How do people do textures?

[Pingonaut]

So, I am really interested in creating my own space suit texture, but I honestly don't know where to start. I see people making things like you see below, but what's the process? I understand where things are placed and such, but my question is how do you make it look natural and shadowed, etc.?

For example, I want to make this, but what is the process you go through when starting (nearly) from scratch on any texture?

[NoMrBond]

I have been starting out with a 24 bit (RBG) at the intended texture size

Creating a layer mask (transparency) for the base diff (RGB) layer

Dropping a normalised ambient occlusion bake over it (with its layer set to multiply)

Putting an .SVG of the UV map as a layer on top so I can switch to this layer, wand select the bits I want, switch down to the diff (RBG) layer, and work (just remember to make the UV layer invisible before exporting)

And then basically going from there (this is with Blender+GIMP so software dependent steps could vary significantly)

[Pingonaut]

And then basically going from there (this is with Blender+GIMP so software dependent steps could vary significantly)

I've become very comfortable with Paint.net and I feel that changing currently would only do me a disservice. I didn't understand much of that post due to the terms, sadly. My apologies.

[nli2work]

lots of layers, photosourcing. and lots of time spent analyzing light and how different surfaces reflect. and lots of manual adjusting the textures, and the UVs.

Paint.net? MS Paint? That won't cut it I'm afraid.

Edited July 25, 2014 by nli2work

[Pingonaut]

lots of layers, photosourcing. and lots of time spent analyzing light and how different surfaces reflect. and lots of manual adjusting the textures, and the UVs.

But are there any video guides? I mean this is used outside of modding. I've seen guides on how the texture placement works but not how to make the textures look right.

[nli2work]

for game-art techniques you wanna check Polycount.org, Gameartisans.org, or cgtalk for texturing tutorials. Texturing is a long process, not well suited to videos.

here're couple to start with

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=373024

Edited July 25, 2014 by nli2work

[CaptainKipard]

That texture you posted looks like just a bunch of photographs cut out and slightly edited.