The art of texturing

[ataris2145]

I've read the stickied topics on modding, but I wanted a more specific help. I know how to mod Oblivion and how to manipulate textures, and I am experienced in scripting and modding for other games, although I've never tackled Oblivion because of the sheer effort involved and that I am in waiting for TES: V to begin modding this genre.

 

Anyways, one of things that I've never really figured how to do is texture. And the problem is that I have absolutely no idea what my goals are. At the moment I can select some things and change their color and attempt to manipulate a block of pixels into something somewhat realistic, but how do people manage full-scale, high-resolution texture packs like the type found so often in Oblivion? I am in such awe, and yet I cannot help but feel like there is a trick to it that I don't understand yet. So this is why I'm coming to the experienced for help.

 

There are no tutorials I can find on how to texture. I'm a pretty good artist with pencil, pen, paper, etc., but transferring that skill to the computer is something that I find difficult to do. Do I need a tablet? And is there software that you use to render large areas of pixels that I should consider acquiring? And, most importantly, what skill should I start practicing to get better? I'm assuming there are some key elements that should be mastered first before texturing is possible. Should I be experienced in drawing with the mouse like I can on paper? Should I work on color theory and individually making a color for every single pixel in a large block of texture? I don't know how the masters do it, and I'd like to know where to begin. They just don't have guides on this sort of thing, and I've looked for them.

 

Thank you all for any help and consideration, I know it's probably not worth your time, but any guidance would help me in getting some more experience. It is, after all, my idea to go into video game design in the future, and I need to start focusing on my skills now. Thanks!

[Pronam]

I am in waiting for TES: V to begin modding this genre.

You can wait for 1-2 years? I've modded the previous tes-game called morrowind and the CS didn't differ much from it. Their follow-up Fallout 3 and its Geck is pretty much just an upgraded version as oblivion CS was for the morrowind CS. It wouldn't hurt if you use any of their current editors. Like word...and editor stays an editor..it'll just have a set of new options and maybe a new interface (although that didn't happen with the beth-editors yet.).

 

People usually get it from sources of the web. These are either generated textures from photos or scratch and/or manipulated forms of these (usually a dozen layers on top of a photo). Barely anything is made from scratch as that is just really hard to do.

Personally I'm saving up for a tablet as I prefer drawing with something looking like a pencil instead of a mouse. Although it'll be difficult to move to it and I'll be bad with it once I obtained one....

For everyone it's different, some are used to a mouse, others aren't.

 

Here at the forums we distinguish two types of working with textures. (creating a) texture and retexturing. Basically you're always retexturing..but ah well. For the game it's texturing when you do something from scratch and retexturing when you alter the vanilla/current game textures.

 

One of my favourite sources is here, but there are countless of other and better places. (not always for free though.)

 

The best thing is just to try something out. Try a retex, I think you have OB so it wouldn't be difficult to start :smile:. there are countless of guides on the web and on the cswiki.