Retexturing tutorial?

[mattias71]

hi, i am completely new to modding and texturing and stuff like that, but I was wondering if anyone could make a tutorial on how to texture or retexture the dds files in Dragon age using photoshop or even gimp... cause I would really love to make my own textures or retexture some of the armor and robes in Dragon age... but so far from searching on google and the rest of the internet, I have yet to find a tutorial for dragon age... :wallbash:

 

so if anyone could help me with this it would be a great help!... or if anyone knows of a good tutorial on this subject that would apply to dragon age then please leave a link... thanks alot! :thanks:

[bilwit]

Tall order, but maybe the easiest section of modding in my point of view.

 

Here are some pretty good tutorials. They might not be exactly specific to your purpose but the principles are still the same.

 

http://www.fpsbanana.com/tutcats/5

 

Since you said you're new to modding I'll assume that you don't know the absolute basics. The first thing you have to understand is that a model has to be UV mapped ("meshed") so that a texture can be applied to it. Depending on the quality of the mesh, parts of the texture map can be distorted and stretched out of proportion on the actual model when everything looks normal on the map -- this is why you always have to keep in mind and adjust to how your texture fits onto the model.

 

Actually obtaining the UV map so you know where you're texturing can be done in a couple ways: you can texture over an existing texture (but most of the time it's incoherent and you don't know exactly what is what) or you can extract the model and use a program like Lithunwrap to import the model and export the map.

 

As for the actual texturing, some of it's artistic scope and some of it's technique/procedural. Photoshop is pretty much the end-all/be-all of what you work with. Most of the things you need to know are in those tutorials but basically you have to make a base texture and then use the polygon-lasso selection tool to select parts and then use dodge and burn tools to manipulate it to make edges and all the details (the tutorials go more into detail). From there you can go more in-depth and add stuff like overlaying textures (like cloth) and dirt and up the lighting with contrast and such to bring it out.

 

I know that this post is pretty generally spoken but that's my best effort. Just remember to be patient and resilient with it.

[mattias71]

Thanks a lot for your reply... I"ll check out the tut you posted now... :biggrin: I"m also pretty new to photoshop myself... but I'll try and find some tuts for that on the web... but again thanks for your help... it's highly appreciated...! :thumbsup: