[SKY] Can a GIMP user help me out please?

[Bethra]

Hi all

Have been following IS's course on Graphic Artistry. (I tend to follow at my own pace rather than submit stuff as I have a tendency to go off on tangents when something seems interesting - did the same with the CK basics stuff and it was very helpful in getting my started) anyway I'm just starting out with texturing and things of that ilk but have run into a problem and hoped a gimp user could help with two problems I am having (well probably more than that but 2 atm lol).

I've got Gimp in place and all the other bits and bats necessary - have managed successfully to alter a texture colour and darken it - this was for a modded sofa in colours that I wasn't keen on. What I wanted to do was find a nice looking soft leather to make a leather sofa - struck me that, as sofa's go, that would actually be quite lore friendly. In the Gimp built in textures there is a leather but its too lumpy to make a decent furniture cover so found several on line. My problem comes when I try to import them to Gimp to use as patterns. The obvious place seems to be user/user/gimp 2.6/patterns - but when I put them in there as dds files I can't access them as patterns. Having completely lost all patience with it I did actually force a couple into the main gimp patterns section (by overriding the security) which did work but obviously that isn't a workable long term solution (and will only take one or two in any case).

My second problem occurs with the imported textures and getting the texture to fit with the pattern I am overwriting - is there a way to make a pattern fit to be the same size as the one you are overwriting? With the correct scale appearance etc. Or is that something a bit beyond my current level of understanding. I do understand about pixel size etc. But for example the lumpy leather - how can I make it less lumpy? And another example I found a lovely fabric free to use sample which I would love to use for either sofa or cushions or something but its oblong and no matter which way I reduce the size I can't get it to be the right shape to overwrite the existing texture.

Sorry for the wall of text and 5th degree questioning. I'm fairly new to modding but not a total beginner - very very very very new to texturing though

Also I have tried to follow all the various gimp tuts I found on line but couldn't find anything much that was relevant to what I am having problems with - I really don't like pestering people for help but am at my wit's end on this one.

Any help would be appreciated.

[donnato]

Hello Bethra. 1. What I do is take a screen capture of the picture I want to use as a texture and save it to my picture folder with a name I`ll recognize, as .jpg. Then in Gimp hit "Open" and navigate to your saved picture and open it. Now make your changes and save as .dds and make sure "Generate mip maps" is checked. You can open your referance terxture in Gimp as well and take note of the size then resize your screen capped pic to match by hitting the "Image" button at the top and selecting "Scale Image" click the little chain to the right to break the aspect lock.

2. I`m not sure what to say here except to check the "Filters" options to mess with effects.

I`m at work now and so, can`t spend too much time. Good hunting and I`ll check back when I get home this evening.

[Bethra]

Thanks Donnato

Will go and have a play

[syscrusher]

If you've found what you want online, it's better to download the image directly rather than take a screen capture, because the latter may compromise color quality (depending on your video config). In most browsers you should be able to right-mouse-button and select "Save image as..." or a similar context dialog option.

With regard to image size, GIMP has lots of ways to do that. If you can let me know what size your starting image is, and what size you need for your pattern, I can perhaps suggest an approach.