Learning Texture Creation for Fallout 4

[fftfan]

Anyone know of any good Photoshop tutorial series to recommend?

What I am going to do:
1. Check out ZBrush tutorials cause I really like Arrimus 3D, and try to see if it can do texturing start to finish(I know the main usage is sculpting and there are things in the program to paint the stuff you sculpted).
2. If not, I'll go check out Substance Painter some more. UV Reprojection is definitely cool and this seems like a dedicated games texturing program so there's a good chance I'll like this program.
3. If anyone suggests good Photoshop tutorials I'll check those out. If not, it's probably time to say the program isn't for me as far as creating textures from scratch goes. I've done some recolors but TBH in some ways I prefer GIMP for that.
4. Going to check out the trial versions, ZBrush & Substance Painter first. I'll choose a texturing program.

I want to pick one program that works for me and just stick with it. I spent a lot of time learning Blender, would have been a lot better off just going with 3DS right from the start so I don't want to waste time. Problem with Blender is it doesn't have good UV map system, lack of features to help with more complex stuff and of course the lack of Nif Scripts for Skyrim/Fallout 4/I assume all future Bethesda games too. I've probably spent about 100 hours with Blender over the years which feels largely wasted and I feel like if I'd gone 3DS Max instead I'd have done the same things only with less difficulty, likely already made new stuff and possibly uploaded it. I basically had to just cut my losses with any time investment into Blender, so I'm really hoping to avoid that sort of thing happening again. If ZBrush won't work for me then I'm probably going with Substance Painter.

It's also kind of funny but I missed a bunch of other playlists on Arrimus 3D. I guess I am not used to this 4K monitor TBH, as it's a fairly new PC and previously I had a 1366x768 fairly small laptop. He has a couple of videos on a program called Mudbox. And he does cover some ZBrush texturing, a few videos on Polypaint.

The easiest way to accomodate concepting like that would be to just apply a basic material to your objects. I think the material is called Physical Material or something in 3ds max. There's a Standard one there also. You can apply that and a diffuse color without UV unwrapping, since it's generated through the shader.

Nice! That will be very useful.

[ehtyeci]

I want to pick one program that works for me and just stick with it. I spent a lot of time learning Blender, would have been a lot better off just going with 3DS right from the start so I don't want to waste time. Problem with Blender is it doesn't have good UV map system, lack of features to help with more complex stuff and of course the lack of Nif Scripts for Skyrim/Fallout 4/I assume all future Bethesda games too. I've probably spent about 100 hours with Blender over the years which feels largely wasted and I feel like if I'd gone 3DS Max instead I'd have done the same things only with less difficulty, likely already made new stuff and possibly uploaded it. I basically had to just cut my losses with any time investment into Blender, so I'm really hoping to avoid that sort of thing happening again. If ZBrush won't work for me then I'm probably going with Substance Painter.

 

Aw man. I love my Blender. UV could use some love, but once you know its ins and outs, you can get anything done. Or just screw it and use Smart Project. Blender is like chrome or firefox. It gets better with all the addons. 2.8 is even due this spring, can't wait to model with Eevee.

Have you tried target welding vertices in 3ds max? I mean, I love Arrimus' tutorials, he's a fountain of knowledge, but it's painful to watch him doing simple retopo / cleaning up tris, precision mouse movements to get the right selection or pulling down menus to access a function that Blender already has hotkeyed. It annoys me as a Blender user.

 

Blender may not have have an "Arrimus 3D", but damn, we do have masterxeon1001 and Gleb.

[fftfan]

Aw man. I love my Blender. UV could use some love, but once you know its ins and outs, you can get anything done. Or just screw it and use Smart Project. Blender is like chrome or firefox. It gets better with all the addons. 2.8 is even due this spring, can't wait to model with Eevee.

UV Map kept giving me nonsense output regardless of seam arrangement. I even tried just unwrapping primitives and it often just gives me literally all UV squares taking up full area meaning it just gave every face the whole area.

But maybe it's just the version I had, stuck with 2.49b because it had the import/export scripts. I didn't know new version was coming, I wonder if it might get Nif support?

 

Have you tried target welding vertices in 3ds max? I mean, I love Arrimus' tutorials, he's a fountain of knowledge, but it's painful to watch him doing simple retopo / cleaning up tris, precision mouse movements to get the right selection or pulling down menus to access a function that Blender already has hotkeyed. It annoys me as a Blender user.

I'm still early along, though I have seen him do it couple of times.

 

Or just screw it and use Smart Project. Blender is like chrome or firefox. It gets better with all the addons. 2.8 is even due this spring, can't wait to model with Eevee.

I didn't know about the addons although maybe that's where the bone weight copy I used came from?

[ehtyeci]

UV Map kept giving me nonsense output regardless of seam arrangement. I even tried just unwrapping primitives and it often just gives me literally all UV squares taking up full area meaning it just gave every face the whole area.

When every square and triangle overlap eachother, it means the mesh hasn't been unwrapped, only mapped. It sounds like you used 2.49b. Let it die :tongue:

 

I didn't know about the addons although maybe that's where the bone weight copy I used came from?

Yeah, that was before they made it a native function in later versions.

 

I wonder if it might get Nif support?

 

Not likely. It's been quiet on github with the last commit 7 months ago and last release over double that. However, the latest NifSkope added support for importing OBJ meshes, so I don't even need to open 3ds max for nif export anymore.

[fftfan]

When every square and triangle overlap eachother, it means the mesh hasn't been unwrapped, only mapped. It sounds like you used 2.49b. Let it die :tongue:

Indeed I was using 2.49b and it was pretty awful outside of being easy to use. I did most stuff without tutorials except for Nif Import/Export & Bone Weight Copy(which included download for the addon itself).

 

I can say for sure that I'm never going back to Blender 2.49b. When I'd built my PC in the fall I literally chose to just start over and go to 3DS Max.

 

 

I didn't know about the addons although maybe that's where the bone weight copy I used came from?

Yeah, that was before they made it a native function in later versions.

 

Well that is certainly good. I can't imagine trying to weight paint manually.

 

Not likely. It's been quiet on github with the last commit 7 months ago and last release over double that. However, the latest NifSkope added support for importing OBJ meshes, so I don't even need to open 3ds max for nif export anymore.

I remember seeing that github after I built my new PC. I just assumed it probably have meant that they stopped development on Blender altogether. After all wouldn't TES/Fallout be the main attraction for people to get and learn Blender since it is the free option for those who want to create their own stuff? The people who do professional work like game development or animation like Pixar will likely use 3DS Max, Maya or maybe ZBrush.

 

Now I am feeling I am about as good with 3DS as I was with Blender. The only thing I miss a lot is the the falloff circle like when you scale/move/rotate vertices you can use the falloff circle to also affect surrouding unselected vertices near those which you've selected and use mouse wheel to affect how much they get changed. It is good for keeping things closer to the original shape/proportions for when you do have to adjust the model.

 

I would do conversion of outfit for different body type and Scale/Move/Rotate with falloff is mostly what I used.

[fftfan]

Thank you for your posts, ehtyeci. this has given me a lot to think about.

 

It sounds like Substance Painter might be the program I am after. I will give it some thought and consider buying a license!