Texturing Tips, Tricks, Improvements for a Texture Faliure

[Naten]

I'd like to learn the ways of texturing.

My skill now, you say? Nothing. Nothing. I suck. Nothing. Nothing. Nofeeng, guise. I'm terrible.

I need tips. Bad. I know how to unwrap and stuff, but how do I get my UV lines onto my image is one question?

Thanks. Any tips would be nice!

-Naten

[SiliconPyro]

What program are you using? If you're using Blender, I may be able to help.

[Justin Kerbice]

looks like you mix a few things.

After you make the UV mapping, you export it as a template, it gives you a base picture to start with. You have to export your model AFTER making the UV mapping (could be a mind-twister issue).

With your paint program (which have to at least support layers, just for ease), load the raw template. Here, you can add some layer which will get a specific role like "parts" for thing skinners will be not suppose to paint (door handles, engine exhausts, warning/info decals like "DANGER HOT"), and one or more dedicated to painting, here if you fill the whole layer with blue, it is supposed to make your part looks blue, etc

A good thing to start is to search on the web for something like "creating template", even if it's not related to KSP, it'll help you.

Another good thing to get a pretty result without to much work is adding a shading layer (automatically generated with 3dsmax "render to texture" tool + some stuffes)

Then the next step is to "make the texture", no need to be a skillfull 2D artist to achieve good results, as prodecural textures can provide a nice background for all kind of material (clean or rusty metal, sci-fi style screen/display, woods, plastic, ...)

Edited February 25, 2014 by Justin Kerbice

[Naten]

looks like you mix a few things.

After you make the UV mapping, you export it as a template, it gives you a base picture to start with. You have to export your model AFTER making the UV mapping (could be a mind-twister issue).

With your paint program (which have to at least support layers, just for ease), load the raw template. Here, you can add some layer which will get a specific role like "parts" for thing skinners will be not suppose to paint (door handles, engine exhausts, warning/info decals like "DANGER HOT"), and one or more dedicated to painting, here if you fill the whole layer with blue, it is supposed to make your part looks blue, etc

A good thing to start is to search on the web for something like "creating template", even if it's not related to KSP, it'll help you.

Another good thing to get a pretty result without to much work is adding a shading layer (automatically generated with 3dsmax "render to texture" tool + some stuffes)

Then the next step is to "make the texture", no need to be a skillfull 2D artist to achieve good results, as prodecural textures can provide a nice background for all kind of material (clean or rusty metal, sci-fi style screen/display, woods, plastic, ...)

So how do I export the template?

[Daemoria]

Depending on your 3d modeling package, there is multiple ways to actually apply the UV coordinates to the mesh. In 3d Studio Max, you apply a modifier on the model called UV-unrwap or UV-map (the second one is a semi-automatic procedure). For Cinema4d it all done through the UVcoordinates Tag. As for Blender... there is a lot of documentation available, here, check these links out.

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/UV_Map_Basics

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Textures/Mapping/UV

As for texturing, its best to select a limited color pallets to work with, and to separate out your mesh based on materials. You can then separate the UV islands (distinct areas of the UV map separate from other pieces) based on those materials/colors and quickly select them in Gimp/Photoshop with your select tools. With the areas selected, its just a matter of filling them in with the fill tool, and then adding some details on top.

If in doubt for texturing, look to real life for inspiration.

Also, for more technical look at texturing, the polycount wiki is a good place to start.

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Textures/Mapping/UV

[Payload]

I wish I could help you sir but my Texture skills are severely lacking. The one thing I can tell you is that UV unwrap is the most important thing. I tend to unwrap using a test pattern to be sure that I don't have any really bad stretching going on. Also unwrapping in Blender is easier to me than the commercial counterparts, but you will still find yourself manually unwrapping individual faces quite a lot. That is where learning to use the different transforms can really aid you.

I usually cheat the artistic bits using procedural texturing in blender but KSP doesn't play well with more than one material per mesh. I find that you have to unwrap with all the same material and fit everything on to one texture sheet unless you separate the meshes in blender first.