SoM customs for dummies (A.K.A. scott)

[Verdite]

SOM uses the diffuse channel as transparency ‎ 

[scott]

Well, I just finished a new sword today and I'd like a few opinions. I can't decide what hilt looks better. What do you guys think?

[airflamesred]

No doubt -A

[Verdite]

Looking good. If you need help with texturing id be happy to give you a few tips. Texturing is another world entirely though. You need to practice alot, and experiment alot too.

Id go with the crossguard from picture A for certain, it looks more practical - B may very well spike ya if your hand slipped.

[scott]

I knew A looked better, I'm not really sure why I even asked, lol.

I could really use help with texturing, the only thing I've textured that looked halfway decent is in my avatar pic.

[Verdite]

Projecting with metaseq is easy for certain things, like swords. But if you want to create a really accurate mapping of your sword, you'l need to look into unwrapping, or atlasing. I can teach you either.

If you'd rather stick to projecting, your model wont look as awesome as it could but it'l still look nice. Working with real photos, like metals and crystal photos is your best bet until you become familiar with paintshop / GIMP brushes and whatnot.

[scott]

So, what do you think?

[dmpdesign]

I must be weird I really liked option B :) ‎  though they are both cool.

The colors on this blade remind me of the old dragon warrior games with the deep blues and vibrant highlighting.

The only thing I would caution you on personally is trying to bake in shading into the texture because often times SOM lighting is not as good as it could be with showing the darker areas on the models as they turn or swing in game.

On a side note, has anyone else had an issue in game yet where their custom weapon swing sometimes shows up as an almost pure white texture depending on the cardinal direction the character is facing?

Ive had it happen on 2-3 custom weapons and never did figure out why...I always supposed it had something to do with the ambient lighting.

[Verdite]

Yeah i think someone said it was a SoM bug and cant be rectified as of yet... Anyway i had it once and it was to do with lighting.

Scott the model very nice, though what program did you use for your texturing? I advise you start off with real pictures from cgtextures.com and alter their colours etc. Extra 'bumps' and colour variations go a long way and they can be found naturally in real photos :)
Baking shadows is more advanced work i think :) its quite alot to learn. Scott you can add simple shading using a gradient tool with low opacity (i can see your face like ‎  ) dont worry. Get set up with GIMP (free) and ill teach ya.


Nice work. Im liking it.

[scott]

Yay! more problems!

Now I'm having problems converting things into SoM. Each time I try to convert something I keep getting a message saying it can't read the bmp. oh, and yes the bmp meets the size requirements for SoM its 128x128. I'm not sure what it is I'm not doing correctly. I've also attached the texture as well. Is there something I maybe overlooked? (this seems to be the problem with anything I try to convert, I just used this on as an example)