So recently I've started making my first texture pack. I was fine on making the terrain.png and item.png, but the water/lava textures seems quite a challenge because they have to be animated to look good. Finally I have made a flowing+still water texture by copying from some random videoes on Youtube. But I don't feel satisfied as I didn't REALLY made that myself.
So can any kind texture packers tell me how to make them efficiently? Any useful softwares/tools or techniques? Many thanks in advance. :smile.gif:
What I did to make mine smoother was render the image in a 3d editing program which made the animation a LOT smoother. It does get pretty complicated though! :mellow.gif: (big thanks to Wayuki who helped me on that :smile.gif:)
What I did to make mine smoother was render the image in a 3d editing program which made the animation a LOT smoother. It does get pretty complicated though! :mellow.gif: (big thanks to Wayuki who helped me on that :smile.gif:)
Wow thanks for the information!! I think I'll try the GIMP tutorial first as I am bad at learning those complicated 3D programs :tongue.gif:
Fluid dynamics is one of the hardest things to animate because you're trying to mimic the randomness of fluids with a pattern of images.
I think, if you're new to animation, your best bet is to look at older games for inspiration. Many games had to get away with water animation with very strict limitations, such as only 4 frames or such. I'm not saying you need to give yourself such strict limitations, but the artists were able to get creative and create animations that players easily read as water, even though it didn't really represent a realistic animation.
For example many games, instead of trying to create a complex series of waves, would simply animate some very simple highlights moving across the water. This is a very common technique, where the body of water is a large, solid entity, and animation is instead focused on the highlights moving instead. Even the default minecraft water does this to some degree, where the animations is basically a series of various highlights scrolling across the texture.
If you're feeling up to it, you can follow the above tutorials though. Create a basic tiling water texture, and for your animation distort and mess with that until you get something that looks nice. In fact, what might work is to take a water texture. Apply the effects in my tutorial here: http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/56775.htm#
At least, strictly step B. This will create an effect of the water waving back and forth. Lower the contrast so that your water effect is very dull. Then you can take this, duplicate it, darken it(aka, now you have highlights over shadows) and now you have two effects interlaced together(you may have to offset this until you get a desired look). Then to give the impression of movement, overlay some highlights scrolling across the above two effects. This could possibly create a very soft and soothing animation without all the complexities.
I think that you're going to find that playing around and getting creative is going to help you a lot here. Overlaying effects is something that can help the animation out a lot because you're fooling people into thinking there is something complicated going on with a very simple animation. For example with my water I took it just like I said above, reversed the animation, darked it and lowered the contrast substantially, and placed it under the original water. The effect was VERY subtle, and hard to see, but it was there, and it gave the water a much more natural feeling as you add more layers of complexity to it. For my flowing water I had two sets of animations, a fast flowing water, and a slow one. I didn't quite like the speed of either, but I took the fast one and overlayed it over the slow one and the effect looked way better than I expected.
I'm no expert on animation by a longshot, but these are just my experiences with it.
So can any kind texture packers tell me how to make them efficiently? Any useful softwares/tools or techniques? Many thanks in advance. :smile.gif:
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Curse PremiumLink 1
For this one find the longish post by Dusty, it should have a link to a picture as well.
Link 2
What I did to make mine smoother was render the image in a 3d editing program which made the animation a LOT smoother. It does get pretty complicated though! :mellow.gif: (big thanks to Wayuki who helped me on that :smile.gif:)
Wow thanks for the information!! I think I'll try the GIMP tutorial first as I am bad at learning those complicated 3D programs :tongue.gif:
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Curse PremiumI think, if you're new to animation, your best bet is to look at older games for inspiration. Many games had to get away with water animation with very strict limitations, such as only 4 frames or such. I'm not saying you need to give yourself such strict limitations, but the artists were able to get creative and create animations that players easily read as water, even though it didn't really represent a realistic animation.
For example many games, instead of trying to create a complex series of waves, would simply animate some very simple highlights moving across the water. This is a very common technique, where the body of water is a large, solid entity, and animation is instead focused on the highlights moving instead. Even the default minecraft water does this to some degree, where the animations is basically a series of various highlights scrolling across the texture.
If you're feeling up to it, you can follow the above tutorials though. Create a basic tiling water texture, and for your animation distort and mess with that until you get something that looks nice. In fact, what might work is to take a water texture. Apply the effects in my tutorial here:
http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/56775.htm#
At least, strictly step B. This will create an effect of the water waving back and forth. Lower the contrast so that your water effect is very dull. Then you can take this, duplicate it, darken it(aka, now you have highlights over shadows) and now you have two effects interlaced together(you may have to offset this until you get a desired look). Then to give the impression of movement, overlay some highlights scrolling across the above two effects. This could possibly create a very soft and soothing animation without all the complexities.
I think that you're going to find that playing around and getting creative is going to help you a lot here. Overlaying effects is something that can help the animation out a lot because you're fooling people into thinking there is something complicated going on with a very simple animation. For example with my water I took it just like I said above, reversed the animation, darked it and lowered the contrast substantially, and placed it under the original water. The effect was VERY subtle, and hard to see, but it was there, and it gave the water a much more natural feeling as you add more layers of complexity to it. For my flowing water I had two sets of animations, a fast flowing water, and a slow one. I didn't quite like the speed of either, but I took the fast one and overlayed it over the slow one and the effect looked way better than I expected.
I'm no expert on animation by a longshot, but these are just my experiences with it.