Guest Workshop: StarX Texturing Workshop Part 2

[StarX]

 

Welcome to my second workshop on texturing here at Graphic Artistry!

Last time we created the texture for a worn blade. This time I'll show you how I recreate a texture from scratch based on a reference image. The model we're going to texture is nothing less than Frodo's famous shortsword named "Sting". The model was made by my partner in crime InsanitySorrow, who always takes care to provide a good working UV map to work with.

First of all let's have a look at the reference picture:



As you can see it's pretty basic at first sight: just wood and metal. The engravements on the grip, guard and the blade itself is where the real challenge lies.


Let's start blocking!
As I've shown and explained in the previous workshop I will block out the basic shapes first.




The base textures
Next up I choose a fitting wood texture, which I add to a new layer. Using the warp tool (Edit>Transform>Warp) I make it fit the shape of the grip in my UV map. The original woodtexture I used was a lot lighter, but by altering the hue/saturation and brightness/contrast I managed to make it very similar to the wood from the reference image.


I create a new layer for the metal parts. I use a metal texture which is a nice blend between two excisting textures: a scratched one and a smoother one. That way I can make it look like it's actually used in combat, without giving it that very worn look. In a new layer I set the blending mode of this layer to "Overlay". I also add a layer mask so this layer won't affect the wood texture of the grip.


On the guard and the pommel I want to make all the edges a little brighter. There's a quick and effective way to do that:
In the layer with my blocks I select all the parts I want to affect by using the Magic Wand tool
With the selection still active I create a new layer and fill the selection with a solid color, it doesn't matter which one as we just need the shape to apply a layerstyle.
I set the layer to 0% fill to get rid of the color:

Finally I add a soft inner glow in Layer Style:

And here we have the result:



Creating the rim
When we look at our reference picture we can see that one part of the guard has a rim, which is not in our model. That means we have to fake that through the texture. This sounds more complicated than it actually is and it gives me an oppurtunity to show you a great method for making those pesky rims and cover a bit about how to handle light and shadow at the same time.

Using the same method as before we select the part of the blocks we want the rim on and give it an inner stroke effect in Layer Style.


To keep the stroke effect without it being a layerstyle, right click the layer in the layer tab and choose "Convert to Smart Object" and right click it again to choose "Rasterize". Now we have something to work with!

Once again we set our layer fill to 0%. In Layer Style we check "Drop Shadow" and "Bevel and Emboss". Using these tools means we have to decide where the lightsource comes from. As a peronal rule of thumb I always want the weapon to look it's best when it's held by the player. That means the light will most likely come from the tip of the blade and falling on the guard:


These are the settings I use for "Drop Shadow" and "Bevel and Emboss". Note that I have unchecked "Use Global Light" for both effects, this gives me the most control over each individual setting as I can determine where the angle of the light on that particular piece of the texture.




To get the rim on the other side of the guard I simply duplicate the layer with the rim, flip it vertically (Edit>Transform>Flip Vertical) and move it to the right position. For both "Drop Shadow" and "Bevel and Emboss" I set the light angle in the opposite direction and because we unchecked "Use Global Light" this doesn't affect our first rim. Here we can see how that looks:



And here we have our faked rim on the model. Great illusion, eh?


Later on we will add more shadows and highlights to enhance our texture. We'll be making smart use of gradients and of course find a method to duplicate the engravings on the weapon.
To be continued soon!

 

[StarX]

Good, we're back! Time to go to the next stage of recreating Sting.

Using gradients

Making smart use of gradients can really help making the texture feel more alive. But you have to be carefull not to overdo it. I use it mostly on textures that need to look a bit more shiny than usual, so that makes our Sting an excellent candidate. If you are not familiar with the tool than experiment with it, it takes a little time and practice, but it's worth it!

Lets have a quick look at how gradients can change your texture:

As we want to be able to apply a gradient on each individual part of the texture we'll use the same technique we used before:

• 
  
  
• Select the part we're going to change in the blocked layer
  
• Create a new layer and fill the selection with a random color
  
• Set the fill of the layer to 0%
  

We open up Layer>Layer Style and select “Gradient Overlayâ€. Here we can decide what kind of gradient to use, what colors and transparancy we want, the direction of the gradient and what blend mode to give. Always keep in mind that there isn't really a standard for this, it really depends on what you want the gradient to do. In this case I wanted a part of Sting's guard to get a subtile gradient from dark to light from the inside to the outside.

I follow the same procedure with different gradient settings on the other parts of Sting, except for the blade. Our texture now looks like this:

The blade

Time to give the blade some attention. I begin by adding a fuller to the centre of the blade. I just take a soft light grey brush and paint them on a new layer, after that I add some gaussian blur (Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur) and lower the oppacity of the layer.

Once again I select the blade parts in my blocks layer, create a new layer, fill the selection up and set fill to 0%. (Yeah, I know! I use this a lot, but it's such a handy feature!)

In Layer Style I use an inner glow and a gradient, so the blade texture looks like this:

I repeat the above steps, only this time I choose an inner stroke in Layer Style. I scale the shape down until it fits nicely inside the blade. I do the same for the other side of the blade, the blade texture now looks like this:

Adding an adjustment layer

The next thing I do is creating an adjustment layer to control the overall colors, the saturation and lightness of the complete texture. Read more on how usefull adjustment layers are in this article:

http://photoshoptips.net/2005/09/16/adjustment-layers/

I play around with the settings and the opacity until I get the look that I like most for my texture.

Let's have a look in NifSkope to see our current progress!

So far so good! Next up we'll be making the engravements and such! Exciting!

[StarX]

OK! Back again! Time to put all the fancy stuff on our weapon.

 

Ornaments and engravings

 

The blade

I begin by adding those flowing lines onto the blade. How? Simple, I just paint them by hand. As I don't have a Wacom Tablet at the moment I'll just use my mouse. I just paint those lines as smooth as possible and after a few tries I end up with this:

 

 

I set the layer fill to 0% and in Layer Style I give my flowing lines a stroke effect to get the double lines:

 

 

In a new layer I paint the smaller flowing line:

 

 

For the elven writing I use the Tengwar font that you can get right here: http://www.fontspace.com/category/tengwar

 

To let the text follow the flow of the lines I create a path to write on. There are several tutorials on internet on how to do this in Photoshop CS, here's one of them: http://www.heathrowe.com/text-on-a-path-in-photoshop-cs/

Combined with the"Create Warp Text" tool and a bit of rotating I get the job done. Just play around a bit with the different tools to see what gives you the best result.

<---- Create Warp Text tool

 

 

To get everything on the other side of the blade I simply duplicate the corresponding layers, flip them vertically and move them to the correct position.

 

 

 

The guard

I use the same technique for the engravings in Sting's guard, only this time I also apply a gradient overlay, an outer bevel and drop shadow effect through layerstyles, making sure it matches the correct light angle, like I've shown you earlier on. So also make sure you uncheck "Use Global Light" again! I also set my layer fill to 0%, so I can make use of the texture of the layer underneath.

 

 

Once again we duplicate the layers and flip them vertically to get them on the other side of the guard, I adjust the layerstyles so light and shadow comes from the opposite direction.

 

 

 

The grip

To get the fancy elven leaves on the grip I turn to handpainting again. I just use a bright red color, so I easily see what it is I'm doing. I make one stroke with two leaves attached to it, looking like this:

 

 

I duplicate the layers several times and space them evenly with the grid enabled to make this very easy to do (View>Show>Grid).

 

 

When I'm satisfied with how it looks I merge the layers, desaturate the image and make it darker.

 

 

Of course we want those fancy elven thingies on the grip to have a metal look, like in our reference picture. To do so I copy a piece from our base metal texture and drop it in a new layer on top of the grip and the ornaments.

 

 

In the layer with the ornaments I click with the magic wand tool in an empty area and with that selection loaded I go back to the layer with the copy of our base metal texture and press delete, now I have the metaltexture in the same shape as my elven leaves. I set the blendmode of the layer to “overlayâ€. Now our elven leaves on the grip look like this:

 

 

We're almost finished. As I want to give the elven leaves some depth I give them a Pillow Emboss effect in Layer Style.

 

 

And on a new layer I use a soft transparant black brush to add a little shadow on the part of the grip that's right underneath the guard.

 

 

We're done! I hope you found this workshop usefull, have fun texturing and till next time!

 

[StarX]

Reserved

[ub3rman123]

Do most of these methods work in GIMP or is it Photoshop only? Main thing I'm wanting to know is the inner glow you applied to a layer.

[StarX]

I don't think Gimp has any layerstyles by default, but you could try this plugin for example: http://registry.gimp.org/node/186.

[StarX]

Well, the complete workshop has been posted! I've revealed my secrets!

Let me know if you found this usefull, that's always good to hear. Also don't hesitate to ask questions if things are unclear, English is not my native language as you know!

[Hanaisse]

Star, I am simply blown away by this.

Beveling has always been my weak point, I can never get it to look how I want. But your technique is going to change that. I would never have thought to stroke out a section to apply the effect to. It makes so much sense now. And that evil Global Light is being turned off forever.

Many thanks for sharing!

[StarX]

You're welcome, Hana! It's a daunting proces to keep track of every step I take to create a texture and explain it in detail, but in the end it's all worth it.

[ub3rman123]

The engraving section looks stunning, I'm amazed you can do that by hand without a tablet. Usually looks jagged when I try. What sort of brush are you using? A fuzzy circle or something else?

[StarX]

Believe me, it took me a long while to make it look like that, coupled with lots of frustration!

I just used a hard round brush for it, having a feathered edge only makes it harder to apply a decent layer style on it. I'm really concidering buying a Wacom Cintiq 12WX, it's a bit pricey, but it's so awesome!

[ub3rman123]

I think the pattern I've noticed in most tutorials is that they suggest using a very small brush and small strokes to keep it smooth and tidy. My method of using a grunge brush that's at a medium small size didn't pan out too well.

[StarX]

Yup, a small and hard brush works good enough, especially when your tool is a gaming mouse. Though I imagine that with the control a tablet gives you, you can use larger brushes as it's much easier to make fluid strokes.