Creating Textures - Looking for mentor

[AndyHalfLife]

okay, so ill give this a try, i was originally going to be a mentor for modeling but billabong bashed me and made me realize im not ready yet,

i need a mentor for texturing, someone who knows a lot about creating textures, normal maps, bump, maps, specular maps, alpha maps is a plus but there not really important, i have so many questions so you must be able to take my high ammounts of questions

thanks

-Andy

[olblue]

I renamed your thread to make it easier - also Billabong wasnt bashing you - he thinks, and he is probably right, that you should spend some more time advancing your skills some more. You have the skills and cirtainly you have the motivation, so I will be interested to see how this progresses.

Any photoshop mentors want to grab Andy as a willing student? I'll step in tommorow if theres no one.

[AndyHalfLife]

WHY DID YOU CHANGE THE NAME!

lol jk, and also i know billa wasnt bashing me, and i think he knows i was joking, right billa? anyways thanks for the comment about the motivation Cris, i hope no one steps in so you can help me hehe

-Andy

[StJoris]

I'll step up and mentor if you'd like, unless somebody more able steps up. I mean normal mapping is quite complex stuff you keep on learning new things, even if you are already using it for years, you never stop learning.

[AndyHalfLife]

NO WAY, i dont want you as a mentor your a ****** lol

just kidding, welcome aboard the annoying train, i am going to be asking so many questions are you sure your ready for that? if you are, then welcome aboard your my new mentor

-Andy

[StJoris]

Sure, fire away all those questions

Let's see, best would be to pick something to do, like say you have a game model that you want to texture, or a concept you'd like to create. Let me know what you want to do, feel free to add me @ msn, check my profile for the addy. I do have a concept handy that I no longer use, but to be honest, that is probably a notch too high. Best thing is to texture a lowpoly model with a small texture, yes contrary to popular believe texturing is easier with small textures

[AndyHalfLife]

here is somthing i am working on, i need to know a way to add the tape on the bottom and then i need to normal map / bump map this

P.S ill need to add you on msn another time my msn is messed atm

-Andy

[StJoris]

Nice, could I see the texture flats?

I suggest to use Render to texture for normal mapping that tape, which goes like this usually:
1) make a middle poly tape, either export that to a sculpting package like zbrush or mudbox, or sub-d it further and make some prettyness, like wrinkles.
2) bring that middle poly tape down to game mesh standards, or make a new one, uv that.
3) go into render to texture and select your low poly mesh.
4) enable projection mapping and pick your high-res mesh. If you click on options button, tick off use cage for now, not really needed with this shape. Click on the setup supersampler and add one for nicer maps.
5) set your mapping coordinates to use the uvs you made, usually uv ch 1
6) Click on add, choose normalsmap, pick a size and render to somewhere.
7) the preview might look greyish instead of the blue-ish tangent normal map it's supposed to be, don't worry that can happen, however the file you saved it to is fine, and is a proper normal map.

Well why don't you try that, and see how we can take it from there.

[AndyHalfLife]

cant i do that without adding polys like by making it in photoshop and then adding normal


-Andy

[ragupasta]

I think you are missing the point Andy. You use the low poly for your model. But you make a high poly piece wrinkles and all, then bake that information into the low poly, basically a glorified bump map, thats all a normal map is, then you throw away your high poly model, and you are left with your low poly mesh, with bump mapping (normal map) that looks like high poly. Thats what makes next-gen games look so hot!!!!!!!!


w00t