How do you actually create ship textures?

from Sins Forums

I've read the tutorials, which explain how sins interprets the different channels and how to attach the textures etc. However, all of these skip the step of actually creating the textures. From the UV mapping tutorial I gather it's possible to draw them by hand in Photoshop/Gimp, but that sounds very tedious. And then there's this texturing tutorial, but the Ultimapper tool doesn't seem to work too well for larger, more complex objects, and I have no idea how I'm supposed to combine the individual mesh pieces into one UV map/texture sheet. Also, I don't know how to export a sins-conform texture, but I guess that is easy enough to do in Gimp.

So, is there any way of creating ship textures except drawing them by hand, or even better, a tutorial showing you how to make them?

As far as software goes I use Blender for making the actual model, then import into Softimage XSI for everything else. I have limited knowledge of Gimp, but basically zero drawing skills.

Thanks in advance!

modding
9,042 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Well you can copy elements of existing Sins textures and past them into your texture. You may need to arrange your UV's to fit these pasted in elements. This may save you some time but you will still need to texture a big portion yourself.

Doing the textures though, if you want to do a nice job you really do need to spend quite a bit of time on them, with pretty much what ever program you use. Especially if you are learning from scratch. I would suggest though to use a program that can write dds. Personally out all the things, I would say doing the textures takes the most time. Some people that are already very good texture rs may think that modeling is IDK.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by

how I'm supposed to combine the individual mesh pieces into one UV map/texture sheet.
. You can join Islands or polygon mesh's together using the "heal" tools in the "texture/UV editor"(Alt+7) in SoftImage. Is Blender able to "unwrap" a mesh to make a UV map? I thought it can IDK. This may be what you are looking for. Other than that there are programs, if you are willing shell a few bob, that will let you paint straight onto your model. Such as 3D Coat, Zbrush, Mudbox etc. And as you know SoftImage can do it also, but with this you will need to convert it in another program to dds.

Any how best of luck with it.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Gimp can open .dds files, and at the moment that's the only program I have for 2D stuff.

Quoting SuperZERO0, reply 1

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by
how I'm supposed to combine the individual mesh pieces into one UV map/texture sheet.. You can join Islands or polygon mesh's together using the "heal" tools in the "texture/UV editor"(Alt+7) in SoftImage.

To elaborate on this, I was referring to the video tutorials (link in OP), where if you look closely the guy has his Porsche door in a seperate polymesh from the rest of the car, and thus it has its own UV map. Not splitting up the model resulted in me getting a "too many polygons" or so error when applying a weight map to the high-res version, and even with 100% opacity, painting the entire model with said weight map resulted in only some square specks appearing, with the rest of the surface unaffected. Splitting up the model solved this, so I'm fairly sure this was the problem.

However, each of my model parts now has its own Texture Projection and UV map, and I don't know how to combine the individual Projections/UV maps into one large projection full of subprojections (which was my approach prior to realising the weight maps don't support that many polys)

 

The most important question for now is whether I can use textures painted in XSI via layers/weightmaps for sins models (i.e. export them as 2D images and somehow splice them into the layers needed for sins, then save as .dds in Gimp), because if I can't then I needn't bother with getting that to work.

Just how exactly do other people (even the sins devs) produce their textures? I simply can't believe that they print out a UV stamp and paint the entire texture over that, which is what this tutorial seems to suggest.

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Photoloss, reply 2
However, each of my model parts now has its own Texture Projection and UV map, and I don't know how to combine the individual Projections/UV maps into one large projection full of subprojections (which was my approach prior to realising the weight maps don't support that many polys)

First off, I suck at texturing but I a pretty sure you need to merge your model into 1 object and UV that. All Sins models use a single UV. Then begin to unwrap it. It also needs to be a single object at export time.

BTW, I am the one putting that weebly together so if you find that something is not in there that should be, let me know please.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

 

Quoting myfist0, reply 3

Quoting Photoloss, reply 2However, each of my model parts now has its own Texture Projection and UV map, and I don't know how to combine the individual Projections/UV maps into one large projection full of subprojections (which was my approach prior to realising the weight maps don't support that many polys)
First off, I suck at texturing but I a pretty sure you need to merge your model into 1 object and UV that. All Sins models use a single UV. Then begin to unwrap it. It also needs to be a single object at export time.

BTW, I am the one putting that weebly together so if you find that something is not in there that should be, let me know please.

Just how exactly do other people (even the sins devs) produce their textures? I simply can't believe that they print out a UV stamp and paint the entire texture over that, which is what this tutorial seems to suggest.

This, or at least what you're supposed to do between the existing tutorial points, is missing.

Edit: What I mean is while there are texturing tutorials I can't find any explanation of whether these methods work with sins models, and how you're supposed to turn the result from these texturing methods into a set of sins-conform -cl, -nm and -da .dds texture sheets. (for example you link to an "Animated Displacement Maps" video tutorial, which definitely sounds like something sins won't support)

And I know/suspected that the final model must have 1 UV map only, which is my problem as following the tutorial (link in OP) I end up with more than 1, and I don't know how to merge/heal different UV maps from different texture projections together (the alternative being I set up a new projection for the combined model and manually align the UVs with the textures of the parts, which is tedious and inaccurate.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
1 UV Begin 1 UV Unwrapped

Merge your model first then give it a single UV

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Was the unwrapping done via a built-in tool or manually?

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Manually. Ya its more work than modelling.  x_x

But as SuperZ suggests, there might be a tool but Ima n00b myself.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

You can have 2 or more different UV maps for 1 model if needed. It involves creating separate materials and then rendering the relevant texture file, UV's and tangents to the separate materials. Check out the Advanced section of the forge tools documentation for a description on how to go about it. When using multiple materials and texture files you will be able to get the resolution your after, but note, there is a high associated memory use when doing this unless you can some how use existing textures.

You can use "unique UV" Texture projection to unwrap in SoftImage.

Mod tool does not export texture clips, but SoftImage will export dds. file format. if you have it.

By the way AutoDesk is now letting people use an Educational version (full version) for a 13 month period if you join the student community, like what they have been doing for 3D max for some time now. Also 25 other AutoDesk products.

If your interested check out;

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=14185424

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

I have Softimage Mod Tool 7.5. It doesn't have a default option for exporting .dds files as far as I can see. (I guess with "SoftImage" you mean a different program?)

Can I export as jpg/bmp/tga and then use Gimp to convert the individual texture layers into sins-conform .dds files?

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Softimage 2010 is the NOT FREE version of Softimage|XSI mod tool.

Creating a Second Set of Materials is advanced and still uses a single merged object but you create clusters where the different textures will go. I don't recommend this step until you are familiar with the basics.

I think people are exporting to TGA the converting to DDS

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

I have Softimage Mod Tool 7.5. It doesn't have a default option for exporting .dds files as far as I can see. (I guess with "SoftImage" you mean a different program?)

Well its essentially the same program but more up to date & with all its features enabled. SoftImage 2011 can write dds. Mod tool has a lot of its exporting features disabled. Also merging scenes is not possible. probably more differences IDK.

Can I export as jpg/bmp/tga and then use Gimp to convert the individual texture layers into sins-conform .dds files?

Not sure, though I have tried exporting a clip from the texture editor in mod tool and it says "feature not enabled" or some such. Mod tool will export those formats amongst others if you use "stamp UV mesh", but you will have a yellow outline of your UV's over the texture. Not the best. The only thing I can suggest trying would be to export the whole model with textures as Direct X and Import it into Blender. As I have not tried this with textures attached it is only a suggestion, I don't know whether it will export the textures along with the model, but it could be worth a try.

Best of luck with it.