[Texturing] Finding the Perfect Match

4StarGeneral · General **Joined**: 14 Sep 2006 **Location**: Limbo

One question: How do you people (Gangster, Dats, more people I can't remember) always seem to make an exact replica texture of stock buildings when modeling? This is the one thing that's been holding me back from releasing anything, so I need to know.

Example below, all the textures just look wrong. And I could probably extract something from RA3 but they aren't exactly the same or even close sometimes. (Yes my lighting could use work, but after the textures are fixed, then I can worry about the bad lighting #Tongue

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Tony · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 11:53 pm Post subject:

You should restrict the colors to use to that of the palette the game uses for buildings.

I usually open OS Palette Editor and find the palette i plan to use, then print screen. and finally paste to a new image in the same program i am using to make the texture. or just print screen from OS shp builder with said palette loaded.

I use the eyedropper tool and stay within the palette colors when painting the texture.

BTW, what 3d program do you use? I can maybe help you with lighting.

4StarGeneral · General **Joined**: 14 Sep 2006 **Location**: Limbo

I use ye olde 3DS Max and I have used a couple of lighting setups people have made i.e. RA2 Tools 1.3 or something.

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Tony · Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 12:14 am Post subject:

hmm ok, then my tricks are probably about the same. Wink

Nikademis Von Hisson · Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 12:23 am Post subject:

I do the same as you Tony, screenshot of the intended pal, but the lighting always screws things up. What trick do you use for the lighting. Is there a certain height angle. What about the SE (I guess it would be) position? I normally go about 45 degree height to the 0,0,0 which makes target is dead center and the light points 4/5 on clock starting at 10/11.....12 being zero axis +200 (a rough number on top)

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daTS · Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 11:25 am Post subject:

I've never matched exact textures. Then again, I've never modeled an original building. All my buildings are unique and of my own design...

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DonutArnold · General **Joined**: 18 Jan 2005 **Location**: Finland

I guess that the lighting plays a big role in this. Have you tried those templates I've created?

Cranium · Defense Minister **Joined**: 05 Dec 2009 **Location**: USA

^^ True, Proper lighting does have a big impact on how textures look.

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Nikademis Von Hisson · Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 10:09 pm Post subject:

i have used the templates. The problem I run into is that I make my buildings more to the scale of what the building should be, so it goes outside of the templates. i made a house 90' by 30' and then I work from there with the camera to get the proper game size. I am finding that using exact textures is an issue. trying to make brick look like brick isn't that easy do to the scale and the lighting changes that the texture making it lighter or darker, thats where custom pals might come in handy....not sure yet, haven't fully got there yet. My lighting I'm trying various settings. I have a light for the shadows and a light to brighten the front of the structure a bit so its not totally dark.

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4StarGeneral · General **Joined**: 14 Sep 2006 **Location**: Limbo

I have tried and used the templates on a couple structures really, just can't ever get the right textures is all, I mean the templates are better IMO since the lighting has to be heavily adjusted if I use the tools, not to mention the templates have better shadows.

One other thing, and I admit I haven't looked too hard, but I can't find a way to reflect a different color than the background color.

Brick isn't so hard to make, all you have to do is make a bump and light map for it, and it looks realistic. I can send some to you if you need.

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Nikademis Von Hisson · Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 1:35 am Post subject:

that would be cool. I have been using different lighting setups DonutArnold, Raminators, and mine.....DA & Ram's work great for lighting mine aren't too bad, i tried combining the 2 to make my own.

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DonutArnold · General **Joined**: 18 Jan 2005 **Location**: Finland

If the render scale of the template is too small then you can double the render scale from 640x480 to 1280x960 and half the distance in the camera properties and also increase the scale of the plane. That should do it. Smile

Now to think it again, have I ever mentioned how to render properly with my templates?

@4StarGeneral: I don't know if you have noticed, but there's an Output setting that contains stuff like RGB curve editor, RGB Offset and RGB Level in material editor when edit bitmap properties.

Nikademis Von Hisson · Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 2:38 am Post subject:

not sure DA, i don't remember ever talking about it

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DonutArnold · General **Joined**: 18 Jan 2005 **Location**: Finland

Oh, allright, I shall write a tutorial about it then soon. Smile

Nikademis Von Hisson · Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 6:25 am Post subject:

hey DA.......where the hell is your lighting thing? I have so much crap downloaded and didn't put it in a folder with your name and I have no clue where it is. i was gonna give your lights another shot....thanks

or least tell me what the name of the file is

I did find something from flyby & pd on shps

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DonutArnold · General **Joined**: 18 Jan 2005 **Location**: Finland

Here ya go!

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Lin Kuei Ominae · Seth **Joined**: 16 Aug 2006 **Location**: Germany

4StarGeneral wrote:

One other thing, and I admit I haven't looked too hard, but I can't find a way to reflect a different color than the background color.

In 3dsmax on each Material you can find a reflection map. There you can add for example a simple colorful bitmap of a landscape and this is then used for the reflections.

As for the textures.
You could simply import a texture with SHP Builder using unittem.pal and then export it from SHP Builder into a normal picture format. This way your texture uses only the ingame used colors and every difference in the final render output is caused by a wrong lighting and material setup. So it's easy to adjust the settings, as you know the texture is using 100% correct colors.

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Nikademis Von Hisson · Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 9:36 am Post subject:

Thanks DA, oddly enough I found it about 20 minutes after you posted (something I didn't see till now)

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4StarGeneral · General **Joined**: 14 Sep 2006 **Location**: Limbo

Thanks alot LKO, never thought about using SHP builder. I'll give it a run through and see if it looks better.

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daTS · Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2011 12:23 pm Post subject:

Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:

As for the textures.
You could simply import a texture with SHP Builder using unittem.pal and then export it from SHP Builder into a normal picture format. This way your texture uses only the ingame used colors and every difference in the final render output is caused by a wrong lighting and material setup. So it's easy to adjust the settings, as you know the texture is using 100% correct colors.

You, sir, are a fucking genius. Why are you not at NASA or some shit, just thinking up simple solutions to all of humanities' complex problems?

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Deformat · Defense Minister **Joined**: 17 Sep 2007

daTS wrote:

Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:

As for the textures.
You could simply import a texture with SHP Builder using unittem.pal and then export it from SHP Builder into a normal picture format. This way your texture uses only the ingame used colors and every difference in the final render output is caused by a wrong lighting and material setup. So it's easy to adjust the settings, as you know the texture is using 100% correct colors.

You, sir, are a fucking genius. Why are you not at NASA or some shit, just thinking up simple solutions to all of humanities' complex problems?

Thiiiis.

Orac · Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2011 3:07 am Post subject:

But what about colours which only appear on the vanilla buildings because of the lighting? Surely the lighting would throw them out even further...