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[Darkjesture]

Im new to UV mapping and would like to know how people make their textures with what software and the techniques they apply. I would like to get started with texture making but i cant find any decent sources on how to make them can someone point me in the right direction?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Dark

[thecolclough]

i'm not an expert on UV mapping, but in terms of getting the textures, i can point you in the direction of cgtextures.com, who have thousands and thousands of very good textures for free download, and you can either apply them directly to your model, or edit them to suit your preferences first.  the only limitation is that you're not allowed to download more than 15MB from them in a 24-hour period.  i usually find that's plenty.

if i need to edit the texture, my program of choice is GIMP (www.gimp.org) - it's got a slightly weird layout, but it does pretty much everything you could want an image editing program to do, and it's free.  it's quite easy to use after you've had a practice session or two.  it also has the advantage that it was clearly developed by people with a sense of humour - in the default installation, one of the available paintbrush settings draws peppers instead of standard lines, and there's a size-and-resolution preset template for a square of toilet paper... i think it's brilliant: a program that is very powerful and can do all the serious stuff, but has a little humourous edge too. 

i'm sure someone will come along and offer advice on UV mapping sooner or later, but i hope this helps for starters.

- colclough

[Darkjesture]

Thanks I got another couple questions...
1. What and how do you use the UV button when your in obect edit mode?
2. I can unwrap a rather sophisticated object but i would like to turn it into a texture would drawing lines in gimp where you would like deminsion in the texture work and adding and merging layers ad mask and so forth. What should i do to make more advanced texure like that of modeling a human and adding a picture or a logo to the shirt something of that nature.

[floyd86]

Answers:

1; Simply select an object, apply a material to it. And then hit the UV button. Now a yellow circle turns up, which can be used the same as the arc rotate tool. Move, rotate and scale you texture the way you like.

2; When work on advanced textures it's really helpfull to use layers and masks. It's almost inpossible to find the right texture for you model, so you will have to compose it yourself. ie for the shirt: take a texture of a fabric and a texture of the logo and merge them using gimp (I personally use pixia, also free, pretty similar to gimp)

[Darkjesture]

Is there some tutorials on making advanced textures (i havent used that much of any paint program to confortably do much for a render.) Thnx for the reply

[floyd86]

For working with pixia you could read through this tutorial: http://www.angelfire.com/fang/derangedrook/pixiatutorial.html. especially the part about hybrid layers could be helpfull. For other paint programs you should do a search on google for layer tutorials.

pixia: http://www.ne.jp/asahi/mighty/knight/

[Darkjesture]

Thnx ill get started right away!

[hihosilver]

For more advanced texturing I would strongly advise you learn to use a real UV mapping program.  Anim8or can do the basics, but it overlays everything you UV map in one space.  You can do some UV mapping in anim8or, but it's best when you have a visual showing you what goes where with the texture.  That's where a free program such as Lithunwrap comes in handy.
Google for tutorials on using lithunwrap, for anim8or what you need to do is export your model as a .obj then load it into lithunwrap.

[Darkjesture]

I have lithunwrap and UVmapper (I know how to use them both) Im looking for tutorials on making the actual skins though. Do you know where i could find some tutorials on making skins?

[hihosilver]

Really what you need to do is get familiar with either gimp or photoshop, learn to use the tools and how they affect things.  Learn to paint in them, and use things such as overlays and such.  Most photoshop tutorials can be translated to Gimp I'm sure, though I haven't used Gimp much.  My advice is to find things like stock textures, and custom brushes (you can make your own custom brushes as well) to create texture.  You can then combine things to create your own texture as well as your own painting.
Here are some useful tutorials:
http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials/stefan_morrell/stefan_01.asp
http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials/creature_head/creaturehead_texturing_01.asp
http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials/wilson_texturing/wilson_texturing_01.asp
http://www.3dtotal.com/team/tutorials/2d_custombrushes/2d_custombrushes.asp
You can find many more here:
http://www.3dtotal.com/ps100/pstut100.html

[Darkjesture]

Thanx Thats exactly what ive been looking for awhile