Ok…here it is…the first one of many to come in the future (with the help of others or I quite :x )… 
The Unofficial Texturing Tutorial #1.
This same method was used for the majority of the texturing performed on the Airman.
User Level:
- Beginner to Intermediate (depends on the individual
)
Assumptions:
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The reader of this tutorial can find thier way around Blender pretty well.
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The reader of this tutorial can produce the required model (an apple) on thier own. Thats right…I am not going to provide you with the mesh…but it isnt a very complex shape so I am sure you will manage…you should learn to model before you learn to texture anyways…that way you can appreciate the time you are saving by utilizing textures versus complex unescessary modeling…but by all means continue if you wish
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Lets begin…
Before we start…I want you all to know that I didnt want to give my first tutorial to you guys like this but earlier today I was trying to explain my texturing method to Ztonzy during a conversation on yahoo messenger and came up with this in order to make it a little easier for him and to hopefully help some of you along the way. I will edit this post from time to time so check up on it…there is a reason why I put it in the W.I.P. section .
Now to clear things up I do not use UV mapping for very many of my textures. I like the control of the method I have and have gotten extremely fast at it.
What we are going to do is texture an apple. When you will get done it should look something like this:
NOTE: The apple render shown above was achieved using the “Spec” and “Nor” (Blenders version of the Bump Map) textures in addition to the “Col” texture that we will be creating in this tutorial. I have found that to achieve a satisfactory or believable overall material (especially when modelling skills are below par), Specularity, and Bump (Nor) must be adressed at a bare minimum! Below is an example of the apples “Texture Anatomy” as I like to call it, used to achieve the final render of the apple shown above.
*For more on “Spec” and “Nor” see the “Key Notes on Texturing” and the “Essential Links” sections at the end of the tutorial.
First, for this tutorial I used a black and white version of the color test map that I use now…so…dont get confused because the texture I am providing for you is color and the picture shows black and white. I can post the black and white one later if you are interested. Here is the color one and is the basis of my entire method:
Right click on the image above and save it to your hard drive. Now, take this texture…apply it to the mesh you are currently working on inside of Blender, wings or whatever modeling app you are using. Apply this as a sphere method (the required settings are shown below):
…this might require some rotating inside of the material settings to get it to look right but basically what you are shooting for is the image shown below:
NOTE:What I normally do to avoid conflicts with the low lighting of a scene is turn on the 
option located in the center console of the material buttons window (see image below) while working through this method…just dont forget to turn it back off for that resource hungry final render :
You want to have your camera nice and close to the model so when you render it out you have a good close up of the entire model. After your camera is positioned and you have lights…dont forget the lights…then render it out. You can save this rendered image to your hard drive or you can just minimize your results…the important part is that you have it readily available because this is going to serve as your reference when painting onto the test map in your 2D graphics app of choice (Photoshop, Gimp, etc.) in the next step (this is where multiple monitors come in handy …have the close up render on one screen while working in the graphics app on another).
NOTE: While you are working with this test map file the key thing to remember is to NOT save over your test map!!! As soon as I begin to paint over that badboy I rename it to whatever I am working on at that time (for example: Helmet_Spec or Helmet_Nor…in this case Apple_Col). Basically what you are going to do next is launch your 2D graphics app and open the testmap that you have just applied to your mesh. Next what I did is scanned in the top of an apple….
…….and copy and pasted different parts that I liked such as the green and red transformation that takes place around the edge. I use the clone tool a great deal when painting…for those of you are not familiar with the clone tool it basically allows you to pic a point on an image and paint with it from that reference point…a more controled copy and paste. For an even more advanced tool see the new healing and patch tool (photoshop specific but I am sure that the Gimp has something similar )…now having said that what I normally do is work in layers. Create another layer on top of the test map so that you can turn down the layer opacity while you work or even turn the layer completely off (see image below for screenshot):
Ultimately what you want to do be able to do is refer back to the coordinates of the test map especially those that you have already painted over…because lets face it…you are going to want to tweak this sucker until it is absolutley perfect Now, what you have to keep in mind while painting is that you have to keep the apple in the same format as the one I scanned in. The center of the image must look as though it has a hole (paint over the stem you wont be needing it) and the greens and red must spread all the way out to the edges of the texture. When you get done it should look like so:
WOA how the hell did that get in there…what kind of a tutorial is this!!! Anyways, once you have everything ready, what you want to do is convert your homemade apple texture from a spherical texture to a rectangular (since you applied the map to the mesh as a sphere initially remember). If you have followed my advice on working in layers then you should be able to apply this effect to the apple layer without having it affect the testmap. After doing so you should end up with an image like this:
Now all that’s left to do is to go back to your 3D app and see how your new texture looks on the model. But before you jump back in to hit the ol’ F12 key, don’t forget you also have to remember to replace the testmap file with the newly named file in the texture section of the material settings of Blender! Continue to render the image out over and over again, referring back to the paint program…make some changes…render…you get the idea. This is another reason why Blender is such a productive tool…because of its rendering speeds during the developement phase.
Some Key Notes on Texturing:
This list will grow as I think up more shtuff to bore you all with .
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Something I found myself doing when first learning this method was that I would forget to refresh the image in the texture buttons of the material settings…hit that damn thing every time or you will be painting and painting away in your graphics program trying to fix a problem that you have already fixed an hour ago and that you are just making worse!
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Also, if you look back at the top of the page at the apples texture anatomy you will notice that 1) the “Spec” and “Nor” images are not the same!!! Be concious of what these actually mean when creating them. The biggest mistake that someone new to the field makes is thinking that a “Spec” and “Bump” (Nor) are nothing more than a black and white version of the “Col” (color) texture…THIS IS NOT SO!!! Sometimes you will get away with this with excellet results (normally your first attempt which later creates a bad habit
). Again…if you just get yourself away from the computer and take a second to concentrate on what a “Spec” or any other texture performs…then you will be surprised at the mistakes you will catch yourself ALMOST making … which brings me to the last but most important section of this tutorial…
Essential Links Related to This Topic:
The Best discription of Blenders use of textures to date:
https://blenderartists.org/tutorials.php?id=4
Well, thas all I got for now…again I have typed too much. If you have any questions or comments let me know and I will alter the tutorial as I see fit. I would also like to take the time to thank everyone out there that created tutorials that I found useful (yeah right…everything that I could get my hands on) while performing the newbie crawl of shame among the giants here at Elysiun. Its my first one so take it easy on me fellas…you know who you are .
Cheers,
Landis
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