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Thread: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

  1. #1
    Halie Satanus's Avatar Emperor of ice cream
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    Default Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    THE PHOTOSHOP TIPS AND TECHNIQUES SKINNING GUIDE


    Ok first off your going to need to unpack the vanilla files.
    See this guide by Publius.

    And this will allow you to view tga files with windows.

    Nvidia utilities (I can't remember what they all do)

    Nvidia plug in for Photoshop. this allows you to save textures as shown below.

    Please keep images at 640x480 to avoid stretching.

    So something simple to start with.
    1.using the marquee tool pull a box around the area you want to work on.
    2. add a layer, this is so you can work on a layer above the original image, and as you'll see later drop the opacity when you need to.



    1. paint the boxed area with the paint brush any colour you like.
    2. Add some simple shadows with the burn tool, if you can't see the burn tool right click over the area it is there. notice along the top of the window i have it set to range; highlights, Exposure 7%, this will make the shadows subtle and easy to manage.



    1.Use the Dodge tool to make some highlights above your shadows. Range;Highlights, Exposure 6%.
    2. Along the top of the window go to Filters, in the drop down menu select noise, this is the easiest way to add texture to your units clothes.i have the slider at 2.03, Gaussian,Monochromatic,



    1. Drop the opacity, click on the blue arrow and a slider will appear.
    2. now you can see your original image underneath,While holding down Alt use the marquee tool to pull a box around the belt. now right click over the image and in the pop up select, select inverse, now you are able to work on the area outside the box.



    Now use the erase tool to rub out the area over the belt and turn the opacity back up.



    Next you want to merge your images together. follow the picture.



    Now you have one flat image.All you need to do is go to files at the top of the window and save it,in the Nvidia pop up use the settings shown.





    Ok that's it for now, not to exciting i know but i just wanted to kick this off as gently as possible, and show a few basic tools.

    Part 2

    Ok in this part I'll show you how to add a texture you have copied from the net.
    use Google images to hunt for textures, cloth, silk, patterns, diamonds, tartan,anything you might want to use, I'm going to use



    1.Use the Move tool to move your texture over to the skin, click and drag.
    2.Its better if you texture is to big rather than to small, to resize your texture
    select the Marquee tool, right click over your image and scroll down to free transform, a box will appear around your texture now resize it to the position you want. when you have positioned your texture click on the move tool, a box will appear, click apply.Your texture may be slightly out of focus, go to filters at the top of the screen and scroll down to sharpen, select sharpen.

    Now for a simple technique that you will use a lot in skinning.

    i want to add a part of the texture to the top of the sleeve, use the Marquee toll to select an area on your texture larger than the sleeve area,

    you need it larger because the sleeve stretches on the model, now with the move tool selected and holding down Alt drag your cursor over to the top of the sleeve, you should now have a new marquee selected area,



    Free transform so it fits over the top of the sleeve.



    If you don't like the colour you can change it, there are two ways to do this, along the top of the widow go to Image/adjustments/ you can use colour balance or Hue and saturation, I'm going to use hue and saturation, just move the sliders until your happy, sometimes you may have to save as close as you can to what you want and then repeat the process, its a bit trial and error.



    At this point I've dropped the opacity as shown before so i can make a triangle at the front of the skirt from the belt line to the hem, this is because the skirt stretches in this area.Use the Polygonal lasso for this its a marquee tool (under the square one) I've added noise and shadow as shown above.



    Now you can repeat the shadow and belt parts as before or add parts from other units and save as it is.

    Part 3

    As I've got this texture open I'll show you how to make buttons for his tunic, this is a simple technique which can be used in many ways ie; adding details to armour.

    first add a new layer.
    Ok' right click over the Marquee tool select the circle, now make a circle and paint it grey.

    1.Double click on your layer, this will bring up your Layer style box.
    2.Select Bevel and Emboss.
    3.Select pillow emboss.



    These are the setting i use to make a button but play around with them depending on what you are doing.



    As shown before hold down Alt and use the move tool to create multiple buttons. then merge and save as shown in part 1.

    I've added a few touches to the finished skin but I haven't used ant techniques I other than the ones I've shown. just remember this is a basic guide if I tried to show you every detail it would take to long.



    And other than the shield this one uses the same techniques to.



    Part4

    Alpha Channels.
    Erasing parts of a unit.

    1. select channels.
    2. select alpha channel.
    3.paint this area black.and your shield will no longer be visible in game.



    Part5

    Simple reflections.

    Its actually just as easy to make gloss files, but this is a simple way to make reflections.

    Open your skin,
    Place a screen shot or any pic over your image, where you want the reflection.
    Go to filters/blurs/Gaussian blurs, blur the image.
    Go to filters/blurs/motion blur, blur the image.

    i haven't specified any setting because it depends on your image and where you put it.

    Drop the opacity, and remove any unwanted areas with the erasure. I added a bit of noise and did a bit of light and shadow work with dodge and burn as shown above.



    I made this from the pic below in about the same time as it takes to make a gloss file.



    Part6; Gloss

    A gloss effect consists of two files, a black alpha tga.dds, and a white gloss. tga, make copies of an existing set and rename them the same as your unit.

    Open up the tga of your unit.
    Open your two renamed files.
    1.using the marquee toll, hold the cursor over your unit and right click, chose select all.



    2. using the move tool move the unit over to the black tga.dds. file with the alpha channel selected. then paint black all the bits that you don't want the gloss file to affect. save as interpolated alpha, as shown above.



    3. now the tricky bit. remove any of the original white image. repeat step 2 but this time move the black tga over to the white gloss.tga. now go to the top of the page and chose select/colour range, your cursor should look like a pipit, select the black area in the white gloss tga. ok, and hit delete, you should now have a blank bg with you image on it.



    4. double click here.
    5.select here.
    6. white.
    7.reduce the opacity. (suggest 50%) but you might need to experiment.
    8.merge visible
    9. oh there is no 9, umm save, that's it, test in game.

    Last edited by Halie Satanus; October 06, 2011 at 10:47 AM.

  2. #2
    vikrant's Avatar The Messiah of innocence
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    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    great tutorial

    i realize that in photo shop or gimp when an image is resized it losses its sharpness

    is there any other way to avoid that

  3. #3
    Halie Satanus's Avatar Emperor of ice cream
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    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    Not really, so its better if images(textures) are larger than you need, but not to much, the one i posted above is the size it was from the original and thats ideal for skinning, if the image does blur the easiest way to shapen it up is Filters/ Sharpen, its not very exact but should work ok,

  4. #4

    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    Great tutorial Halie, very informative. After adding noise I tend to apply 'Despecle' ( located in the same menu ). Gives it a noice effect in my opinion. Likewise you can use 'Grain' ( filter - texture - grain ) to attain a simillar effect. Experimenting with the different grain types such as regular and contrasty might give you a satisfactory result as well. Texturizer can be of use too sometimes, but it's usually better to use noise or grain.

    Anyway, I'm drifting off. Thanks for the tutorial halie, very helpful for beginners such as myself.
    Last edited by Goscinio; August 28, 2006 at 11:46 AM.
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  5. #5
    Halie Satanus's Avatar Emperor of ice cream
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    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    No problem, i use depeckle as well sometimes for a more detailed texture where noise looks to pixelated, its all about experimentation to get what you like, and what looks good. If theres anything else you think i could add let me know, if i know how to do it i will.

  6. #6

    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    I always use sharpnes in the end.

  7. #7
    Lebedis's Avatar Civis
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    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    Hey all !
    How do i need to save the file so i could see it on the battle field ?
    For example i tried same thing with a greek peasant i saved the file in my packs(folder where i used the xpac program)/data/models_unit/textures but when i start the game and play a custom battle the peasants havent changed wot should i do ?
    Last edited by Lebedis; August 29, 2006 at 02:16 AM.


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  8. #8
    Kallikratis's Avatar Miles
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    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    You must "inform" the game to use the texture you made. To do this, go to descr_model_battle .txt file. Scroll down until you find the peasants line. Find the line which is referred to the faction you want to change the texture, and in the end of the line simply type the texture's path.

  9. #9
    Lebedis's Avatar Civis
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    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    got it working nvmnd me
    Any info about weapon moding ?
    Last edited by Lebedis; August 29, 2006 at 06:53 AM.


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  10. #10
    Halie Satanus's Avatar Emperor of ice cream
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    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    Weapons are modded with 3d max, so you cant change them with photoshop. sorry.

  11. #11
    Narakir's Avatar Decanus
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    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    Very helpfull post thanks a lot !
    "They do not possess the true fire. They speak of creation and they boast of their potential but they do not create anything beyond the mundane. Their imagination is poor, obsessed with the small details. A true Dreamer, I say, creates a grand scheme and then concentrates on the details. Starting with the details is for the ants of the imagination - the small insects who aspire only to be fed.”

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  12. #12
    Kallikratis's Avatar Miles
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    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    Can you post a tutorial on how to make reflections to RTW textures? Not in-game reflections with the gloss texture, just simple texture reflections.

  13. #13
    Halie Satanus's Avatar Emperor of ice cream
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    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    Can you post a tutorial on how to make reflections to RTW textures? Not in-game reflections with the gloss texture, just simple texture reflections.
    Added to the tutorial.

  14. #14

    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    For some reason when i try to use xpak its comes up with an error message saying "Another program is currently using this file" even though this is the first time ive used it. I have it in the correct directory and everything. I despartly need to change some of the colors in this game, my eyes are dropping out.

  15. #15
    Kallikratis's Avatar Miles
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    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    Thank you for this great tutorial . If you have other hints and tips please post! Looking forward to see them :wink:

  16. #16
    Mr.Plaice's Avatar Laetus
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    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    Hi! This tutorial is a real fortune to me because i want to mod the game, especially the Greek troops appearence.

  17. #17
    Zivica's Avatar Miles
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    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    I don't get enything how I use PAK Extractor and how I upload texture of unit to adobe protoshop

  18. #18

    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    after iv saved the skin and load the game up nothing at all changes i even tried saving it under a new name and changing the path to that but it just crashed? any idea what is wrong?

  19. #19

    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zivica View Post
    I don't get enything how I use PAK Extractor and how I upload texture of unit to adobe protoshop
    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...33#post1011533

    Hopefully that helps some.

    @roryn: Make sure your texture file is 1) in the right folder 2) has the exactly correct name 3) If you changed the name and then altered the dmb, make sure your name is unit_name_here.tga (in other words dont include the .dds at the end)

    And welcome both of you to TWC



  20. #20

    Default Re: Photoshop Skinning Tutorials.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zivica
    and how I upload texture of unit to adobe protoshop
    you also need to make sure you have the plug-in to allow photoshop to read .dds files see link at beginning of tutorial:
    http://developer.nvidia.com/object/n...ure_tools.html
    To put it in photoshop elements (similar but cheaper) I did end up having to do some manual install, to get file 'dds.8bi' in Plug-Ins\File Formats folder. If you can't open textures check if that or something similar is there.

    and welcome too...

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