Texture Questions

[Rixirite]

Hey, i am a beginner at texturing and i was thinking of doing a project where i take Power armor and make a non-replacer texture of nuka cola themed power armor. Currently i have unpacked the bsa and grab the power armor files but i am confused which ones i need to work on.

 

There is

powerarmorbody.dds

powerarmorbody_n.dds

 

I am going to use GIMP to do the art, but what should i convert the textures to? What would be the best thing for me to do with them? I was thinking Jpeg.

Do i need to touch and edit Powerarmorbody_n? The image looks like it isn't meant for texture editing.

 

Also, please understand i have read and searched out these tutorials first before writing this, the only reason i have made it this far is because i read the tutorials, i just need some essential information and guidance if any of your texture artists can simply give some.

 

 

The tutorials i see use Photoshop, so if i were to use gimp would there be any setbacks to doing the texture?

 

Also the Texture image is all gray with the armor components visible. If i am to take this image and make it Nuka-Cola themed, do i simply edit the gray to be a Brownish-red?

[Quetzlsacatanango]

The _n file is the normal map. You probably don't need to edit it.

I would think GIMP has a .dds plugin so you don't need to convert anything. I really don't know why you would want to use something with such high compression like .jpg anyway. I know photoshop has a .dds plugin and it works just fine.

[neunen]

gimp .dds plugin:

http://nifelheim.dyndns.org/~cocidius/dds/

save as a DXT5 when youre done (or DXT3 works too)

 

as Quetzl mentioned above; you wont need to edit the _n.dds unless you want to change the way light reflects off of it (ie if you add any new visual things like screws, scratches etc)

[Rixirite]

Ok, i did all my coloring for the armor, it is a red-tinted theme for the Nuka Cola theme.

 

I also put the Nuka Cola logo on the front Plater of the armor.