Retexturing Made Easy with Photoshop

[Site Bot]

Article link: Retexturing Made Easy with Photoshop

 

Here's a cheap, simple way to retexture armor (or anything really) in Photoshop. The results can range from awful to awesome depending on your skill level and the time you take. Make sure you have the Photoshop DDS plugin from NVIDIA (available here) because it makes retexturing SO MUCH EASIER. Also, umm, you'll need to have Adobe Photoshop installed, of course.

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1228506626.jpg

1) Open the DDS file you want to retexture

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1228506644.jpg

2) Image > Adjustments > Desaturate

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1228506665.jpg

3) Save the file as a PSD (I recommend ITEMNAME_dis.psd as this will be your displacement map).

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1228506721.jpg

4) Edit > Undo (to reverse the desaturation)

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1228506735.jpg

5) Create a new layer - let's call it Texture Layer

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1228506781.jpg

6) Fill the Texture Layer with the texture you want on the armor

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1228506821.jpg

7) Make sure the Texture Layer is highlighted in the layers palette and change the blending mode to Overlay (you can also try Lighten, Linear Dodge, etc to get the look you want)

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1228506832.jpg

8) Change the opacity of the Texture Layer to fine-tune the look

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1228506852.jpg

9) With the texture layer highlighted in the layers palette, go to Filter > Distort > Displace

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1228506866.jpg

10) Use the following settings: 10, 10, Stretch to Fit, Repeat Edge Pixels

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1228506886.jpg

11) Click OK and then browse to your ITEMNAME_dis.psd file

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1228506930.jpg

12) Your Texture Layer will warp to better fit your armor (or weapon, item, etc)

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1228506942.jpg

13) Erase any areas you do not wish to be retextured

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1228506956.jpg

14) The retexture is ready: save as a DDS and test it in-game

[Damanique]

This tutorial was great and helped me a lot, since I'm brand new to modding and editing textures. Thanks a lot!

 

What might be worth mentioning, is the format in which to open and save the DDS file. Using the Nvidia Photoshop plugin, you have to open the original texture with 'default' settings, and you have to save it as 'DXT5' with the options '2D Texture' and 'Generate MIP maps: All'. This might be obvious to experienced modders, but trickier for newbies. ;)

[Syntax1985]

when applying a complete whole new texture to a model, i find it easier to duplicate the orginal layer, then desaturate the new layer, then lighten till the outlines of "segments" are clearly visible, cut out the segmants, and Viola! you have a template with the original for reference.

[mightygazelle]

Reasonably helpfull tutorial, although I already know all about using photoshop so those parts were less helpfull. The real credit goes to Damanique whose helpfull comment gave me the specific information that I was looking for in regards to the saving settings.

 

Thanks to both of you :)

 

Now I need to find the correct settings for the normal maps.

Edited February 12, 2009 by mightygazelle

[L0stOn3]

"before any of your custom textures will show up, replacing defaults, you have to enable your fallout3 ini file to tell Fallout3 to 'ignore older files' This will basically instruct the game to pay attention and if newer textures (ones you made yourself) are supposed to be used, it will use those, instead of going back and using its own default textures.

 

this is done by modifying your Fallout3.ini file in documents/mygames/fallout3/ or whatever, theres an INI file. open it in notepad, to a search in notepad for 'older' and then eventually you should find a line saying something like 'ignoreolderfiles 0' change the 0 to a 1. (0 being false, 1 being true)" quote Skree000

[gardonajarro]

thanks man 4 the tuto, but the mayor problem was the save format, add the valuable information that gave to us damanique... thanks guys...

[JER01]

This has ended lots of problems :)

[slayer1o7]

help i have a mac where do i get the add-on

[Rage912]

It say it cannot open the DDs becasue its not the right kina document?

[LHammonds]

NVidia Plugins for Photoshop

 

FYI - The plugins are probably only for the 32-bit (x86) version of Photoshop. Installing them to the folder where the 64-bit (x64) version resides will probably do nothing.