Learning to make textures

[Dridje]

So I have decent mapping skills and I've tried to make a little mod but I always seem to not get far.  What I've been planning with a friend would work well if we had the ability to make our own textures so he's tried learning but he's had no success.  I was wondering how I would go about learning to be a sort of texture artist.  I have a good digital camera and I could get Gimp or Photoshop.

[Robofork]

it would also be good to know how to skin, i try to look around for tutorials on these sorts of things but i never seem to find any :\

[JamesINACTIVEUSER]

If I remember mate, I'll try and make a basic tutorial on making simple photo textures today.

[ruMpel]

And we should make a tutorial section in the forum as well, where you post tutorials.

[D3ads]

I made a basic but hopefully helpful tutorial on making textures from photo sources for an old mod of mine, you can see it here;

http://hl-improvement.com/forums/textures-2d-art-audio/condemned-building-texture-tutorial/

[BerZerK]

I made some textures using Wally once. Really basic and efficient program for making textures for Half-Life. The quality and features aren't that great, but its good for starting out. It's actually designed to be used specifically for Quake, but works like a charm for HL as well.

[Dridje]

Okay guys, thanks.  I will wait for James to (hopefully) make his basic tutorial.  And as for you D3ads, I'm currently getting Paint Shop Pro 7 and I will take a look at your tutorial.

[Robofork]

thanks for the tut d3ads.

Although it is a bit advanced for me, I will try it out when i get a bit more familiar with paintshop

[ruMpel]

I recommend Photoshop (CS2/CS3/CS4) to make textures. It's the most common program you use, and it's easy to find tutorials for it.

[JamesINACTIVEUSER]

Recorded the tutorial... Unable to edit it all together currently. Uh... Stay tuned!

[D3ads]

I recommend Photoshop (CS2/CS3/CS4) to make textures. It's the most common program you use, and it's easy to find tutorials for it.

Photoshop is overrated But yeah, if you're wanting to use lots of advanced techniques and filters then PS is better, you can do everything in the tutorial in PS the same as PSP anyway.

[Xilefian]

There's also GIMP which I use, it can handle most image formats, including photoshop psd, it's free and has a simple and easy to learn GUI, but the best way to learn it is find tutorials for stuff (I learnt most of my GIMP'ing from "userbar" tutorials and orb tutorials).
I use it to make textures for my game.

[Robofork]

Yeah, Gimps pretty cool if your looking for a free photoshop alternative.

[DiamonD]

Yeah GIMP is pretty cool, convenient that it's also free for the nerds who aren't torrenting all their crap (lol).

I'd recommend Irfanview, also. It's a very quick and painless program that makes converting and viewing images within a blink of a eye. Very nice for utility.