crysthala Posted September 12, 2009 Share Posted September 12, 2009 I might be interested in doing textures/retextures, but I was wondering a few things before I try to get into it. :sweat: They're probably noob questions, and I'm sorry if they are. :P Things are numbered because I love a well-written list, so here goes... 1. Photoshop is expensive as hell, and I'm not going to buy it just to retex for Morrowind/Oblivion. I do, however, have Macromedia Fireworks 8. Will that work, or do I absolutely have to use Photoshop? 2. According to some research I've done, you need a lot of programs to do texturing. What are these 800 programs supposed to do, and are they free? (A link to some good ones would be infinitely appreciated.) 3. How do the textures work? I figure it must be like a Christmas present, where the texture is wrapped around the mesh, because I can't see any other way for a 2D program to edit a 3D object. Or is that what one of the 800 programs you need is for? 4. How do you figure out where each part of the texture ends up on the mesh? For retextures, I don't foresee a problem, but how does this work from scratch? :thanks: for your time. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaosals42 Posted September 12, 2009 Share Posted September 12, 2009 I don't know really anything about texturing, but a great program for starters is really GIMP, which you can get right here from Tesnexus. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14920 That's about all I personally can give, but I hope it's a starting point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePearl Posted September 12, 2009 Share Posted September 12, 2009 We were all new once, don't be ashamed asking questions Actually you need 2 programs only for texturing. I use Photoshop CS4 and NifSkope (essential when it comes to models/textures) Photoshop has a .dds plugin that I use as well as a normal map filter (bump map) made by nVidia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaosals42 Posted September 12, 2009 Share Posted September 12, 2009 Epp... That reminds me. You also can use the DDS converter to change the format of your files from BMP, JPG (etc) to the DDS format, which is the only format Oblivion will use to read textures http://eliteforce2.filefront.com/file/DDS_Converter;29412 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dezdimona Posted September 12, 2009 Share Posted September 12, 2009 DxtBmp will also convert jpg's to .dds format for texturing ,it also is a freebie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pronam Posted September 12, 2009 Share Posted September 12, 2009 Fireworks has a bunch of nice possibilities as well.Gimp is a nice alternative. This article is a good one to look at when retexturing. To keep it simple..(hopefully)Textures are .dds files. They are how objects will look (in colors)Meshes are .nif files. They are how objects fit together. You change the .dds files as you said, they are the colors.The .nif files knows how the objects fits together and will fit the texture to it.See it like a gift with gift wrapping paper...the texture/gift wrapping paper , ready to to get on gift.As it has been done already, but unwrapped to see it in 2D.The mesh is the gift, but it still needs the gift wrapping paper and it knows how to do that! When you change textures that are already present....you don't need to do much trouble and you can change the colors..dds file are flat (2D) and can be changed in image-editors (gimp, photshop, fireworks).So it might look strange for the moment...and in the beginning you've got to guess what you're changing! New objects,You create the (3d) mesh/gift in a modeller-pogram and you use a gift wrapping paper /texture (or multiple) to create a nice color-touch to it.The gift will be exported/saved as a (3D).nif, the gift wrapping paper as the (2D).dds.So they are separated from the beginning.. How do you call that again? When the explanation gets more difficult than the real thing ;D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crysthala Posted September 13, 2009 Author Share Posted September 13, 2009 How do you call that again? When the explanation gets more difficult than the real thing ;D.It's fine, I think I get it. The texture is the present's wrapping paper, and the present is programmed to know where the corners go. :P Thanks for the help, guys. :thanks: I'll definitely need to practice before I release anything, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crysthala Posted September 14, 2009 Author Share Posted September 14, 2009 Well, fart in my face. I can't find an edition of NifSkope that works with 64-bit Vista. I tried to download it from SourceForge, but apparently, all the Vista-64 compatible versions there are are .rpms, which apparently are from RealPlayer. Which makes no sense. Is that some weird file format for compression I've never heard of before? If so, why the HELL would they release it as that instead of a nice, reasonable .exe like the other one? Can one of you really excessively nice people direct me to a working DL, pretty please? :unsure: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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