Texturing a model

Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 11:50 am

Well I was just going to edit this models texture myself, but when opening it, there is all sorts of weird stuff; a front of a jacket, some glove texture, skin texture, ect.
Well, looking at the model in game, it only uses 2 of the textures on that sheet filled with textures....so editing the texture to make it look how I want is prooving to be confusing and rather frustrating.
I tried just making the whole texture page they used into one texture...well I got an okay result, except my model has a belt on it...and so my belt wound up looking like the rest of the model; so that prooves that doesn't work.
So rather than fiddle around with the existing textures in this weird thing, can someone just tell me or give me some sort of wiki (or two or three) on how to do it yourself? I am tired of spending a lot of work on this texture then crossing my fingers my changes work how I want them to.
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GPMG
 
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Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:17 pm

not entirely sure what you're having problems with, really. "sheet filled with textures?"

the best advice i can give is the UV map function in nifskope. rightclick the node (part of the mesh) that you want and go to Texture>Edit UV (or something like that). this will show you where the polygons of the mesh lie on the texture. the other option under the Texture heading should be Export UV (or something), wich will let you save the layout of polygons to your computer, meaning you can paint the texture directly on top.

the http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Retexturing should answer most questions.
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Tyler F
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:50 am

thanks for that, I will see about what I can do in just a minute, I suppose, though, I am getting ahead of myself since I haven't entirely finished the model. I just figured I would make the texture first so once the model was done (after I figured out this damn program) then I would be able to simply slap the texture on.

and to show you what I am talking about, http://yfrog.com/mjalyxsheetp. It is actually the one I was editing so ignore my work, this is just an example of this weird...texture thing.
The only textures used on the actual model in game are the jeans (which I was editing to make them more white and have the little stylish zig zag) and the belt...those are the only two you see in game...so if you mind explaining why for me...because it's just weird.
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Celestine Stardust
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:14 am

it looks like that texture was originally used for a whole character. having one texture is more efficient than several in terms of size, so the whole body goes on one picture. since your model is only pants -- not a shirt, hands, etc. -- your model will only reference the section of texture which accounts for the pants. if you have a modeling program, you can easily scale up the UVs of the model to take up the whole sheet instead of just the corner. this will let you have a sharper and more efficient texture, though you will have to make it yourself.

you might want to check permissions on that texture. it looks like it belongs to alyx from halflife. if it was pulled directly from the game it will be illegal to use (even if modified) in oblivion.
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Charlotte Buckley
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:31 am

well this mod came from someone else, and I planned on making my own texture for it...except, I have messed around in Blender for the past....I don't even know...since just about after my last post and I have made absolutely no progress on the model. It's frustrating me out of my mind. I say screw it, I am done, it's not worth it.

But thank you for the help you did provide.
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CxvIII
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:47 am

blender is tricky to learn because its so different from the conventional windows format. you definitely can't just jump in and expect to come out with a perfectly made, rigged, and textured mesh. if you want to model (in any program), i'd say start slow and do the tutorials. yes, it seems kinda silly when you're making a chess set for days on end, but the knowledge you get from that will then transfer over to better and faster models.
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Oyuki Manson Lavey
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:44 am

blender is tricky to learn because its so different from the conventional windows format. you definitely can't just jump in and expect to come out with a perfectly made, rigged, and textured mesh. if you want to model (in any program), i'd say start slow and do the tutorials. yes, it seems kinda silly when you're making a chess set for days on end, but the knowledge you get from that will then transfer over to better and faster models.

Words of wisdom right here.
I spent countless hours reading (and re-reading, and re-reading again) then doing every tutorial I could find. It still was a couple of years before I finally taught myself to rig, and animate.
Time consuming?
Yes
Worth it in the end when you play with something you've created.
Oh ya baby. :)
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Beast Attire
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:06 am

well I figured it wouldn't take much time at all; I mean, get use to a different softwares UI and then I can go about doing what I did before...but no, that didn't seem to be the case. I mean, I wasn't "pro" at TrueSpace, but I could certainly make a model much faster in it than I can in Blender. I would worship someone if they made a .nif import tool for TrueSpace (btw I don't think I mentioned this, but it is free)...but that won't happen; thus I end my short Oblivion modeling career here.
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Vera Maslar
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:17 am

as i said, blender is *very* different from conventional modeling software, and probably from other free tools as well. its interface and navigation takes a lot of getting used to on its own, and then you still have to re-learn what the different functions are called and how to get the program to do what you want efficiently.

what are you looking to do btw? if its nothing major i could have a go at it on monday. I can't guarantee results either (as i'm still getting used to Max), but its better than giving up completely :)
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Richus Dude
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:00 am

all I wanted to do to the model was change an existing mesh (it's a pair of jeans) to be bell bottom jeans....so basiclly widen the bottom half to look something like http://j.whyville.net/smmk/whytimes/img?id=10836&idx=3. Thats all I wanted to do as far as modeling went, I didn't plan on taking a whole class just to learn how to do that.
I would like to retexture it too to look more fashionable, but I will figure that one out later. anyways if you wouldn't mind taking a crack at it I would appreciate it so much! yes it is someone else's work so I am not going to release it publicly until I can confirm I can...this was just a minor adjustment I wanted to make to fit my more personal taste...didn't think it would wind up resulting in extreme frustration and head aches though.
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Sakura Haruno
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:01 am

@Ntom: I will agree with you that the texture doesn't look like your typical Oblivion ones. It's possible the mesh was originally made for another game, or maybe that's just the author's preference - I dunno. Basically, though, in Oblivion or anything else that uses the same setup, you can create a texture like that and have several different meshes use it, each one mapping to a different area of the texture image. To see which section(s) of the DDS file your mesh (or part of a mesh) is using, open the mesh in NifSkope, drill down to the specific part you're trying to retexture, then right-click on the NiTriShape line and choose Texture > Export Template. This will give you a white TIFF image the same size as the texture (ex - 512x512 is that's what the DDS file is), with the section(s) used by that NiTriShape outlined in black. It's a really handy feature that I use all the time.

A good example DDS to look at is 'Data\Textures\Weapons\steellongsword.dds', which is the texture used by the vanilla Fine Steel Longsword. You'll see that the blade texture is located horizontally along the bottom of the image, whereas the handle texture is directly above that on the left side, and the various pommel textures are above that. I pick that one as an example because it's a weapon you've probably seen a hundred times in-game, and the areas of the texture image are well-defined and obvious even to the untrained eye. You'll always find textures, especially from mods, that don't fit within the norm and frankly confuse the hell out of you, but otherwise you'll find retexturing a snap with the 'Export Template' trick.
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Stephani Silva
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:41 am

well, if I make 2 textures (one for the belt one for the pants) could you teach me how to remap the pants so I can apply these? Really, how the mapping is done on the pants in games already looks....weird. I wouldn't say bad, but it just doesn't look natural, so I was hoping to make the textures larger and more detail and add my own little style to it by adding common things you find on jeans you buy today (especially from stores like Hollister or Abercrombie and Fitch) such as the little zigzag stitch in the legs and a few other things (that you probably saw my handy work on the example picture already done).
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D LOpez
 
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