Jedi Editors, the summoning. This Padawan editor needs a pearl or two..

[~(\/)iasma->]

Hi there, you are just the person I need to help me.

 

I have been bitten by the mod bug, didn't realize it until I tried making my own light saber and actually played in the game with it. um, WOW!! So now I want to paint up a skin. What I am interested in is your knowledge about the little things to think about and the things I should want to avoid. You don't have to list them all, just one or two ( or whatever you feel like ). What I am hoping is that by having multiple people come here I can get a jumpstart on my learning curve by following/avoiding things that you have done before me or wish you had known. I have visited the links (some, anyway) in this post, Radiant Editor Resources, and there is literally tons of good information, but I haven't seen any kind of information (yet) on the creative process meeting the tool. I have seen plenty of technical descriptions of "extract the model yada yada, paint your skin in photoshop and zip it back up, viola!(sic) your new model" heh riiiight sounds super easy, well I wish that it *was* that easy, but it seems to me some steps were left out.

 

Example of a potential thought process:

 

"Sheeat, I painted this line straight and it crossed the triangle thingie and bent, it's going the wrong damn way." The Solution process: "well if I know approximately what angle the triangle thingie is bending at then can I adjust for it in Photoshop? I see, so I painted the line slightly off angle so when it wrapped around the model it went more or less in the direction that I wanted it to. * disclaimer I have no flippin clue if this is an accurate description of a problem *

 

If you do have any little tidbits of advice that you have discovered or just plain wish you knew about as you were honing your skills, I sure would appreciate if you could jot them down here to help me, and potentially other n00b editors, out.

 

Please Enlighten me with your pearls of wisdom, a drop of your thought process if you please.

 

Thanks in advance, my friend(s).

[-(\/)alus-]

This site has some nice tutorials:

 

http://planetquake.com/bubba/tutorial.html

[-(\/)alus-]

Never mind, I see it was already mentioned. The only advice I can give is choose your textures wisely. You level need to be asthetically pleasing. If your textures don't flow or don't go along with each other, than it will look like a colorful mess. Texturing is very important, seeing as how engines aren't developed enough at the moment to display minute details through polygons.

[Tems]

im not sure, but it sounds like youre talking skins, yes?

 

my big pet peeve is skins that have solid colours. drives me n-v-t-s nvts (mel brooks reference). add some noise or a texture or something. it gives the skins depth.

 

the straight line thing isnt really an issue, since, upon evaluating your outfit, youre not wearing any straight lines. models get smooth-shaded which means the only 'straight' lines youll ever see are the edges of the model. that doesnt affect the skin. my advise would be to know what youre doing before you do it. if youre going to make a skin, decide what its going to be before you make it. then you can use a photographic reference and see what youre borking.

 

if you have specific questions on skinning, mapping or texturing, i'd be happy to advise any way i can. papergnat@yahoo.com or you know, post for me in the forum.

 

best of luck

 

-Tems

[~(\/)iasma->]

Thank you guys. Yes it was skinning a model that I was referring to. I am going to give one a go this weekend. My first attempt will be somewhat mad scientist like. I just want to paint some registration type lines to see how the skin wraps around the body. hopefully that will give me some sort of reference as to what areas are where on the body.

 

let me ask you this, when I opened up the stormtrooper chest skin last night. I see artwork that makes up the chest, arms etc. How do I cut out the area of that jpeg I can draw on to make the chest piece? How would I start a skin from scratch and know where to paint to make the proper piece? In other words how would I get the exact shape that the chest texture would go on? (please forgive me, I know what I am trying to ask I just don't know the right way to ask it.) The textures in the .jpg I opened are really perfectly lined up edge to edge. I just wondered how I can take each of the individual shapes, paint them up seperately and then put them back together. Let me try this way. I think the process involves taking a part of the model, in this case the chest piece, and laying it flat out. I want that flattened out area to draw on by itself. When I look at the pieces in the jpg they are all lined up and because the texture is black and the background is black, Im not sure where the edge is. I mean I suppose I could just paint over what is already there but I feel that I am limiting my creativity. Did this umm paragraph long question make sense? lol

 

thanks in advance.

[Tems]

id suggest first just painting over the old skin. you can tell what part is what so thats not really a problem.

 

i know for quake3 models i would sometimes use a mesh mapping, that is, the model flattened so you could see the areas simply as triangles (which is what the model is made out of anyway). however, until you get familiar w/ the model this isnt the easiset way to start.

 

go for painting over for now.

 

-Tems

[~(\/)iasma->]

Understood. Thanks for the tip. I am going to do some tutorials and mess around this weekend. Sometimes wish I could just run before walking. Oh well, I guess I'll just stick to the falling on my face part first.

 

I saw your "Mos Tems" map on a different thread btw. Tems, it is beautiful. I can't wait to run around in it, I was already looking at parts on the map to do my ninja jedi moves.