skinning tip needet

[+Soulfreak 6,381]

Hi Guys,

got a quick question to the skinning masters here.

How can I best create agood base for an bare metal / aluminium skin?

I have seen some outstanding FS repaints, but find no info on drawing them...

[+Jimbib 728]

Here's how I make my aluminium in Photoshop...

 

Create a new file, with whatever dimensions you want, set the background to transparent. Make a new layer on top of this so you have two active layers, both transparent.

 

Then, using the colour palette, select two different greys, one dark and one light. Something like these:

 

 

Now with the dark grey selected as the foreground colour, fill the bottom layer using the Paint Bucket Tool. Now hit "x" to swap

 

the background and foreground colours, so that the light grey is the foreground colour. Now fill the top layer with the light grey using the same tool again. Should be like this...

 

 

 

With the bottom layer selected and the top layer invisible, go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and using roughly the following settings:

 

 

Now make the top layer visible and select it. Go and add the same Noise filter to this layer using the same settings as the last one.

 

Once this is done, again, make the top layer invisible, and select the bottom layer. This time go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and use the following settings. (Note - the direction is key in which way you want the "brushed" effect of the aluminium to be.

 

Usually, this is horizontal, so a direction of 0 works just fine.)

 

The bottom layer should now look like this:

 

 

Go ahead and apply the same Motion Blur filter with the same settings to the top layer.

 

Now comes the part where you want to blend the layers together a little bit. I have found that changing the blending mode of the top layer to "Overlay" works okay:

 

 

You can play with the opacities to fine tune it to achieve different types and grades of aluminium.

 

You can always take this slightly further by going ahead and applying a texture on top of what you have just created. This may give it a more realistic appearance. Copy a metal texture aluminium (I now get all of mine from http://www.cgtextures.com (thanks Julhelm)) into a new layer on top of the two existing layers:

 

 

Now you can play with the blending mode and opacity a bit to make it look a bit better:

 

Edited October 23, 2009 by Jimbib

[Wrench 9,662]

That's an excellent tutorial!

 

What does the final skin look like, in game?

 

Also, I think this should go in KB. Would you mind writing it again and putting it there? I think all the skinners would appriciate it

 

with thanks,

wrench

kevin stein

[+russouk2004 6,958]

I use real metal texture photographs...found on web.....I have a few large jpgs...select metal texture picture that the mopdel is skinned in..ie ..aluminium..then I cut a section and paste into panels on my metal skins...if you get a decent jpeg,you also get variety in shading and light\dark areas so the cut areas are not constant in looks...I also play around with the areas,darkening ,smoothing edges etc..

see results below.

top pic...is using basic colour and gradient fill to give a curved look to wing...

2nd pic...process I described above...after filling in rivets ,panel lines etc..

3rd pic...adding details,dirt,and general wear n tear...

Edited October 23, 2009 by russouk2004

[+76.IAP-Blackbird 3,555]

This is a P-47 isn`t it?! Very nice texture!

Edited October 24, 2009 by 76.IAP-Blackbird

[+Soulfreak 6,381]

Thank you guys, ´that would help me a lot!

Edited October 24, 2009 by Soulfreak

[Derk 265]

You guys are magicians !!!

 

Hou doe,

 

Derk

[+russouk2004 6,958]

P47 yep...

3ds max render

[+EricJ 4,039]

Jimbib that's a kind of post that belongs in the KB, sorta like a "Texture Artist/Skinner" section... beautiful post, and russouk2004, just something more for me bag o' tricks

Edited October 25, 2009 by EricJ

[+russouk2004 6,958]

example...this selected area is a good texture...can be used for areas on skin as in photo its taken from...I even copy rivets and panel lines to use...saves a lot of time in some skins...

[+76.IAP-Blackbird 3,555]

The P-47 looks superb! only the glas is a bit milky but a great model!