Tutorials:TS3 HTMG ChapG TexturingGimp

G. Texture me beautiful

Interdependency

G1. If you have been paying attention, (Class, what is our next step?), I have moved the steps around a bit from DeluxeDesign's tutorial, because these next 3 steps (sections G, H & I) are interwoven as they are dependent upon each other. So, we will proceed to tweaking some textures before we start on our mesh.

Image naming conventions

G2. Understanding naming conventions of the *.dds images (00B2D882 is the _IMG tag's TypeID for dds images):

Main texture of the mesh

1. S3_00B2D882_00000000_<your instance ID>_<resource hashed object name with _m_ in the middle>_IMG.dds
   
   
2. It is an RGBA mode image in shades of gray (aka a grayscale image).
   
   
3. Untick alpha layer in View → bump map in grayscale to view the image.
   
   
4. Sometimes has a matching "cousin" for its specular (shininess) – see next entry.

Specular

1. S3_00B2D882_00000000_<your instance ID>_<resource hashed object name with _s_ in the middle>_IMG.dds
   
   
2. the hashed value matches your main mesh's DDS image above
   
   
3. no need to untick alpha layer in View → specular in grayscale

PartMask

1. S3_00B2D882_00000000_<your instance ID>_<resource hashed object name with _m_ in the middle>_IMG.dds
   
   
2. untick alpha layer in View → RGB part mask – in blocks of Red, Green, Blue → determines CaST recolorable parts. In this case, this dining table has 2 recolorable parts. The Red part is the top most entry in CaST screen, then Green is the 2^nd and so on.
   
   
3. Objects without this are non-CaSTable – example: the Smoke Alarm, the stairs and fences, etc
   
   

DropShadow

1. determines shadow of object indoors, coupled with "group00" of MLOD "00000" mesh and package resource GroupID "10000" – for this dining table object; different objects have different groupings in Milkshape.
2. determines sunshadow of object outdoors coupled with of MDOL "10000" mesh and package resource GroupID "10001" and some mathematical calculation depending on the time of day and position of the Sun, done in-game. See Errata added below.
3. untick alpha layer in View → blobs of grayscale shapes

Errata: Sorry, this paragraph was copied in error, the information has already been mentioned in Chapter E: Extracting section. ~added by Ellacharm3d 04:25, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Overlay

(to be added)

Note: Depending on the object you choose to clone, different object categories will have different naming conventions for the _IMG resource items. It is best to view all the _IMG resource items before you export any to see which needs modification for your project.

G3. Prepping the stage for UV mapping, we first need to manipulate the bump map – the main texture for our object and copy the changes to the specular, too. Note that in Gimp, the alpha channel has full transparent pixels in Black and full opaque pixels in White.

G4. Load the dds (one at a time) into Gimp (or your image editing software), with the following options and make these changes to each image.

Tip: If we're being lazy, we can just reuse the main texture, but save as – give a new meaningful name (still in .xcf format) and use the Color Picker and apply the specular's colors to it (which is what I did with the resultant picture above) or adjust its contrast and brightness etc etc. Yes, yes, I keep this to the last step because I'm ebil mwahha ha, but practice makes perfect. No, really, adjusting it might not give the same effect as extracting bits of the original. You can experiment to see what works and what doesn’t for yourself. Doing that is beyond the scope of this tutorial.

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Questions? Problems?

• If you encounter any problems with the steps outlined in this tutorial and need help, head on over to the Step-by-step Start-to-Finish HowTo mesh guide for TS3 thread to post your questions or

• If you need help in fixing your mesh, you may want to browse through our TS3 Meshing FAQs for some of the more common Meshing issues and their fixes or

• If none of the above links provided any help, you may want to browse through the threads in MTS' Meshing Forum or even start your own thread.

			TS3 HTMG ChapG TexturingGimp

			TS3 HTMG ChapG TexturingGimp