LE Need help for texturing

[Zanzania]

I wanted to make a wheellock musket for Skyrim, and I got as far as making the model, but then texturing is something I'm just no good at. ><''

 

So I'd appreciate it if anyone could help me out by texturing it. I'll definitely give you credit when (if) I upload this on the nexus! =D

 

EDIT: File was too big for Nexus forums, so here is the model: http://www.filedropper.com/musketmesh

Edited May 9, 2014 by Zanzania

[Matth85]

I am not going to texture for you, as you will never learn that way -- but I will offer to help you.

First of all, I need to see the picture of the model and know how much you know when it comes to texturing.

[Zanzania]

That's great as well!

 

I did not really refer to any specific picture, I more or less did the stock and barrel from a Brown Bess carbine, made the lock separately and stuck it on. I just want to go for a general wood grain sort of texture for the stock and a metallic sort of texture for the lock and barrel.

 

As for how much I know of texturing...Not a lot, I'm afraid. I tried looking at tutorials, but the GIMP version I have doesn't seem to allow for Alpha mapping. I can do everything up to UV mapping and that's where I'm stumped.

[Matth85]

Okay, for starter, this is my general wokflow when it comes to texturing:

 

1) I bake out a normals map and a specularity map. I use the normals map to create a Cavity.

2) I use the cavity and specularity as a "base" for the difuse.

3) I block in the colors I want. I choose a darker version of the color I want. So brownish for wood, grayish with a blue tint for metal.

4) I hand paint darker areas and lighter areas. Just to give the eyes something to look at. The values are slightly lighter, and darker, of the base color.

5) I add designs, if I want any. Such an engravings and what-not.

6) I get photos. Generally ones I have taken myself, or they are royalty free. I overlay them above everything, set their opacity down quite a lot, and play with some values.

7) I add a scratch/dirt pass. Some areas get more damaged than others.

 

Overall, the difuse map(The color) is not too hard. The metalis especially "bland", since there is no reason to make metal hyper-detailed. It will be eaten by the specularity and reflection anyways.

 

8 For the specularity, I will take the difuse color map, grayscale it and play with values. Trying to get some interesting values popping. Dark means it will not shine, white means it will shine a lot.

9) Then, if I got metal, I will make the reflection map based off of the specularity map. I will black our any leather/wood areas, and lighten the map a tiny bit.

10) I take the metal overlay, and whatever details I have added, to a seperate layer, get some good contrast values going and I generate a normal map from it, which I overlay on top of my baked one.

11) done.

 

So, taking it a step at a time, for the color map I would: Block out the colors --> detail each part individually --> overlay with images

[Zanzania]

Thanks for the help! I managed to come up with the maps needed, but now I have a problem when I import the .nif into Creation Kit. The preview window shows the model with a black texture. Can anyone help me with figuring out what's wrong? I've tried copying the values from dwarvencrossbow.nif (Using that as a template), but it doesn't seem to be working. ><''