Skills needed to make quality mods

[Mansh00ter]

@mdale13

 

While I certainly agree that Photoshop or a similar program is indispensable when it comes to texture creation, I wouldn't dismiss ZBrush as a texturing tool of choice. With a good set of base textures to blend and mix, you can practically avoid using Photoshop altogether - I use Photoshop to finalize textures and tweak them if needed, especially when it comes to channel editing, but hardly even touch it before that. Polypainting is simply more intuitive, allows a greater degree of control over detail (especially when it comes to normal maps) and is even faster. Plus, if you set up your models right, it gets rid of 98% seams between UV groups automatically. So I think its definitely worth checking out for more than just sculpting.

 

The only annoyance is that ZBrush doesn't work with UV overlaps. It is possible to work around that, be it by symmetrizing the model afterwards, using multiple materials and UV sets or displacing UV groups into their separate texture spaces, which may require more of less work depending on the kind of model used. But the end result, in my opinion, tends to be superb to Photoshopped textures in every aspect, so if someone is interested in making top quality texture work, I'd say *definitely* check out polypainting and ZBrush.

[dmtzcain]

I appreciate everyone’s the advice. The list of things needed to succeed is growing, but I got the patience and dedication. Just started to learn Blender and find it really interesting. (My first human model)

 

A game asset inserted in a videogame from a third party could be called a mod, but I think mdale13 is right; it’s time to start using a precise terminology.

Maybe surfing the request forums might be a good way to practice.

[dmtzcain]

The tools available for texturing, modeling, etc. differ in quality only at the highest level of results. In my perspective, there are far more “human” obstacles (like “talent” or lack of time/practice, motivation, etc.) to achieve a good work than the obstacles the tools might impose.

 

For example: There are some amazing things done with MS Paint and the difference between Paint and Photoshop is abysmal.

[Mansh00ter]

The tools available for texturing, modeling, etc. differ in quality only at the highest level of results. In my perspective, there are far more “human” obstacles (like “talent” or lack of time/practice, motivation, etc.) to achieve a good work than the obstacles the tools might impose.

 

For example: There are some amazing things done with MS Paint and the difference between Paint and Photoshop is abysmal.

 

That's true to an extent, but as soon as you get around to creating larger volumes of material, you notice that some tools save time and some don't. So picking the right tool for the job is equally important, otherwise you will end up wasting a lot of time trying to get the same level of quality with an inferior tool.

 

Oh yeah, which brings me to the pro tip of the day - learn shortcuts, for whatever tool you end up using. I primarily model in XSI and I hardly even click buttons anymore. Saves a TON of time.