[Misc] Tips for Texturing Clothing

[Marthgun]

oh hai,

 

I just found out i could import an .obj from any 3d software into photoshop, then link up the uvw map and texture it so i can see the progress.

 

but I am a pretty terrible artist, and this isn't like texturing a candle or ladder.  clothing has folds and has higher and lower sections to it, 

 

I threw on some solid color and then overlaid a cloth texture but it looks pretty bad.  I just need some help actually texturing these vanillla uvw maps for clothing.  

 

would be much obliged.

[ResolveThatChord]

I tried my hand at clothes when working on this. It was a while ago, but off the top of my head...

 

• Probably the most useful technique I've found is blending photos. Here is a great tutorial on that from CG Textures.
• CG Textures is also an excellent source of high quality, free texture photos.
• Dirt and wear is very important, but it works differently with clothes than hard surface objects.
• Study vanilla outfits to see how the colour and wear change at different parts of the body
• The specular map is easily as important as the colour map. 
• Overlaying an ambient occlusion bake works wonders.

As for folds, I actually modelled high-poly folds and baked normal maps from that. But I think you probably have enough to work with using this kind of thing. For example, you could desaturate it and overlay it where you want the fold, and that'll give you a fold in the diffuse map. Getting normals would be trickier.

Good luck! if any of this was gobbledigook let me know, and if any of it is wrong also let me know because I'm also just learning.

[InsanitySorrow]

Specular maps aren't that important for clothing unless you have metal sections like belt buckles or need a more of a wet look, you get better results without it otherwise.

[Marthgun]

I tried my hand at clothes when working on this. It was a while ago, but off the top of my head...

 

• Probably the most useful technique I've found is blending photos. Here is a great tutorial on that from CG Textures.
• CG Textures is also an excellent source of high quality, free texture photos.
• Dirt and wear is very important, but it works differently with clothes than hard surface objects.
• Study vanilla outfits to see how the colour and wear change at different parts of the body
• The specular map is easily as important as the colour map. 
• Overlaying an ambient occlusion bake works wonders.

As for folds, I actually modelled high-poly folds and baked normal maps from that. But I think you probably have enough to work with using this kind of thing. For example, you could desaturate it and overlay it where you want the fold, and that'll give you a fold in the diffuse map. Getting normals would be trickier.

Good luck! if any of this was gobbledigook let me know, and if any of it is wrong also let me know because I'm also just learning.

Yes, this is exactly what i was looking for!

 

I was wonder what that blend if thing did.  

 

i can see a ton of uses for it.  

 

I was looking at the vanilla clothing textures, and the first thing that popped out at me was the amount of grunge they had, but even more so was the apparent depth and i guess i could call it, lighting.  It was darker in the right places, and lighter in the right places.  

 

I've textured a bunch of stuff, but never tried my hands at clothing and I was pretty overwhelmed.  It almost looked like they drew them on.

 

Another thing i noticed was that the UV maps are bit odd shaped, so when I put a brush decal on it, it was very hard to line up correctly.  

 

I imagine alot of it was dark/light hand colored, or even dodge/burned around the edges and such.  at least now i have a starting place.

 

 

btw.  on your armor model you linked, did you retopolize it or is that from scratch?  its very low poly but looks really good.  just wondering how you made it

[ResolveThatChord]

IS is right. For cloth and most fabrics the specular map should be very dark. But it's important that they are dark, because the spec map is what conveys the character of a material, and done poorly it's easy to make metal look like plastic, or cloth look like it was enchanted in Morrowind.

I just remembered something else that's important. I suppose the word might be "depth": (non-tiling) textures should have subtle variations in colour and shade, otherwise they look flat and unreal.  I see a lot of textures use the photoshop "cloud" filter for this and it tends to look fake for some reason. There's probably a better way but I found that an overlayed photo of snow can create an appropriate difference in shade.

I haven't found out how to create depth in colour, other than using a photo that already has it. If you look at, for example, the vanilla Dwarven armour textures you'll see some pretty extraordinary colours where it's oxidised. Any tips on how to get that effect IS?

That armour I made from scratch. I sort of made it up as I went along, which may actually work for you but I can't recommend as it took ages and I never finished it. I think creating concept sketches is probably a better bet than just mashing together elements I like from the royal Austrian armoury and books on middle-eastern warfare.

 

I try to make things as low-poly as I can for a few reasons; I enjoy optimising, I have a low-end system, and I prefer creating assets that aren't intended to be unique.

[Marthgun]

I'm going to take a wild stab and say that beth textured their models in 3ds or w/e program they were using.  From what I've seen, I'd say it was 3ds.  

 

that's really the cause of the problem here.  Our nif exporter can't do the bslightingshaderproperties.  

 

if they exported uvw maps, the texturers did an absolute amazing job and stitching these things together.  for example, on the Male FineClothes02, there's a belt thats on four different elements, one is straight, the next is curved, and the other is scaled 3x larger than the others.  how they got these to match up perfectly is something i just dont understand.

 

With that blend if trick and those textures, I've got some really good results.  I can make this work, but the more complicated the patterns and especially trim, the exponentially harder it is.  

[Hanaisse]

Have you tried IS's Graphic Artistry classes? Great info and lots of tips in there. There's also lots of texturing tutorials here. Browse through them, you never know what you might find.

[Marthgun]

Have you tried IS's Graphic Artistry classes? Great info and lots of tips in there. There's also lots of texturing tutorials here. Browse through them, you never know what you might find.

 

i have looked through them before, and i just went through them.  Let me just show you what im talking about, idc how good you are at using photoshop, lining this belt up right with the textures is incredibly difficult.  

 

[InsanitySorrow]

I haven't found out how to create depth in colour, other than using a photo that already has it. If you look at, for example, the vanilla Dwarven armour textures you'll see some pretty extraordinary colours where it's oxidised. Any tips on how to get that effect IS?

There is no really easy way of achieveing that effect it's all down to how well you can paint. The best suggestion I can give is to find some reference pics of the material you're wanting to texture and look at the details there and try to reproduce those on your own texture.

 

I'm going to take a wild stab and say that beth textured their models in 3ds or w/e program they were using.  From what I've seen, I'd say it was 3ds.  

Bethesda made their textures in Photoshop like most artists do but they had baked normal maps and other textures created from a high poly model/scuplt. The high poly models were done in 3DS Max and ZBrush.

 

IS is right. For cloth and most fabrics the specular map should be very dark. But it's important that they are dark, because the spec map is what conveys the character of a material, and done poorly it's easy to make metal look like plastic, or cloth look like it was enchanted in Morrowind

Yep for cloth you want a dark specular map, same for an environment map to, though some lighter areas for dirt works well to. For any metal you might have use a very light specular map for a good shine and a darker environment map.