Adobe Photoshop Help: Basic skinning-level 1 Ok, this will be work in progress, I will not be able to write everything up at once. I was thinking what unit to pick up for training, decided to use my MiG 19. I know, not WWII but will help you out how to take and pack things up. By take I mean take original BK skins, edit them and use them on the model. Before start: this tutorial is how to make skins from start, not to edit already made skin, will make one for that later on. First, you will need to download this pack under as it will help you out to follow this step by step.
MiG_19 Resources
Ok, download it and extract on the desktop. In it you have 1.mod and UV in TGA format. Now, some smartass will ask me: why TGA format. Well, I intended this tutorial for those who just made model and want to skin it.
Now, let's start. Open skin in Adobe Photoshop...you can see gray background and white lines. They are actually UV parts of model(will be painted). Now(I know, I know, I keep repeating "Now," ) my suggestion is to start with the wings. Open 1.mod and select this UV as a skin. Now, as we are working with the wings, we can do it easy way and the hard way. I suggest easy way. So, go to
\Program Files\Nival Interactive\Blitzkrieg\Run\data
open TEXTURES.PAK. Go to
textures.pak\Units\Technics\USSR\Aviation\IL_2m3
In it, select 1_h.dds and extract it to the tutorial folder, rename it into IL2M3 skin or whatever you want. Close textures.pak.
Open IL2 skin in APS(here and after it will be APS instead of Adobe Photoshop).
And here is the main part: wing there is green. We need metalic one. We will do this step by step:
Step 1: In toolbox(for those who don't know here is the picture of it:
In it, there is tool called LASSO TOOL, I have marked it with red color. Click on small black triangle to select MAGNETIC LASSO TOOL(as most probably only simple lasso tool will be shown to you). Now(here it is again, hehe), we are going to select that wing(big one). Click on border of the wing, then click on some other place on the border of the wing(two point, one near another). That way you will connect two points of selection, move around entire wing, it should look like this:
That means we have selected the wing. But we need that wing gray, metallic colored, not green. Here comes step 2
Step 2: We have selection, now to paint it gray. Select brush tool
If you have pencil instead of it just click on small black triangle and select brush. We need to set colors up.
Click on small black+white square marked with red here
That will change colors to black and white.
Go now up, here
I will explain what this toolbar is:
-number one is brush. Select by clicking on black triangle first brush, set MASTER DIAMETER to 50
-number two is mode of the brush. We need Hue, select it from the dropping list, it's 4th from bellow
-number three is Opacity. This determines how strong brush painting is. Select for this action 100 %
-number four is Flow. It determines how thick painting will be. Select 100% as well.
Now paint over selected are, it will look like this
Step 3: We must get rid of the star. To do so we are emplying one excellent tool called STAMP TOOL, it's in the toolbox here
This tool works as follows: you hold ALT and left click on certain part of the skin, next thing you click on some other part of the skin and it will paint same thing. I hope it is clear. There are few parts on the skin that you should take care off, I will mark them:
So you see, you click one places marked with red circles and then paint toward the arrows indicating from them. Make sure to set that tool up, it's practically same as regular brush painting but be sure to select small size, something like 9 or maybe even less, 7 or 8. When you finish painting it should look like this:
(for those who like to complain and as: why we didn't copy-pasting it: one thing, just one thing, do as you think it's easier for you but this is much faster and better)
Step 4: Now go Edit->Copy. Minimize this skin, restore UV skin. Go Edit->Paste or shorter CTRL+V
Well, it's time to set that wing up. Place it(you will have that metallic wing as layer, that means by left click+holding you can move it around) like on the picture bellow:
Now we will do some T R A N S F O R M A T I O N. One of the most important parts of skin working. Press CTRL+T and you will see layer(wing) has rectangle around it with small boxes. Select the left middle box, this one:
Left click and move it to the right. You will see how the wing is moving to the right, becoming shorter. This way I believe you have learned basic size transformations. Move it to the right until red part is in line with blue part:
Now, Right click, select PERSPECTIVE. Again, left click+hold on that left middle box and move it down until you have reached this position:
Press enter to deselect transform mode. So, what have we learned now: size transformation and perspective skewing of layer.
it's not done yet. You see that you have some parts not painted(you might not have it, depends how much you moved it to the right). Use STAMP TOOL described up to fill those holes or simple CTRL+T ant select lover left box, move it down+left to resize wing and go over those empty spots.
Step 5: Now comes artistic part: we are going to make metal...oh yeah, real nice looking metal. Read this step careful:
Press MAGIC WAND TOOL here
Click somewhere in the skin, not on the wing. Settings up should be as follows
-Tolerance=0
-Antialiased=yes
-Contiguous=No
-Use all layers=No
Now press Ctrl+I, this will inverse selection. What you have actually done now? You have selected all around the wing layer, inverted selection which means you have wing selected. Reason: to paint wing only and not entire aircraft(remember this moves as you will use this quite a lot).
Now select Dodge tool. It's right zin hier:
Settings are as follows:
-Brush=Thick 74
-Range=Highlights
-Exposure=40
Quick tip: Brush is for type of brush, Range is what you want to enlighten (this tool is for making parts lighter), exposure is strength. All clear? Good, let's paint.
Be careful with painting, longer you hold it stronger and lighter skin part is. Also if you move across same spot twice or more skin will be lighter. Paint and get result smth. like this:
It is quite lighter, you may adjust light on your wing as much as you want. But still it's too black-white, we must paint this chocolate in some real life colors
Step 6: Select brush tool, settings are as follows:
-Brush=thick brush 52
-Mode=Overlay
-Opacity=21
-Flow=100
We must pick the color now. You see those two big squares, one is black one is right. Click on the black one. You will get window like bellow, enter number in spot marked red:
It's more combination and it is:
263C50
Now click ok and click on white square. For it, combination is:
C8AFCB. Click ok.
What have we done? We have selected colors. Those are combinations which means if someone has nice color for some type of skin all he have to do is give you combination.
Now paint people. Paint with Blueish color(first one) first. When painting make sure you go over all places WITHOUT stop. If you stop ad continue it will have some parts very, very ugly colored. Paint once with it and then when finished paint it again. So, two paintings with this color. Now paint with pinkish one, only once. You should get result like this:
(if you don't know how to change colors you have one nice small two sided arrow, with two arrow heads that actually changes color, it's above color squares).
Now save the skin. When saving as TGA choose 32bits compressed.
Now, you have Tank Model viewer installed I guess. Open the model and check the skin out, it should look like this:
There you go. Phew, entire page just to paint one wing, too long? Not at all, do it couple of times and you will get routine and will be able to paint other parts easier as well.
|
