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Qworkshop3 Tutorials
| Making
and using you own textures |
Here is
how you do it...
 | Draw some
textures in a paint proggie.
| Save them as
32-bit TGA images.
| Make a new
folder in the Baseq3/textures folder and put
the TGAs in there.
| Run Q3r and
choose 'load from list' in the texture menu.
| Select your
folder from the list and click ok. Your folder
should now be visible in the texture menu.
| Make a level
with your new textures. |
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Try it. If your
first textures are anything like mine, they look
like shit (pardon my French) after the compile.
Planning.
Making textures at
random never works. Planning is vital to getting
good results, not only in texturing, but also in
most design or production situations. You probably
have an idea of what you want to result to look
like, and spending ten minutes with pen and paper
will save you a lot of trouble. There are a lot of
questions that will have to be answered either by
trial and error, or by thinking. You have to make
sure your textures fit together, and if you plan
to use the original textures yours must work with
them as well.
Creation.
When I am clear
about what it is I want to do, I load up PhotoShop
and get to work.128*128 pixels is usually a good
image size to start with.
Start with making
the most basic textures and get them done before
you go into the decorative ones. Decorations will
typically be based on, and fit seamlessly to a
simpler texture. Since the texture will be tiled
its important that there are no colored patterns
or high contrasts in the image. You should be able
to use a basic texture on stuff like floors and
big walls and patterns gets old quickly.
| I
like using 'noise' functions. The left
most image is plain noise. The one to the
right is the same noise processed though
some filters in PhotoShop. 'Emboss' and
'angled strokes' mostly. Kind of looks
like stone now don't you think? |
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| This
texture also begun as multicolored noise,
and now its some kind of dirt. The good
thing about making textures out of noise
is that they become seamless without you
even trying. This went trough the emboss
effect in Wally and then some color
manipulation in PhotoShop. Its a bit to
detailed to be of any real use though.
When you stand a bit away from it, it
looks plain brown. |
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Bricks and
other materials that tile 'naturally' are
great for textures. These begun as noise
as well, or rather the first brick did. I
then used Wally to get the tiling right.
Wally has a very useful function that
allows you to paint directly onto a tiled
image.
Then it was
back into PhotoShop to make the flower.
Once again, the wonderful filters of
PhotoShop makes it look like I know what
I'm doing. Making decorations such as
these should be done with care. The
flower, in this case, is purdy enough when
viewed from straight ahead, but will look
like a tattoo when you start to move
around.
Its also a
bit to detailed. When the game is on a
player will see a yellow brick wall,
something green and something red. Nobody
has the time to check out the details.
Stop and admire the flowers, why don't
you?
These
textures were originally done for a TFC DM
level called 'Garden of Serenity'.
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Before you begin
any bigger projects, you may want to take a good
look at the original textures for quake and other
games. You may notice that for every style there
are a lot of textures meant to be used around the
edges and along the tops of walls etc. You are
going to need such textures whether you think so
or not. They are important if you want to create
the illusion of a room. Not so much because they
make the room look more real in it self, but
because they help your graphics card/monitor
communicate with your eyes. As things are usually
moving rather fast, patterns or lines along top or
bottom of walls helps you to perceive depth and
motion.
You want for the
people who play your map to get sick, don't you?
Papa Bongo
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