I want to learn

[Snipawolf]

Well, it depends.

TBH, the only layers I ever use are when I need to copy paste a greeble.

Also, yes, you CAN do the "perfect" texture with the first try if you know how to work Gimp decently. If you follow my tutorial for advanced greebles, or the one for basic greebles, it is VERY easy to follow. As long as you read and think, you should be able to get that.

I've learned to make cylinders and a lot of decent things from tutorials, but the things I learned while making greebles, I made tutorials for, so that I can impart my knowledge into others.

[[Krogoth86]]

Well if you never do layers for your textures you might find this interesting:
http://www.dosfx.com/tutorials/csgirl/csgirl128.asp
It's from the more or less famous CS Girl Tutorial which pretty much covers all means of creating a model (with Milkshape) for CS. You also might want to google for the downloadable version of this but all links I found were dead...

EDIT:
Here you also see what I mean with "Without being able to draw / paint good you won't make it too far even with having the techniques."...

[Snipawolf]

Heh, I told you that, remember.

You need decent knowledge of the program.

It isn't necessarely being able to paint good or draw good, its just knowing HOW to use things. I still sucked at textures for a while after I knew what everything did...

[[Krogoth86]]

Well of course you know what your tools do but basically if you can paint / airbrush or whatever this should be piece of cake as the basic draw tools just are pencils, brushes and airbrushes. A good example is Gollum from the LotR movies (the Gollum you saw in part 2 and 3). After seing the amazing realism a paintbrusher did to Boromir's corpse (especially how to make veins under the skin and so on using multiple layers of ink) they grabbed him and sat him in front of a computer and in only a few days he knew how to do his airbrush work in ZBrush and the result you can see in the movies now. So of course you need to know your tool but the tool won't make you a good artist no matter how good you know all its functions...

The only place where tech-knowledge might be more good than artistic knowledge are tools like MapZone for example. Here you can do SUCH TEXTURES by just adjusting some filters. This might be good for some environment textures or crates but won't help you very much for complex models with complex surfaces...

[Otherside]

i run into a proble i dont know to make a team color layer in PS the tutorials i found or wat i been told by snipa is for the gimp and not for Photoshop so it dusnt rilly apply i dotn think

could any1 help me on how to make team colors

[smoth]

download my morty. Look at the included .psd notice how I use the layer mask on his teamcolor section. You can view the layer mask simply by pressing alt+clicking on it.

[Otherside]

looks nice but then i looked at ur textures and cudnt actwally find the base morty texture in png format just the gun barrels it seemed :S

im confused this is wat ive done

Modelled unit made UV Map Combined

Made Texture on the uvmap leaving the desired team color areas white

i then also seperate the tank into a turret and base but that shudnt affect dont think

i dunno wat to do from there with layers and transparencies :S

i got no layers just a background atm which is textured UV map with white areas what should i do next ?

go to calculations and add a transparency lair if i do so my PS wont let me save the chanels or layers with the file in a png format :S

im rilly confused a small guide on how to get the texture team colored and working would be nice

im using photoshop CS2 no1 ive asked seems to know how to do it either :S

[smoth]

there should be a psd with all the textures in it.

[Otherside]

there is still dusnt explain how u got there tho xD and the png looks empty :s

[smoth]

Ignore the png and look at the psd.

[Otherside]

ive copied ur settings and more or less wat u done and in ups spring my first texture shows fine with the white areas for the team colors

i made a second texture which was green for reflections with areas marked for team colors

now my unit with full reflection comes out in the color of the team fully and the areas suposed to be team colored are black arg...

[Otherside]

also in basic mode with team color the unit is solely the color of the team

[Pressure Line]

also in basic mode with team color the unit is solely the color of the team

alpha for teamcolour!

[Otherside]

ok time to put screenies also my photoshop wen i click save png the save alpha channels box is greyd out and it only lets me save as a copy :S

well anywayz some screens











help this is frustrating and the last hurdle b4 scripting then finally having first basic unit done

[AF]

Looks terribly similar to a level 1 aeon unit in supreme commander

[Otherside]

heh af didnt aim for that just made an easy model to start

anywayz yeh i didnt team color all of it just the underneath oops but it still dusnt work once i find a way that works :S illl team color it all any help ?

[smoth]

invert your alpha

[Otherside]

didnt work wen i try to save tho the box were it says save alpha channels is greyd out :s

[rattle]

Reduce all your layers to the background before saving. You can undo this to keep working with layers.

[Otherside]

i did does it matter if its background or if its one single layer ?