Hi.
Every single time I try to make a texture it simply just always looks bad. I use Gimp for the textures, and I do know a bit about ambient occlusion baking, but I can’t figure out how to make it look “good”. I dont think the moddeling is the problem, I’m usually relatively good at that… I’m trying to make something like this:
But it turns up like this:
(And yes, I am really bad at texturing…)
Any good methods to make it look like the planes in the first picture?
Thanks, Andreas
Concentrate on getting good references and modeling done first - your model doesn’t look to be at the same level of detail as the ones you are showing there. I would get something form a blueprint site to work from first. After that, you can set up decals and paint schemes in Gimp or other soft and make a brush set to paint your model with. A plane is not going to be rough and dirty, it will be smooth and clean with just markings and plating marks, maybe a few places where there are actual seams showing.
Thanks. I’ll try to make more details on the model. So the best way of texturing would be “hand-painting”
in gimp? Do you know any good tutorials? I think that would help me alot 
Thanks, Andreas.
first problem is that you can’t just take a solid image and paste it straight onto the model and expect it to look good
second problem, in spite of claiming to be reasonably good a modelling, the model you have chosen to show us is basically a cylinder with a triangle attached. there is no detail for any ambient occlusion to show up on.
get the model looking right first, then you can eisily create an ambient occlusion map just by baking AO to a uv map. all you really need then is to paint dust and decals in GIMP or use the texture paint tools to add those details
Thanks! I really appreciate that you guys are so helpful 
I made the model a bit more advanced, baked the AO, added a texture - am I anywhere near a “good-looking” model?
Thanks again
the concept is starting to look good, add some bevel to the edges or some subsurf the smooth it all out use your knife tool to cut details into the panelling and your on your way!
Cool! I added some Subdivision Surface on my model and made some loop-cutting to make make the shape look more “plane-like”.
It now looks like this with a texture blended with the AO image:
I believe I’m doing something wrong… Maybe?
What is the resolution of your texture ?
The lower the resolution, the more blurry/pixelated the details will be.
It’s 1024*1024 which should be more than enough.
I don’t think there’s any bug or something, it’s just me being a noob when it comes to texturing I have looked for Blender and Gimp texturing tutorial, but I haven’t found any good ones.
Okay, I got this now… Is there any answer about how to make it look just a little bit professionel?..
You need to watch some tutorials on using texture layers. I have a set on my youtube playlist that I made, but they might be overkill for you here. Solid colors won’t just pop on their own, they need to have details superimposed. How much have you watched on tutorials about image editing like Gimp or Photoshop?
I would add a subsurf modifier, and start to make edge-loops where they need.
Of course if the topology is good for this, but until you show us some good view of the geometry we will never able to actually help.
paolo
I have watched many videotutorials about Blender. But, I haven’t found any tutorials about texture editing/painting in Gimp. I think it would help me a lot. Do you know any good tutorials?
