While it seems to me that there are plenty of tutorials out there for the basics of shapes and coloration of textures, I haven't seen many, if any, for people who already know how to texture decently well, but would like to improve some of the finer points of texturing. In this tutorial, I will be assuming that you are familiar with texturing "talk" and that you have experience with the basics, because I will not be covering those, so as not to create more redundancy with content.
I will present the tutorials through step-by step images of the texture itself and screenshots of me working, accompanied by a detailed explanation for each step. I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 (I strongly recommend it if you want Photoshop, but don't want to pay as much.) I won't be using any features that aren't available in Gimp or Paint.net, but there are many shortcuts/keyboard commands that make drawing much easier. If you want to, follow along in your photo editor.
Concerning the style for these textures: I will normally use 16x or 32x non-pixel art, since this is my natural style and I have the best knowledge/confidence with this. I will try to keep the color choice and look of the textures as neutral as possible so that I can appeal to as many people as I can. I may do some pixel art, but I'm not going to address HD texturing, although, I hope, you may be able to extrapolate the techniques I demonstrate to all types of texturing.
I hope that you'll agree that, while I may not be the best, I have enough experience and skill for it to be of help to others. I hope that they will be helpful, even if you just learn one thing, or find a method/technique that you like. If you have any comments, critique or criticism on my textures or my instructions, please leave a comment.
One question before we begin— what would you think about me doing narrated video demos? This is not extremely likely, but I'm interested to know what you think.
I am going to do what I call the "core" or "base" textures; stone, dirt, cobblestone, ores and planks. These are almost always what I start with when beginning a texture pack, and I think that the things that I demonstrate will be able to be used for all the blocks. I might do one of the ore blocks, because metal will be the only material we won't have covered.
We'll start with 16x planks because they seem to be a fairly easy for most, and they are my favorite. Also, I know that many of you work mostly in 16x.
Final Texture:
First, we'll select a good base color. I'm going a bit more saturated and brighter than I normally do, so we'll see how it goes.
Next, let's hue shift a bit toward red and chose a dark outline color.
I'm going for a very generic look, with the two optional "strips" of wood running vertically. I believe this was popularized by Doku.
You can put the crack that separates the blocks either at the top or the bottom. The logic I use to decide it whether I want the texture to blend better with the ground, or with the block above it. I usually put it on the top because the shadow on the bottom of the bottom plank will be dark anyway. So now we have something like this:
Now we'll choose an even darker color (hue shifting down even more if you want) and set our pencil tool to anywhere between 30% and 50% opacity, depending on how dark of a color you chose. I'm using 50%. (In Photoshop you can tap the number keys to set the opacity. Every number corresponds with a ten. For example 1=10%, 2=20% and so on. You can hit multiple numbers to enter exact values.) Now we want to work the color into the places where the cracks intersect, as shown, with the color darkest in the few pixels nearest the intersection. You may want to add a separate pixel to the larger spaces in between dark pixels to break it up a bit. These should always be only a one or two (in 32x) pixels away from the main line of dark pixels however, so that it sort of looks like a broken shadow.
Sample the base color and choose shadow color for it. (You can hold alt while using the pencil tool in Photoshop to get the color picker.) This color shouldn't be as dark as the other two, because instead of representing cracks, it's showing shadow.
Let's go ahead and shadow the bottom of the planks in generally the same pattern that we used for the cracks in between them, with the shading darker nearer to the sides and light and a bit broken toward the middle. You'll want to avoid having any dark pixels, or, later on, light pixels right on top of each other or corresponding in any other way, as it will look odd. For example, you don't want a separate dark pixel in the crack right below a dark pixel on the shading of the plank. Such things are noticeable and distracting. Basically, everything should be evenly balanced.
Now that we're finished shading the bottoms of the planks, we'll shade one side of the vertical strip. Which side depends on the direction of the light source, but I always go for an upper-left light source in my textures, and I've noticed that most others do also. If this is what we want to do, we'll darken the strip of pixels on the right. Now, break up the solid color. It's best to not have one of the darker pixels, say, directly between two other dark pixels, as it can look like depth instead of random noise. Also, remember not to have any corresponding lighter or darker pixels, as keeping this in mind while texturing is a good way to prevent tiling errors.
Now it's time to add grain to the wood. Draw lines from the sides at varying lengths. Then add pixel one pixel away from some, mostly the shorter ones, so that they are close to the length of the longer ones. The "grain lines" should be fairly evenly spaced, and it is not always advisable to have a grain line touching the bottom shadow, as it can cause the plank to look like it has a more rounded bottom and stick out against the others. Sometimes, though this is okay. It's just something to be aware of. Try to keep them as evenly distributed as possible, while maintaining an organic and somewhat random look. Now, as we have done before, add some dark pixels in the grain lines, mostly focused on the outside.
Sorry for the picture- I had a bit of a paste error.
Once that's finished, it's time to do something that I call "pushing one under." This means having a shadow across the top so that it looks like the planks above it is casting a shadow on it, making the "sunk under" plank look farther back and giving the texture a sense of depth. In some cases, we should darken the entire texture, but right now we'll choose the middle one and draw a dark line of pixels where the highlight would normally go. I decided to darken my brush for this, but you may not need to. Most times, any plank can be "sunk under", but when choosing one, it is best to pick smaller planks, as they tend to look better. This entire step is really optional— I believe that a good texture, be it planks or stone-based, will not need this.
One more shadow to do for now. We'll darken the outside edges of the planks. You can think about the logic for this several ways, but the truth is that it makes them look better. And, I think, in texturing, looks trump reality. I think it looks like the vertical strips of wood are casting a shadow on the planks, even though the dark crack does most of this job. (We'll work a bit more with that aspect later.)
After we're finished, let's check our tiling. Looks pretty good to me. With planks, I don't use tiling checks so much to look for errors, as to see how well all of the shadows and everything work, how "balanced" the texture is. I try to imagine it in the wall of a structure.
At this point, we could just leave the texture how it is, with no highlights, and it might look okay if you were going for a certain style, but we, like most, will add highlights. that is, after all, the fun part.
Okay, so let's pick a lighter color, with a bit of hue shift up to yellow if you want. The planks that I'm working with are fairly yellow, so I don't want to overdo the hue shift and make them look golden. Now we take our brush, adjust the opacity if necessary, (but not too drastically) and draw the highlights intermittently in-between the darker grain lines. The highlights should be a bit smoother than the shadows, so all of the pixels should be together, and none separate. The highlight on the very top edge of each plank should be the lightest. We should also lighten the vertical strip on the right side.
We'll quickly check our tiling, and it looks good to me. I do, however, notice that I want to make the grain lines a little darker, so I do that. We update out tiling chart, and I'm happy with that.
The last step is, if you're bothered by the planks not continuing under the strip, and looking like they've been cut off, to make it look like the extend beneath them. We'll do that by taking the "base" color and setting our opacity down a bit. Around 20% is probably good. We draw a little bit so that the line between the plank and the vertical strip isn't as dark. If you don't prefer it this way, then that's fine.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. I will be doing stone or cobblestone next.
This is an excellent tutorial for creating a great pixel art texture! As you have become my favorite artist on these forums, I look forward to seing more of these.
I recommend a stone tutorial for your next installment.
This is an excellent tutorial for creating a great pixel art texture! As you have become my favorite artist on these forums, I look forward to seing more of these.
I recommend a stone tutorial for your next installment.
Thanks— wow, I'm you're favorite? That's high praise, considering all of the talented artists around here.
Stone is probably next, I think it's a bit more difficult for most then cobblestone. (For me cobblestone is the bane of my texturing existence, that tutorial should be interesting.)
I would be interested in creating just that sort of pack, but I'm afraid that I wouldn't have the momentum to get past the terrain... I'll see.
Anyway— I will continue, if only for you!
I don't know... do you actually read it or do you just look at the pictures? Because if you don't read the narration, then there are many other tutorials like this.
While not that many people to begin with wander into this section, fewer are inclined to read anything.
I personally looked at the pictures. I would make the descriptions more succinct, but keep them.
Maybe simplify your narration by addressing the objective with each frame. For example, in the second frame, "EIGHT: Add Grain" and then a single sentence - no more than two - on what you did.
I suppose that is up to the individual. It seems that less and less people have the patience or the interest to read anything anymore.
While it seems to me that there are plenty of tutorials out there for the basics of shapes and coloration of textures, I haven't seen many, if any, for people who already know how to texture decently well, but would like to improve some of the finer points of texturing. In this tutorial, I will be assuming that you are familiar with texturing "talk" and that you have experience with the basics, because I will not be covering those, so as not to create more redundancy with content.
I will present the tutorials through step-by step images of the texture itself and screenshots of me working, accompanied by a detailed explanation for each step. I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 (I strongly recommend it if you want Photoshop, but don't want to pay as much.) I won't be using any features that aren't available in Gimp or Paint.net, but there are many shortcuts/keyboard commands that make drawing much easier. If you want to, follow along in your photo editor.
Concerning the style for these textures: I will normally use 16x or 32x non-pixel art, since this is my natural style and I have the best knowledge/confidence with this. I will try to keep the color choice and look of the textures as neutral as possible so that I can appeal to as many people as I can. I may do some pixel art, but I'm not going to address HD texturing, although, I hope, you may be able to extrapolate the techniques I demonstrate to all types of texturing.
I hope that you'll agree that, while I may not be the best, I have enough experience and skill for it to be of help to others. I hope that they will be helpful, even if you just learn one thing, or find a method/technique that you like. If you have any comments, critique or criticism on my textures or my instructions, please leave a comment.
One question before we begin— what would you think about me doing narrated video demos? This is not extremely likely, but I'm interested to know what you think.
I am going to do what I call the "core" or "base" textures; stone, dirt, cobblestone, ores and planks. These are almost always what I start with when beginning a texture pack, and I think that the things that I demonstrate will be able to be used for all the blocks. I might do one of the ore blocks, because metal will be the only material we won't have covered.
We'll start with 16x planks because they seem to be a fairly easy for most, and they are my favorite. Also, I know that many of you work mostly in 16x.
First, we'll select a good base color. I'm going a bit more saturated and brighter than I normally do, so we'll see how it goes.
Next, let's hue shift a bit toward red and chose a dark outline color.
I'm going for a very generic look, with the two optional "strips" of wood running vertically. I believe this was popularized by Doku.
You can put the crack that separates the blocks either at the top or the bottom. The logic I use to decide it whether I want the texture to blend better with the ground, or with the block above it. I usually put it on the top because the shadow on the bottom of the bottom plank will be dark anyway. So now we have something like this:
Now we'll choose an even darker color (hue shifting down even more if you want) and set our pencil tool to anywhere between 30% and 50% opacity, depending on how dark of a color you chose. I'm using 50%. (In Photoshop you can tap the number keys to set the opacity. Every number corresponds with a ten. For example 1=10%, 2=20% and so on. You can hit multiple numbers to enter exact values.) Now we want to work the color into the places where the cracks intersect, as shown, with the color darkest in the few pixels nearest the intersection. You may want to add a separate pixel to the larger spaces in between dark pixels to break it up a bit. These should always be only a one or two (in 32x) pixels away from the main line of dark pixels however, so that it sort of looks like a broken shadow.
Sample the base color and choose shadow color for it. (You can hold alt while using the pencil tool in Photoshop to get the color picker.) This color shouldn't be as dark as the other two, because instead of representing cracks, it's showing shadow.
Let's go ahead and shadow the bottom of the planks in generally the same pattern that we used for the cracks in between them, with the shading darker nearer to the sides and light and a bit broken toward the middle. You'll want to avoid having any dark pixels, or, later on, light pixels right on top of each other or corresponding in any other way, as it will look odd. For example, you don't want a separate dark pixel in the crack right below a dark pixel on the shading of the plank. Such things are noticeable and distracting. Basically, everything should be evenly balanced.
Now that we're finished shading the bottoms of the planks, we'll shade one side of the vertical strip. Which side depends on the direction of the light source, but I always go for an upper-left light source in my textures, and I've noticed that most others do also. If this is what we want to do, we'll darken the strip of pixels on the right. Now, break up the solid color. It's best to not have one of the darker pixels, say, directly between two other dark pixels, as it can look like depth instead of random noise. Also, remember not to have any corresponding lighter or darker pixels, as keeping this in mind while texturing is a good way to prevent tiling errors.
Now it's time to add grain to the wood. Draw lines from the sides at varying lengths. Then add pixel one pixel away from some, mostly the shorter ones, so that they are close to the length of the longer ones. The "grain lines" should be fairly evenly spaced, and it is not always advisable to have a grain line touching the bottom shadow, as it can cause the plank to look like it has a more rounded bottom and stick out against the others. Sometimes, though this is okay. It's just something to be aware of. Try to keep them as evenly distributed as possible, while maintaining an organic and somewhat random look. Now, as we have done before, add some dark pixels in the grain lines, mostly focused on the outside.
Sorry for the picture- I had a bit of a paste error.
Once that's finished, it's time to do something that I call "pushing one under." This means having a shadow across the top so that it looks like the planks above it is casting a shadow on it, making the "sunk under" plank look farther back and giving the texture a sense of depth. In some cases, we should darken the entire texture, but right now we'll choose the middle one and draw a dark line of pixels where the highlight would normally go. I decided to darken my brush for this, but you may not need to. Most times, any plank can be "sunk under", but when choosing one, it is best to pick smaller planks, as they tend to look better. This entire step is really optional— I believe that a good texture, be it planks or stone-based, will not need this.
One more shadow to do for now. We'll darken the outside edges of the planks. You can think about the logic for this several ways, but the truth is that it makes them look better. And, I think, in texturing, looks trump reality. I think it looks like the vertical strips of wood are casting a shadow on the planks, even though the dark crack does most of this job. (We'll work a bit more with that aspect later.)
After we're finished, let's check our tiling. Looks pretty good to me. With planks, I don't use tiling checks so much to look for errors, as to see how well all of the shadows and everything work, how "balanced" the texture is. I try to imagine it in the wall of a structure.
At this point, we could just leave the texture how it is, with no highlights, and it might look okay if you were going for a certain style, but we, like most, will add highlights. that is, after all, the fun part.
Okay, so let's pick a lighter color, with a bit of hue shift up to yellow if you want. The planks that I'm working with are fairly yellow, so I don't want to overdo the hue shift and make them look golden. Now we take our brush, adjust the opacity if necessary, (but not too drastically) and draw the highlights intermittently in-between the darker grain lines. The highlights should be a bit smoother than the shadows, so all of the pixels should be together, and none separate. The highlight on the very top edge of each plank should be the lightest. We should also lighten the vertical strip on the right side.
We'll quickly check our tiling, and it looks good to me. I do, however, notice that I want to make the grain lines a little darker, so I do that. We update out tiling chart, and I'm happy with that.
The last step is, if you're bothered by the planks not continuing under the strip, and looking like they've been cut off, to make it look like the extend beneath them. We'll do that by taking the "base" color and setting our opacity down a bit. Around 20% is probably good. We draw a little bit so that the line between the plank and the vertical strip isn't as dark. If you don't prefer it this way, then that's fine.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. I will be doing stone or cobblestone next.
I recommend a stone tutorial for your next installment.
I'm a pixel artist who makes pixel things and maps! I also do line art occasionally.
I have two work in progress resource packs!
This is the second one!
And of course, by "work-in-progress" I mean "will never, ever be completed".
Thanks— wow, I'm you're favorite? That's high praise, considering all of the talented artists around here.
Stone is probably next, I think it's a bit more difficult for most then cobblestone. (For me cobblestone is the bane of my texturing existence, that tutorial should be interesting.)
Whatever style works for you; I'm just demonstrating one method.
Do it! Or continue. Please!
Anyway— I will continue, if only for you!
I personally looked at the pictures. I would make the descriptions more succinct, but keep them.
Maybe simplify your narration by addressing the objective with each frame. For example, in the second frame, "EIGHT: Add Grain" and then a single sentence - no more than two - on what you did.
I suppose that is up to the individual. It seems that less and less people have the patience or the interest to read anything anymore.