How to edit skins!
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don’t bother converting them. Use photoshop and the nvidia dds plugin for dds files.
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All you ever need to know:
tactical.nekromantix.com/wiki/doku.php?id=falcon4:textures
Scroll down to ‘Aircraft Skin Tutorials’…compiled by ZAGGY, JanHas and Red1. All your questions will be answered, the rest is trial and error or you already know it :).
Have fun!
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Also one small suggestion that I only recently found out about: If you do decide to build a skin from scratch it is much easier to seperate the aircraft into different parts and then draw (with brushes, paths, etc. in your desired editing program) the actual shape and lines of the aircraft based on blueprints and photos and what not.
Once you get the look you like and the proportions are correct it is then much easier to take the wireframe that you extracted from the DB or whatever model you’re working on and then adapt your drawings to the limitations of the respective model. I always did it the other way around and never realized that this way its much easier and your textures will be usable in the future on newer, more detailed models than just be specific to one, potentially low quality, model.
After the adaptation and split up of the textures you can then go in and finalize colors, weathering, stencils and whatever else as these aspects usually are only applicable to the specific model at hand in terms of positioning, fit and level of quality.
Generally speaking if you have a very low poly model textures that are superdetailed and accurate might make it actually look worse. If you go for a medium detailed look and put some weathering on a 512x512 or 1024x1024 texture you sort of brush over the inadequacies of lower quality models.
An example of drawing the real thing and then adapting it is the front fuselage section of this F-14B:
It was built using pictures and blue prints and (very useful) model kit decal instruction drawings and didn’t take that long. It is no problem to cut and adapt different parts to a model once you have this basic layout.
Best of luck in your efforts!!!
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Pete, I’m not sure if I should agree with your idea or not.
IMHO the downside of your methode could be that you could lose control of clear lines
or single pixels during the adaptation of the texture, because (I guess) you might
have to scale or rotate your texture (even slightly) to match the wireframe.If so then you might get interpolated lines/ pixels where you want clean lines.
That’s why I personally prefer to paint things on a layer of the final texture directly.
Once we have saved the panel path lines, etc.(as paths) within our *.psd,
we could easilly copy paste them into another highpoly model texture and start from there.But eh’, everbody has it’s own workflow and your work looks great once again.
Cheers,
LS -
Good point. This approach rises and falls with the accuracy of the given model AND the texmap. There will always be adaptation in terms of scaling, scewing or rotating/splitting, the last two being not so critical because they don’t affect the textures per se.
I should have mentioned that I always use the wireframe as basis ‘below’ my texture.
Another question is whether or not you are creating textures from scratch for an ‘unskinned’ model or if you ‘simply’ create a texture for a model that already has a texture map in place. If you have a texmap in place and the position of textures is final on the wireframe then your approach (and the one described in ZAGGY’s tutorial I linked to) is the way to go. As you know it is the approach I been using myself for the old Tomcat model as the texmap was already in place.
I assume since this thread is called ‘how to EDIT a skin’ that is the case here.
What I described is one way to create textures for a model that is new and ‘unmapped’. It is however ‘unwrapped’ so there are wireframes but the map isn’t in place. If you have a modeller who maps your textures the usability of close to RL textures in terms of proportion and scale increases IF the model at hand is accurate and optimized enough.
I agree with you about the paths but whatever approach you take they are scalable and can be adopted to another texture set later on.
My point was actually just this: If you try to draw the elements of the jet as they would appear on a blueprint (like I’ve done above) you get a much better feel for where the lines should go and how they connect and flow on the real jet which is the way they should flow on a 3D model regardless of polycount or texmap. IMHO if you get this right you’ll it much easier down the road when you adapt it to a model. When I say ‘it didn’t take very long’ that’s not to say I didn’t redraw the canopy section and general fuselage/nose/weapon rail outline about 10-15 times to get it to look right. If someone now says “split that canopy for me into 3 parts (left/right and top)” it takes about 2 minutes cuz all my paths line up and are accurate in scale which will fit any model if it is somewhat close to RL.
That’s ‘all’
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To prove my point I should draw up a skin for an F-16C based on the existing tex map I guess - NOT. As you said, it’s all just different approaches to get to the same goal.
Another thing I gotta mention I started doing which might be useful for beginners is to think in terms of actual parts. To have this front fuselage layout with one set of panels, panel shading, weathering, stencils etc. is probably sufficient for most applications.
Take the wings of the F-14. On the old model we had one wing, one flap and one slat. Totally cool to draw it up as one texture top and bottom, the model wasn’t detailed enough to require or be able to showcase anything more in depth.
If you then think about a new model with accurate wings you’re looking at 8 movable surfaces per wing that each has an inside texture and you have the inside wing structure underneath. It helped me a lot to just kinda skin each part and then have them spread around the map, I actually got that idea from the FF Tornado when I looked at its .dds. The airbrake on that bird is a great example.
Of course you have to ‘draw the line’ (draw the line…get it? get it? :D) somewhere but even on the front fuselage I can take away the air intake section, the nose, the step doors, canopy, bottom side and so on because they’re all standalone parts with dedicated paths, panels, colors, weathering etc.
It might take a lot of time now but will save even more time down the road IMO.
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If you have a modeller who maps your textures …
In that case your workflow will help a lot for sure.
That’s ‘all’
To not confuse other PPL, … or to confuse them even more.
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wireframes , extracted from Falcon database using LodEditor or result of texmapping by the 3D modeller.
They will show where the parts of the model are placed on the texture. -
blueprints, google for them
We cut and scale them, and put them into our texture to match the wireframes,
so we have a good reference to start painting panel lines and rivets, etc. -
paths, we use paths in photoshop to define all kind of lines and rivets.
NOTE: no part of the wireframes or the blueprint should be seen on the final texture,
they should be just a reference for your own work.Cheers,
LS -
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Great summary! Maybe we should throw together a tutorial explaining this in detail.
One small correction, with unmapped models the wireframes are the result of unwrapping the model. The modeller still has to map the textures on the model and make corrections which will result in altered wireframes.
Also blueprints should be taken with a grain of salt as no blueprint is ever 100% correct (not even the manufacturer ones).
Happy skinning!
- wireframes , extracted from Falcon database using LodEditor or result of texmapping by the 3D modeller.
They will show where the parts of the model are placed on the texture.
Cheers,http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f82/lazystone/Smileys/hat_3.gif
LS - wireframes , extracted from Falcon database using LodEditor or result of texmapping by the 3D modeller.
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I’m way to lazy to make a tutorial, but if you want to make one then I’ll not try to stop you.
Oh, and thank’s for correction.
Unwrapping and texmapping goes hand in hand here, … but that’s my workflow which might be differ from others.:DCheers,
LS -
I’m way to lazy to make a tutorial, …
LS
Haha, that be said by “lazystone”, that he is tooooo lazy… :rofl:
Just joking of course my good friend, take care.
Your friend Nikos.