Texture art guide compilation

[AlCapowned]

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FGHmFz2SbD9mWjxZN5rmaJrap0ivwrbZ?usp=sharing

Texturing is something I have always considered completely beyond me, but after I came across a weapon texturing guide for Quake, I became obsessed with gathering tutorials that could be used for making textures for Unreal and UT.

The drive is split up into image-only guides, PDFs (including some no-longer-published books with their CD contents), video series, and web sites. Sites were mostly saved from the Internet Archive, and some are missing images. Some guides are not completely focused on texturing, but they did include texturing sections. I included a brief rundown of guides in each section.

Here are some of my favorites that (in my opinion) best apply to Unreal/UT:

► Show Spoiler

Images:
-Quake 3 gladiator - PSD file of a Quake 3 character that lets you get a look at how you might set up your own skins
-SoilChild - A brisk overview of texturing a character

PDFs
-The Dark side of Game Texturing (David Franson) and 3D Game Textures (Luke Ahearn) - together, these give you a good variety of guides on making environment textures

Sites
-Photoshop for Game Artists - The one that got me hooked. Has a fun section on texturing a weapon for Quake.
-Barry Collins - Game Art: Something for Everyone has a particularly good little section on skinning
-Identity Crisis - A lot of solid guides on character texturing, including one made with UT in mind
-Skindom - Some great step-by-step guides on skinning heads, metal, flesh, and clothing
-flp's website - Two character texturing overviews for Quake

[Sat42]

I haven't dabbled into texturing much but this is an excellent compilation on the subject - many thanks for that!

[AlCapowned]

Thank you! I'm going to keep adding more as I find it.

Changes:
-Added Texture Painting with Maya and Photoshop to the Digital Tutors section under Videos (got this one off of ebay - I was disappointed to find how little of their physical discs are out there. I've found a lot of their guides to be quite beginner friendly.)
-Added a polycount folder under sites, and added "texturing in the early 2000s - how did you do it?" under that (it turns out that this is where I found that gladiator skin, which was by Vailias)
-Added videos that were missing from Ben Mathis' Delilah tutorial series

[AlCapowned]

-Added a few texture guides by Hourences to the sites section
-Added Wasted Youth to the sites section - has a wide variety of guides including how to create lightning, fireballs, chains, spikes, text effects, and more
-Added more guides from BioRUST - shiny spheres, simple camouflage, a bunch of effects (including animated fire), crumpled paper, and text effects

[AlCapowned]

-Added missing sections from Screaming Art Designs - Texture FX, spotlight, 3d spheres, sparkle, and circles
-Added Gnomon Workshop's set of DVDs on texture painting fundamentals
-Added a handpainting subsection to the videos section with 4 tutorials (2 for Photoshop, 1 for Blender, 1 for Krita)

[Kajgue]

I really ought to make a texture creation guide at some point.

I normally create textures from 3d models in blender first, before importing the full highpoly model and the lowpoly model (in this case, a sheet) into substance painter and adding stains/dirt and all that jazz there.

Unfortunately substance painter is a paid tool, and was bought buy adobe a few years ago, not sure if they did away with the perpetual license yet.

[AlCapowned]

They still have a license on Steam that lets you keep it without a subscription, but it stops getting updates after a year.

I’ve seen a few people in the Quake modding community use substance painter and the pixel8r plugin to make gorgeous textures that fit perfectly. You can never have too many tutorials!

[Kajgue]

Indeed, the most impressive which i've seen normally comes from Makkon, but his focus is more on substance designer which is more node based. Given i own substance designer aswel it's something i've been interested in trying also.