Chapter9.Texture Painting

Chapter 9. Texture Painting

CD Files

Kila_Texture.mb

Grae_Texture.mb

KilaBody.psd

KilaHair.psd

KilaHead.psd

GraeBody.psd

GraeMisc.psd

GraeWing.psd

KilaBody.tga

KilaBody_Bump.tga

KilaBody_Spec.tga

KilaHair.tga

KilaHair_Bump.tga

KilaHair_Spec.tga

KilaHead.tga

KilaHead_Bump.tga

KilaHead_Spec.tga

GraeBody.tga

GraeBody_Bump.tga

GraeBody_Spec.tga

GraeMisc.tga

GraeMisc_Bump.tga

GraeMisc_Spec.tga

GraeWing.tga

THIS CHAPTER COVERS various texturing techniques. It is not, however, a chapter on "how to draw." Rather, it explains how to use Maya in conjuction with Adobe Photoshop to prepare and paint your characters' textures. We also discuss how best to optimize your pages to get the file size as small as possible.

I chose Photoshop for our work in this chapter because it seems to be the industry standard; most companies I know of use it. Feel free to adapt this chapter to whatever digital imaging software you are using, or you can download a trial version of Photoshop from the Adobe Web site using the link on this book's CD.

The Photoshop toolbar shown in Figure 9.1 holds most of the tools we will use to paint our textures. These tools are generally self-explanatoryfor example, the Zoom tool allows you to zoom in and out of your imageand I'll briefly explain the others as we use them.

Figure 9.1. The Photoshop toolbar

For further information on Photoshop's tools, go to the application's Help > Photoshop Help, or press F1.

TIP

For best results when creating any 2D artwork on a computer, I highly recommend purchasing a graphics tablet. A mouse is good for work that requires more precision, but for drawing it's not a very fluid tool. Graphics tablets are also pressure sensitive, meaning you can vary the thickness of the line you are drawing by applying more or less pressure. The two main suppliers of graphics tablets are Wacom (www.wacom.com) and Nisis (www.nisis.com).