Your first step in painting any texture
map which is designed to fit a particular
object should be to grab yourself a shape
template to work from. To do this, load
the spline cage for the gravity drive
fin into a fresh layer in Modeler.
Select or press d to
access the display options. Turn off visibility
for everything except Curves.
Exit the window and arrange the Modeler
views so that you have a good view of
the side of the fin. This image shows
the kind of view you need from a display
resolution of 1024x768.
When you grab a shape template, there is
nothing worse than having too much information
in your screen grab to confuse you. That
is why we hid the grid and points etc.
in Modeler. Now, select all the splines
that do not help define the edges of the
shape in the side view and Hide
them (press the minus key).
You now need to screen-grab the Modeler
screen. In Windows this is very easy.
With the window selected, simply press
Print Screen on your keyboard (yes,
that key up at the top that you never
thought you'd use...) This will place
an image of the screen into the clipboard.
Next, you need to load Photoshop or your
chosen Paint package and open a New image.
In Photoshop, the New Image requestor
automatically reads what is stored in
the Clipboard and gives you pixel dimensions
for the new image accordingly. If your
software does not have this capability,
simply create a new 24-bit image with
the same dimensions as your screen resolution
(eg. 800x600).
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| New
dialog box in Photoshop |
Once the new image has been created, a
simple Paste should be all that
is necessary to plonk your screengrab
into the new image. If you are using software
that is capable of using Layers, such
as Photoshop, you will now need to flatten
the layers so that your screen grab becomes
the background layer. In Photoshop, select
.
You now need to carefully crop the image
so that there is no border around the
shape that we want to work with. This
will make fitting the texture map to the
model in Lightwave much easier
later on, and saves valuable memory.
Finally, create a new layer, on which you
will paint. This leaves our template safely
underneath so that we can refer back to
it if we need to.
Save this image somewhere safe.
This next section should have dealt
with how to create the underlying wave
texture for all the Whitestar texture
maps.
Basically, the image was created using
Kai's Power Tools' Texture Explorer...
but unfortunately, I'm buggered if I can
remember how. My best suggestion is, have
a fiddle and see how the system works,
then swear at it for being so uncooperative
and use the file called WS3.6 Wave
Texture.jpg which is included with
my Whitestar v3.6 archive.
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| WS3.6
Wave Texture.jpg |
If you don't have Kai's Power Tools, or
you just can't get the blasted thing to
do anything right, feel free to use the
version from my Whitestar. However, if
you do have it, and you manage to get
a result which looks like this one, please
let me know! The image should be about
300x300 pixels.
After you have had a stiff drink while
you are recovering from using Texture
Explorer, it's back to the main Photoshop
window to get painting.
With the empty layer selected for painting,
fill the entire layer with black using
the Paint Bucket tool. From now
on, I will call this layer Layer 1.
Create another new layer on top of this
one. I will call this Layer 2.
You should now have a Background Layer
containing your screen grab, Layer
1 should be the next layer, and should
be entirely black. Layer 2 should
be the top layer.
Either change the opacity of, or hide Layer
1 so that you can see through to the
Background Layer.
Pick a big fat brush with a hard edge,
and change the colour that you will paint
with to 198,195,204 (RGB).
After ensuring that you have Layer
2 selected for painting, proceed to
paint over the area represented by the
outline of the fin. Forget everything
that your school teachers told you about
keeping inside the lines, you need to
paint well over the lines.This
is because there is nothing worse than
painting a texture map and then finding
that when you apply it to your model you
can see bits of the backgroundc olour
showing at the edges of the model.
This image shows what you should end up
with.
This image shows the current state of the
layers palette in Photoshop, in case you
are a bit confused about what I'm talking
about.
Save your image as Rear_Fin.psd.
We must now add the distinctive wave texture
to our texture map. In Photoshop, this
is achieved by using the Clone
(Rubber Stamp) tool.
Create another new layer: Layer 3
and load the wave texture image into Photoshop.
You should now have both Rear_Fin.psd
and WS3.6 Wave Texture.jpg open
in Photoshop.
Select the wave texture image, and using
the Rubber Stamp tool, hold down ALT and
left-click on the center of the image.
This defines the cloning source
for the tool. Before you go any further,
check the options for the Rubber Stamp
tool, and ensure that 'Aligned' is turned
on. This sets the tool so that all subsequent
brush strokes use the area of the source
image that is relatively aligned to where
you paint on the destination.
Reselect Rear_Fin.psd and turn off
visibility for Layer 1 and Layer
2. Select Layer 3 for painting,
and stamp down a blotch of paint using
the Rubber Stamp right in the middle of
the fin outline. You should see an area
of the wave texture painted where you
placed the paint.
Select a large, very soft edged brush and
continue painting. Paint all over the
fin, leaving a soft-edged border around
the edges as shown in the picture below.
(NB: The following images are reduced
to 32 colours to keep your downloading
times down, yours should look much better.)
It is very possible that you may 'run out
of source image' while you are painting
with the texture. If this happens, return
to the wave texture image and ALT-click
again in the middle of the image, then
go back to the fin image and paint onto
the problem area.
All the textures on the White Star are
created using this same technique. They
also all have some stripes painted on
them to give a more flattering pattern
on the bodywork. These stripes are very
easy to create.
Choose the Eraser tool, and pick
a brush of about 13 pixels diameter, with
soft edges. Now carefully erase areas
of the texture on Layer 3 to create
fine lines as shown below.
Save the image at this point, overwriting
Rear_Fin.psd. This file should
be retained in case you ever want to alter
the image.
Turn on visibility for all four layers,
and you should be left with what is essentially
the finished texture map.
Flatten the layers and save the image into
your Content directory as WS_Fin.tga (or
similar) for later use on the model.
This image shows the six texture maps that
you must paint. What you are looking at
here are the actual maps created
by Foundation Imaging for the White Star.
They have been severely scaled down as
the images are not for public distribution.
The actual maps used are far larger, for
example, the upper hull map measures 260
x 1681 pixels. Float your pointer over
one of the maps to see the actual dimensions
of the full-scale images. Thanks must
go to Ron Thornton for sending me the
full-scale images.
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