Drakhri completed!

Originally posted by Wedge009
...but I'm still against the 'dirty' look on the Confed fighters... perhaps if the dirt and scratches weren't so consistent across the fighter? I can understand that might make texturing harder, but IMHO, I think it may look better.
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Gotta agree w/ that. 'Course, no one'll fault you if you leave it as is cuz it's 2 much work to change it. But, more "random" wear and tear *would* be more realistic...:)
 
Sorry, but the dirt stays :p
I think that the current ammount of dirt and scratches is the right ammount, considering the pictures from the WC1 launch sequences... plus, I just like the way it looks :)

I'm going to re-texture all capships (Gilgamesh, Waterloo, Drayman) though, and they're going to have less obvious dirt and scratches - which is kinda logic, since they are much bigger ships.

--Eder
 
Fine Eder, you leave us no choice... summon the Janitor!

Seriously though, the dirt is good, but you should have a clean armour plate or two every once in a while - since armour plates tend to be replaced quite frequently, it would make sense to have one or two that only just got replaced :).
 
Originally posted by Eder
Sorry, but the dirt stays :p
I think that the current ammount of dirt and scratches is the right ammount,

--Eder
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Just to clarify, Eder: I don't think folks are talking about the *amount* of "dirt" or wear & tear, just how it's *distributed*. A more random pattern of wear & tear would be more realistic than to have it *uniformly* distributed across the entire hull (For example, fighter "a" w/ more wear & tear on right upper wing than elsewhere, fighter "b" w/ more damage on left side of fuselage than elsewhere, and so on...). Hope this clears things up. :)
 
Hmmmm, I hadn't realized that.
In that case, I'll do some tests on the Rapier II-A and post the results here when I'm finished... :)
Messing with the ammount of wear 'n tear on the textures wouldn't be possible unless I developed a whole new Pre-Estabilished Forumula For Good Looking Textures(tm), but changing the way that it's distributed should be quite simple.

Thanks for clearing that up, man, I hadn't realized that yet.

--Eder
 
Here's the result of something I just tried out... keep that feedback coming.

cleaner.jpg


--Eder
 
At first, I didn't see any difference, but now that I compare it with the last shot, I can see the difference. Maybe I'm just partial to squeaky clean ships (like the Admiral, yikes), but perhaps the 'cleaner' spots could be a tad brighter?

At any rate, I think it's an improvement.
 
Originally posted by Darkmage
ok, that cleared up some things... now the hard one... How do I make texures? yours look l33t.
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Ok, you better have Adobe Photoshop or something with similar capabilities for this one... And it will take a while. Ok, here's my magic formula for fighter textures, in 9 simple steps:
(assuming that you already launched TS and separated the model in groups of faces according to which texture each of them is going to use)
1- Take a screen capture of the group you want to make a texture for, from the view you wish to apply textures from. Getting back to our Rapier example, if I wanted to texture the winglets above the engines, I'd go into side view, and hit Print Screen.
2- Load Adobe or whatever you are using, and paste that picture you just took as a new document. Cut the image around the area you want to texture - you won't need to texture your desktop or the rest of the screen capture :)
3- Create a new layer, paint it with the base color for your texture, the color that will be the background for all the other stuff. Hide/turn off this layer so you can see the outline of the what you want to texture.
4- Create a new layer preferably set to around 50% transparency, and draw the plating lines in it. Don't make them wider than 3 pixels or it will look cartoonish. Add two extra layers, and draw colored squares in them randomly. I use red, orange, and pink squares. Set one of these layers to between 10 and 15% transparency, and the other to around 20-25%. (These two are the differently colored squares that give impression of different layers of armor.)
5- Add another layer or two, transparencies set to around 20-40%. Use two different colors of airbrushes on them. Set the airbrush to "dissolve" mode, to give the texture some grainy-ness and dirty-ness. I use black for scorches and orange for rust. Make these effects more intense around areas like engine intakes, and around the plating lines so that they don't look so rough.
6- Add another layer, around 30% transparency. Take the airbrush (the "normal" one, not the dissolve) and use it around the plating lines, using a small brush size, around 8-15 pixels and a dark color, around 32,32,32 RGB... darker than that will look cartoonish. This will add some depth to the junctions between the plating lines.
7- One final layer, scratch marks. Around 50% transparency, with a dark, small "normal" airbrush again, but bigger than the one you used in step 6. Draw scratches and burnt stuff with this. Don't make scratches in several opposite directions or it will look silly. I also use this airbrush around the borders of stuff like wings, engine intakes, tips of cannons, etc.
8- Turn on the layer from step 3 to see how all this looks on top of the base color you've chosen... and to hide the outlines from the screen capture of the 3D model.
9- To add markings, logos, or any stuff that's painted, draw it on the base layer you've just turned on, NOT on top of the plating lines or scratches, etc.

That's about it, let me know if you need some more help.

Note: 80% of this tutorial is courtesy of Pascal "Decoy" Bos, the crazyiest dutch guy on Earth. :D

Originally posted by Wedge009
...perhaps the 'cleaner' spots could be a tad brighter?
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Nope. I mean, literally, they can't. The brightest spots are almost pure white already, just with some blue tint to it.

You know what might help a little? Rendering the damn thing in a scene with with light. It just ocurred to me that the yellow-ish lights I'm using for my renders may be making the dirt too dark. (I hope this is the problem, because I'm running out of work-arounds :))

I'll try that soon...

--Eder
 
Another thing I've never worked out: what the heck is leet?

Perhaps the lighting is the problem, 'cause those clean spots certainly don't look white to me! But clearly, Eder, you can't please everyone...

[edit]
I still like this mint one better. :)
http://standoff.unitedforcesofseed.com/shots/img2big.jpg
But with all the dirt and rubbish on this one
http://standoff.unitedforcesofseed.com/images/ships/rpr.jpg
I can't see the depth of the wings. They look flat. Of course, that's just the perspective, but still...
 
Originally posted by Eder

You know what might help a little? Rendering the damn thing in a scene with with light. It just ocurred to me that the yellow-ish lights I'm using for my renders may be making the dirt too dark. (I hope this is the problem, because I'm running out of work-arounds :))

I'll try that soon...

--Eder
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Well, TS 4 (I dunno about 3) has mega lighting options available--have ye looked into what you could do with that?...
 
I hope you're not talking about the one Wedge posted a link to, because I think that was my worst texture job ever, and it was the reason I decided to re-texture all the fighters in the first place :)

--Eder
 
Originally posted by Eder
I hope you're not talking about the one Wedge posted a link to, because I think that was my worst texture job ever, and it was the reason I decided to re-texture all the fighters in the first place :)
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Well, I think it was your best. It's my favourite anyway.
 
Originally posted by WildWeasel
You have great taste in music, Eder.
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Thanks... it seems to me you do, too. :) I can't do anything right unelss I'm listening to good music :)

Originally posted by PopsiclePete
Well, I think it was your best. It's my favourite anyway.
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Well, I don't know what you guys liked about it, honestly... Though I do agree that the new cleaner Rapier looks better than the first screenshot I posted on this thread, maybe I did overdo the "dirty look" a little. Either way, I can't afford to go back and texture the other ships for the third time, texturing takes a lot of time, much more than modelling :(

--Eder
 
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