hiya! not the anon from before but also new to the texturing thing and had some questions as well if that was alright? I have all the maps extracted in photoshop and stuff, its just confusing on how exactly to edit them? like, where do i find nice textures and how do i add them onto the diffuse map? do i just find a texture and use the pen tool to cut it out for it and walla? and where do i find resrouces of pretty embellishments n details n stuff? idk just a bit confused sry T-T
Heh, same anon or not Im happy to offer some advice. Though I’m pretty noobish myself as I’ve only did retexes of one outfit in Inquisition. Obviously I don’t know too much but I’ll share what I did to get my Outerwear looking like it is. (please note I may be wrong on some things so I’m just going to relay my findings)
You have 4 maps for the outfit - diffuse (_d), normal (_n), spec (_s) and tint (_t).
If you want to simply recolor a piece or put some symbol on it you just need to edit the diffuse map. If you want to add an actual pattern, change how it looks in 3d and change say a leather to a cloth (or add metal bits or metal corset a-la @shomods dresses, then you will need normal and spec too.
Diffuse (_d) - is basically your color plus basic patterns, or this - the colorful patched pieces on the vest and the scarf
Normal (_n) - is your 3d map - if you want an embossed leather like this for example so it will not look flat, but actually look like your pattern stands out.
Spec (_s) - is your material - Im not 100% sure of its full properties, but for example it can make your cloth piece more or less shiny. Less shiny plus subsequent edit to the normal map would make it cloth-looking, more shiny plus leather pattern on the normal map would make it more leather-looking. It also determines your metal pieces - without edits to spec map your metal pieces will not shine as they supposed to.
Tint (_t) - determines whether its tintable. If you don’t want it tintable it should be all black.
Now on to your questions:
- where do i find nice textures and how do i add them onto the diffuse map?
Just google them. :) I googled mine, typed embossed leather and took the patterns from the internet. This is how a pattern for my outerwear vest looked
Or for the pattern on the shirt I’ve searched for “linen cloth pattern” and used this one (I think)
And for the pants something like this
You could also go to DeviantArt.com, but I just found it easier to look for stuff online. Your search can go something like, I dunno like “Embossed leather pattern”, “linen cloth pattern”, “cloth pattern” or other such things.
- do i just find a texture and use the pen tool to cut it out for it and walla?
Pretty much. At least thats what I did. However I first used Quick Mask and painted the pieces of the outfit I needed to put the pattern on. Quick mask makes selection much easier. In my case those were the boots, vest and gloves. I then put this pattern over them as a layer, cut off the parts that I did not need (keeping the selection, you could also click Select -> Inverse if it selects the wrong thing), and then I went to Layer -> Layer style -> Blending options. There you could select how well your layer blends into the outfit. You NEED to blend it otherwise it will look flat and you will lose all those nice folds. I usually used Overlay and then selected Opacity to what I needed, I dunno 75% for example.
You will see that your leather(or cloth) parts become too saturated, you could always desaturate them or use Levels or Curves to make them the color you need.
After you are done with the diffuse you could also edit the normal map. Without editing the normal map your outfit will still have folds, but it will not have 3d flowers and curves that your pattern has.
So in order to do that you need to first save your normal map via Compressonator or other such tool as a tga so you could work with it in Photoshop. (Papercrow’s tutorial may help if you haven’t seen it).
You then have to convert your diffuse map with the pattern on it into the Normal map with NVidia plugin. Put this converted map onto your outfit normal map. You will then need to erase the parts you dont need leaving only the pattern. HOWEVER, before doing that go to Layer -> Layer Mask -> Reveal all. It will let you edit your normal map layer properly.
Notice you will not have folds, so you will have to blend it as well by selecting either opacity of the layer or changing it to overlay. Just don’t make it stand out too much or it will not look nice in game.
You could also edit the spec map if you, say want your pants to become cloth instead of leather. Darkening the parts takes off their shine, lightening gives them more shine. Be sure to edit all channels on the map. Im not entirely certain what Alpha channel does in this case, but I have edited it as well. I just looked at what parts constituted leather and what constituted cloth, and then I repainted the pant parts that I was changing to cloth.
- and where do i find resrouces of pretty embellishments n details n stuff?
Again Google is your best friend in this. All embellishments, resources and stuff could be found online. You can put pretty much anything on a texture and blend it in, then use Hue/Saturation values, Curves and Levels to change it to the color you want. You could find something like this for example
and place it over the texture, blending it and changing colors to make it, I dunno, a pattern at the back, and it will NOT look out of place if you do correct adjustments. You are only really limited by your imagination.
I’m not sure if this explains it well but I hope it helps.
And of course if you have any further questions I will be happy to answer. :)
