Hello,
I have downloaded the 30 day trial of Adobe Photoshop CS5.
It looks complicated, so is there any good tutorials, or books to learn it? I have found some tutorials, but I think they are not compatibile with CS5.
For example, in step 3 the tutorial told me to use an Artistic Filter. However, that filter is grayed out in the menu, and I cant click on it.
Or are there any other good programs to create textures?
Thanks,
Dreeka
I used GIMP, its the free alternative to Photoshop. But you won’t be making any textures without brushes, you’ll need to find GIMp Brushes for grunge, drips, etc. All those kind of things. Lastly, most artists have a refence photo or a picture to edit to their liking and add it in as a texture. This site has plenty of both, all can be editted as well.
Thanks!
I will try GIMP out, maybe it will be easier to learn.
Also, the site you have gave me is awsome!
Thanks again!
You can download the free version of Filter Forge also: http://www.filterforge.com/
to make nice textures.
Filter Forge is amazing!
Thank you!
Do not use filterforge… It’s designed for non artists. You can spot a texture made with filterforge a mile away and detracts from your overall image.
I urge you to learn GIMP/Photoshop and use cgtextures as a abse when starting. Then when your more comfortable, go outside and use your camera to take images of “textures”
Yeah, I use CG textures as a base but there are uses for Filter Forge, which cam also be used as a base.
Ugh … well. A good starting point to get into adobe photoshop would be to first read through the complete description of every tool from the tool pallette. For example: what does the brush do and what’s the difference beteween brush and pencil? What’s the clone tool used for and how do I do that.
If you start with THAT you’re pretty much on a good way to begin with.
If you do know what each tool does go on and read through what layers are and how to use them.
I’d recommend learning layers in the following order:
If after that you still ARE serious about it and want to invest money in Photoshop: By all means do it!
If you are not sure yet - try your demo and after that try to adapt your photoshop knowledge over to gimp. The functionality (minus the layer effects) are basically the same. Go for which one you like best and (buy and) use that.
After that you might look for some video tutorials. I think Adobe germany had a website for CS4 but I don’t know where (or if at all) the english version of that is.
I recommend working through tools and layers first, anyways as step by step tutorials don’t teach you more than a fraction and a static workflow with no chance to adapt if you don’t know what the guy is talking about.
Okay, than I will read every description you said.
Is there any site or book that wites them down complety (other than Photoshop Support centre).
Thanks!
Simply Press F1 in PhotoShop(CS4), and you`ll get help 
A good book for starting texturing with PS is “3D Game Textures” from Luke Ahearn, it was released in 2006 and do not cover NextGenTexturing but it will help you to understand how texturing works very clearly with a lot of practical tutorials from A-Z.
Maybe there are better Books released the past years but for me it done the job very good.
There is no free version of Filter Forge it says Free download for some reason but that is a 30 day trial as far as i know. Filter Forge is a great program though, Genetica is also another good program and much better if you are working with image textures in my opinion.
I get what people are saying though about using image editors because they allow much better control but these types of programs are good for making layers and base textures to use.
Ok, my mistake, I hadn’t used Filter Forge for long and was under the impression it was a free version due to the limitations,
but guess I missed the time frame was also a limitation. I bought it right away seeing you couldn’t edit the filters in the free version.
Probably the most well-known sites for learning Photoshop are www.kelbytraining.com, followed by www.photoshopuser.com, followed by lynda.com. A one-month subscription to these sites costs less than many books and if you’re considering buying Photoshop (even at the educational discount price) you can certainly afford some basic training. One thing you may grapple with is that most of the online courses focus on Photographers. Go figure! Adobe’s products are more or less required for professional photography.
Yhea this is good i used it 
Industry standard for creating textures is through 3d modeling apps or sculpting apps and photshop. Its not very hard to make a good texture trust me people tend to inflate it much more then it needs to be.
*you can skip the 3d modeling portion and just fake Ambient occlusion if you read on, though sometimes it is essential to model things such as a sci-fi wall since there is no photo of one for you to use.
Lets say you want to make bricks, make bricks in your 3d modeling app this is best by tracing a reference image in your modeling app so you can use the photo base for your diffuse later. Once you have modeled your bricks you can call it done at this point and bake out the ambient occlusion, this is the texture pass for lighting/shadow and it is great for making textures. So if you traced the reference image take your AO map into photoshop and set it above the background layer of your photobase. Set the blend mode for your AO map to “multiply” and then you will immedietly notice the lighting information gets pieces into it, and any sculpting details are added as well, such as stucco, rough plaster, cracks and the like.
Now for the second detail pass!
duplicate your photobase layer, and then run the nvidia normal map filter through it at a scale that looks between smooth and detailed, not too grainy not too blurred. Then go to the image adjustments and apply the black and white filter, then go into the levels adjustment afterwards drag the first two arrow sliders towards the right, and then the arrow slider on the far left towards the left, you will notice your image goes black, and most of the exposed areas become white. This is great for the second detail pass. Finally merge this black and white image into its own layer and once more, set it to multiply. Hit ctrl+I to invert your image and emboss the exposed areas faking an ambient occlusion pass. You can now merge this image into the base diffuse, obviously you notice your image once more is probably pretty dark of course this is VERY easy to fix. Go to image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast and boost your brightness until it looks perfect again. After this if you are happy you can call it done right here.
Scratches
Wide Scratches can be put in place here if you wish to proceed onward, brown/white/gray/yellow/flesh tone works great for wide highlight strokes, use gray or black for cracks keep in mind that you want these in separate layers to keep changes easy to update.
Now for 3rd Teir Details
3rd Teir Details are the final pass of character to your texture, these are done with base photos, for example rust concrete, fungus, and such things are added with overlay and multiply blendmodes, at VERY low percents such as 5-20%. Decals are great for this stage as well, and doing final tweaking with the curves adjustements can help bring out that final pass of shadowing that won’t look odd in a game as compared to a straight photo. Dirt works great at this stage as well.
-Scratches and highlights!
You are now in a position to add final color passes with a pen tablet of small scratches, and definition of highlights once painted on set an appropriate blend mode and/or opacity. Also at the bottom left of the layers box you can add the “fx” to your paints such as bevel and emboss to add a bit more depth to a highlight.
Some Notes, you can just as easily bring in separate Ao maps into the texture, for example do the AO faking on a concrete texture, and then just take the AO not the color and multiply it onto a rock texture or vise versa. Or take a brick AO bake and multiply it onto a concrete or stucco for some concrete bricks mix and match as much as you like. Or maybe you have a cliff you like but the color does not suit, so find a base stone with nice color, and take the cliff with all the cracks you like and multiply it onto the base stone color map, that way it appears as though the cliff was made of that stone material to begin with.
To have a similar color palate in a game for good composition use the image>adjustments>match color feature in photshop, for example keep your wood textures the same so it appears as though it from the same type of tree that would seem more logical to be found in the region of your game. Use it more sparingly so that it does not appear you have a monochromatic game as that would look bland.