Noob:How to create textures for apache...

[jeroentje]

Please give us more info.
An Apache helicopter or an Apache Indian?
A sketch would be nice.

[Skjoldbroder]

look for reference material, dude. always reference up the wazzoo.
a few general tips though:

Lighting
When you paint your textures, keep in mind that they are going to be lit either by realtime lighting in your game engine, or by lights in your scene. Textures can make use of all sorts of lighting tricks to achieve a nice look, but in general I would say that they shouldn't be lit (imagine a wheel of a car, for instance, that uses a texture with shadows in it - once that wheel starts turning around, it's going to look wrong)
- However. Painting lighting into textures can help further the overall impression. For instance if you were texturing a canyon: dimming down the textures in the depths is only going to reinforce the fact that it's a hole in the ground, and that light doesn't get down there as much as it does on the surface.

Wear and Tear
Things get worn with use and old age. For this reason, I quite often like to lighten the edges of things, since they are likely to have been worn down a bit. Say you are texturing a wooden chest. Adding a lighter stroke along the edges is going to make it have much more personality and add some character to it. Same with any other sharp-edged objects.

Dirt and Grime
Most things get dirty. That's why it'll practically never look right if you model a chrome faucet and don't put some dirty stuff on there. There's ALWAYS going to be little stains from the carbon in water, from food stains, from water stains.. whatever. Always add dirt to some degree - not that things need to be excessively muddy and crud-encrusted, mind you. If you don't add dirt, things are going to look bland - that's my humble opinion anyways.

Dark Corners
Look into a corner of the room you're in. It's most likely going to be darker than the rest of the wall. Less photons are likely to reach that place, since it's essentially blocking itself off. For this reason, I will often paint a little shade into those kinds of places - not necessarily in the texture, it can be done via vertexlighting/coloring as well, but no matter the way you do it, it can help make a scene look a lot better and more detailed (you're more or less just faking a little Global Illumination)

Photosourcing
Some people have a misconception about photosourcing : that it is something you shouldn't do. This is rubbish =) You do whatever you have to do to get stuff done, and to get it done as quickly as possible. Whereas painting textures by hand is a very nice notion and definitely has its place in parts of production work, not all of us have the luxury or time to do it. Therefore you must cut corners and help yourself out as much as possible, and photosourcing is one way to do it.
Get your photo reference, stick it in Photoshop on a separate layer, play around with the layer settings. Great for adding dirt, details, whatever, into a texture.


and as a last thing: if you know very little Photoshop... LEARN! an internet forum isn't magically going to turn you into an ace texture painter.

[TimWoods]

if its a helicopter, you need to search the net for some reference. I made mine by making the base colour first, with a texture i was happy with, then adding the detail over the top, like work edges, and the seams, to make one large map. then you can use the base tile to map smaller parts. Its long work as lots of detail is needed.


http://www.vanilla-box.co.uk/images/Modelling/Apache_01.jpg
http://www.vanilla-box.co.uk/images/Modelling/Apache_02.jpg
http://www.vanilla-box.co.uk/images/Modelling/Apache_03.jpg
http://www.vanilla-box.co.uk/images/Modelling/Apache_04.jpg

[Killer !nstinct]

Your textures for the apache looks very good!! I would know how to make the rivet on the side. Do you use an bump map? Can you show a little sample of the bump? because i'm making a Grumman and a Huey and i haven't good results :(


Ps: Sorry for the quality of my english but i'm a french student and i'm still learning !!

[Neil]

It probably would be best to take some photos of metal or find some free ones on the net.

Otherwise, you can try to fake it with painting mess on a base surface and then using "guassian blur". Then you can apply "noise" to it. Duplicate that layer and put it over another base layer color, then adjust the layer style and opacity.

[TimWoods]

Your textures for the apache looks very good!! I would know how to make the rivet on the side. Do you use an bump map? Can you show a little sample of the bump? because i'm making a Grumman and a Huey and i haven't good results
the rivets were added on the texture, a small circle, embossed and a fake shadow. Because I exported the uvws out i could estimate where the panel rivets would go.

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