go back (select layer) and in the adjustment layers (the circle) select the other 2 I talked about.

With this two, you can tune (usually) down or up the saturation levels, brightness etc etc, without having to change a thing on the bitmaps.

At this point, you should test and test. not just go with the first result you get! This is probably the step I spend more time on, when texturing.

open both, PS/GIMP and Gmax/MAX, and keep tuning the texture, saving it, testing it on the gmax and in some screenshots you have from the game. over and over until you are pleased with the result.

Here is a picture how the final texture looks like. Notice the 4 top layer, the three adjustment layers I spoke about and a colour one. Some say, the game is pinkish/pearish in colour. truth is, some textures do look better when I: Create a new layer, select a pinksh colour, fill the layer and set it's opacity to 10%. This is not imperative, but it may help, and is easy to test.

And, to see the end result, facing the first texture I started with, let me scale up the boxes and put them side to side:

2-Tile Roof Basics

In this part of the tutorial we will look opon the tiled ceramic and slated roofs, usualy tilted. for that we will use a simple model, like this one.

(base)

What most people do is to get a tiling texture and apply it to the roof, ending up like something like this

(textb)

Although it does not look very bad, it is bland, it stands out and could use some colour and luminosity life.

2.1- From the scratch

so, lets start by viewing the model from the top, with all the details it has, and take a screenshot of it. open your image software, create a new file, and paste the shot in it. go to Filters>Stylize>Find Edges (this is for Photoshop, other softwares may have different menu configurations).

Then crop the image to fit just the roof and relevant details of the roof and resize it according to your ratio (As stated, I use 20px per meter). Also, select the white and erase it, leaving just the outlines of the model.

(ps1)

Select from a game's color pallet a roof color of your like. apply it to the background layer. Then apply the same method described in 1.1

(ps2)

lets see in game

(game1)

Not big thing yet, off course,  but again, this adds some variety to the texture and make it a bit less monotonous. and gives us a starting point.

On the next step, we are making more for that purpose. First, if you look at some maxis buildings, and even to some real life textures, you see that not all tiles look the same.  In fact, most of the times, Maxis didn't define well the outlines of the individual tiles, leaving to the differences in hue and albedo to make the job. That's what we are making here today.

 

(Still on the making!)

[boisemetro 85]

Thanks for making this thread.

What size do you save your image that will be used for the map?

  Edited October 27, 2012 by boisemetro  

[Gn_leugim 853]

sorry for the late reply (and rather slow update rate)

the size of the maps I use? as I say (I think) on the topic, I keep a constante px/m ration of my images, the be more acurate, I use 20px per meter. so if my wall is 10m wide and 5 meters tall my image will be 200px x 100px

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

I guess that Gn_leugim wouldn't see my reply since he wrote this article such long ago. Nevertheless, it is such a brilliant and great post, Thank you @mattb325 for help me find it.

Sincerely,

-- Raymond