How are such beautiful textures made?

[LaydeeDem]

I have seen countless mods with amazing texturing, including, KOSMOS, Sillisko Edition 2, and even the stock parts. How do you make such nice looking textures?

[JebThrillMaster]

UVmapping, it happens by the mod creator making the model for a part, ex. Intrepid SLS, NovaPunch etc.

The UVmap is created by things that exist in many modelling programs(Maya,3ds Max, Blender) It basicly creates a net of the shape to export as a photo format like a PNG or JPEG. The modeller then colours in the net and imports it as a texture in the modeling program.

[LaydeeDem]

UVmapping, it happens by the mod creator making the model for a part, ex. Intrepid SLS, NovaPunch etc.

The UVmap is created by things that exist in many modelling programs(Maya,3ds Max, Blender) It basicly creates a net of the shape to export as a photo format like a PNG or JPEG. The modeller then colours in the net and imports it as a texture in the modeling program.

I know that! I mean what do they to to make the actual textures. Not the uvmaps. I am asking how exactly do I get nice looking textures. Mine look like a bunch of pictures from cgtextures.com slapped together on a uvmap. (Because it is. )

[chickenplucker]

Generally I make mine from scratch, sometimes using some images just for background texture (i.e. dirt, scratches).

Here is the process I go through:

Create a vector based graphic or image in Adobe Illustrator for say some panels or bolt textures.

Illustrator is a vector based image program, which means anything you create can be scaled to any size with no loss of quality. The images are based on vector lines, unlike Photoshop which is a raster based image editor (pixels).

Then I create a blank canvas in Adobe Photoshop at the size of the texture that I need, 512x512 or 1024x1024, import the stuff I made from Illustrator on different layers, and tweak/adjust location and settings until I get the result I\'m looking for.

The above is just how my work flow is, you do not need any Adobe products to make a decent texture. GIMP or Paint.net are great image editing programs you can get for free that will work just as good. The most import thing to remember when creating textures is to always make an image much larger then what you actually need. You can always scale an image down with no loss of quality.