Using GIMP to create custom textures Created 18 years ago2006-05-27 14:48:15 UTC by Psycho

I kind of need help to learn how to make my own custom textures (I know how to convert them to source and such).

Does anyone use GIMP to make them, and does anyone have any useful tutorials or tips?

I never used gimp, and never will, I'm a photoshop fan.. sorry

I use gimp to create textures.

What exactly is the problem?

How do I make textures?

What process do I have to go through?

whats gimp?

GNU Image Manipulation Program.
Like photoshop, only open-source and less user-friendly.

Um...

Load the texture into gimp.
Do any manipulation you want to do.
Go Save as, and save as a tga.
convert to vtf.

Thats all there is to it.

No shit? I mean, how to you add details such as scratches and dirt?

(Btw, using PS now)

you MAKE them

Shut up, hunter, thats not helpfull at all. He DOESN'T know how to make them. Look at pixel2life(link page) you might find a trick that will help you make your texture. That site has nothing to do with mapping so don't search for something like: 'making textures for the source engine'. Search for 'scretch marks' or something like that.

Do a search for texture tutorials or sites from texture artists. What also helps is looking at reference photographs and studying other textures. It will take some time before you get the hang of it though.

Anyway, what I usually do when creating textures is:
1. Collecting (lots of) reference images.
2. Creating a basic shape image, usually just a black 'n white line-drawing.
3. Creating a basic color image, layering it over the line-drawing.
4. Adding a greyscale relief image, to add depth. I often save this as another file for convenience.
5. Adding detail, refining the texture. Uses a wide array of brushes, effects and what not.
6. Testing. And untill I'm satisfied with the result, I go back to step 5 again and again.

You're probably going to experiment a lot to find out what brush and what effect suit what particular material best. Also, some people start with photographs as a base for their textures, others (like me) go for totally hand-drawn. That depends on what style you're aiming for.
I would advise you to just try something and be critical on your work (and ask others). You'll learn.

Cpt P: Submit a tutorial on it .

Or use a camera to take a picture, and edit it in PS.

Why not DL photoshop with a crack? Torrent, file sharing, etc...

Oops I said too much......

I didnt say anything at all. Someone hacked my post and wrote that.

(Btw, using PS now)

/ Owned

Anyway Google has some great texture tutorials and 'Images' has easy textures to start with.

Ya, thanks for help.

Here's my first texture. Made by scratch btw

If the motion blur wasnt so much, it'd be great.

Doesn't look bad for a first one, not at all.

One problem with it, and I've had it myself before, is that the wood relief continues at the edges, while there's little wood left there to show relief. This occurs especially at the left and right of your texture but also a bit between the planks, vertically seen.
The dark spots are nice, but on real wood the relief would curve around it. The color makes the wood look 'wet', too. A lighter color would suit better I think, depending on what sort of wood you need. More variation in both color and relief would improve the texture, anyway.

But, again, good work for a first texture.

thanks, got any ideas for what else I could try and create?

i making a quick tutorial...

Use this as your base.Most of my texture looks like this in the beginning. I'll show you how to spice it up.

Search google or grab a camera and find a basic surface type. Can be anything really. We'll use this crete texture. I already made it grayscale by going to IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > DESATURATE (CTRL+SHIST+U)We'll copy and paste this ontop and change its layer mode to OVERLAY. To get to your layers if they aren't already on the screen, click WINDOW > LAYERS (F7)

In the upper left corner of the layers window, there is a drop down. Its usually set to NORMAL, change this to SOFT LIGHT and you'll see what it does. It should look like this.It's cool, but not nearly complete. Patience.
Next we will contrast it so that it look right when lighting hits it. Right now, it feels light.

In the layers window, select your grayscale overlay. Press CTRL+J to clone it. Or, on the menu bar, click LAYER > DUPLICATE LAYER and click OK.

With the clone layer, change it layer render mode to OVERLAY and it'll automatically and naturally tone your texture.DifferenceLooks like this when its lined up.

Now its really cool, but we're still not done yet.

The Left and right edge of your texture are not tiling. To see if they do or not, on the menu bar click FILTERS > OTHER > OFFSET and type in half your dimensions into the number boxes. Half of 512 is 256. This will place your edges in the center.Puke.

Lets get rid of this.

On the tool pallette, there is a brush called THE HEAL BRUSH. This is your best friend. It looks like a band-aid and its left of the regular paint brush. Click it and Alt click where you want to sample to patch up your seems.Once your done, offset you texture back to normal and your good to format it!

End Product:

Rimrook, I demand you make a nice long tutorial on creating textures using methods like this, and submit it!

btw: thats Photoshop, right?
I'm clueless at Photoshop, I can use paint much more efficiently
That's pretty sad...

Crap... I found a mistake in the tutorial. I skipped a step.

Before the part where your contrast it, you need to Flatten the image by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+E

Clone THAT layer and make it grayscale with CTRL+SHIFT+U and change it to OVERLAY rendermode.

wew....

@Penguinboy
I'm not sure if everyone has Photoshop. Seventh needs to make a poll for that so we can get an accurate number. If not too many have photoshop, what's the point?

Rimrook, I demand you make a nice long tutorial on creating textures using methods like this, and submit it!

YES PLEASE! Rim For Teh Win!

I hate Photoshop too, but i would to try it with your texture tutorial. It would be very welcome.

hmm. i guess i will afterall. I have some free time so i might start on it soon.

Rim For Teh Win!

I feel fuzzy inside

Yay!

i'll try to put it as easy as possible like this tutorial. This method here really is the easiest and most versitile way. I turned concrete into wood! Could be tiles, bricks, a window frame, etc.

The key is to get a good stock of overlays. I use alot of the HL2 textures now, but they don't replace the onces i ganked off of google and the ones i've taken with my camera. The one in the example is a camera texture.

Anyone who makes textures has Photoshop, Rimrook, it's a given.

Teh pro!

you're right. it is kinda standard, isn't it. Like i said, i'll be getting around to it soon.

Well, if you just could explain how most used filters/techniques for creating HL textures work...

Nice tut... really easy to use. Looks like I'm not so bad with photoshop, I just didn't know anything about the refrence pic. Now I don't need anybody's help, I already knew how to make gold textures, and not thanks to you rimrook.

Wow, thanks for the tut. I'll try it out now

Here's my final product!

http://img307.imageshack.us/img307/4487/ceilingwood1copy7lv.jpg

pretty close. Look at the left and right seems again, i don't think they tile yet. Other than that, that's an awsome job!

Thanks

How would I correct this image to make it tileable? How would I fix the lighting and such?

http://www.buechelstone.com/images/stoneSelector/Grey-Cobble-Creek.jpg

Use the offset filter and move the edges to the center of the image. Use the heal brush to carefully connect the grooves and detail of the stones.

EDIT: it's not a hard image to fix, you should be able to do it. I'll do it too and compare.

Hows this?

http://img350.imageshack.us/img350/6852/wall4xg.jpg

Its mirrored.

At Rim: What version of Photoshop do you use?

I use Photoshop CS

SeemedDocteredAs you can see, i left my seems in the center of the image so you can see them. I sampled the cracks with the heal brush and painted them in. Also, I toned it but i didn't normalize it, so the bottom part is darker.

How did you sample the cracks? I always end up with some of it and a bit of the stone it came from..

decrease the brush size maybe...
with the heal brush selected, right click on the canvas and a brush options dialog will show up. you can change and switch your brush strokes from there. this works with most of the tools.

Bah I couldnt be assed. It really is too tedious. The fact that the image size isnt to the power of 2 isnt really helpful either.

mmm.... just work it and resize when your done. when shrunk and it turns out blurry some how, sharpen it with the sharpen filter. You'll know when its oversharpened because it looks shitty.

Yeah, well im freezing to death here ^^

I'll probably attempt it later when I'm warmed up a bit.

Well, I took your hints and tips and came up with this beauty.

http://killthecamper.tjbp.net/coolasslogo.jpg

Pretty good huh?

EDIT: Maybe this looks better?

http://killthecamper.tjbp.net/coolasslogo2.jpg

That concrete texture is amazing, you can make anything look good.

That concrete is just a photo Zl, he uses it as a mixing layer to give it some texture. I use that a lot to when creating textures.

Here's a new decal I made for my map.

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/930/signfincopy0vc.jpg