Next we do some grimy dirt. The stuff that gets in all the cracks, so to speak.

Make a new layer and put it on Dissolve, make your colour a dirty brown and select a soft paintbrush, I tone the brush down to about 20% strength so you can build up the dirt easier. Start brushing into all the dark recess and areas that would be covered up with dirt over time, that would be less prone to be cleaned off.

Basically think of it as layers of dirt building up over time, with the open areas getting washed more frequently from rain or just plain scrubbing :) Leaving a buildup of dirt getting thicker and thicker in the recesses.

After I am happy with the results of my dirt, I make a new layer and merge the Dissolve layer with the new layer and apply a slight gaussian blur filter to it in Filter | Blur | Gaussian Blur. This softens it up a bit, and then I adjust the transparency of that layer and then add a monochrome noise filter from Filter | Noise | Noise... to give it a bit of colour variation.

Next is a bit of rust. I'm going to do two colour types...as mana has a different reaction to metal than water. But the method is the same.

Firstly make a new layer and create a similar effect shown here with a paintbrush (solid brown example, I kept it in order to show you I actually use this layer to blur). Once you have done that, use Filter | Blur | Motion Blur in order to blur the effect to a suitable distance. If it is a little too faint, although the length and effect is good, rememeber you can simply duplicate the layer to make it denser after the effect has been applied. I duplicated it 3 times and merged them...for example.

After you have done so you can scale the rust along an axis if you want to make it longer still, and possibly clean up some of the trails to make them shorter or less solid to make the effect more random. with either the smudge tool or eraser.

And that's about it, or so I thought, for this object. But I thought that the top of the exhaust pipes looked pretty dodgy. Now I originally thought it wouldn't be worth the polys to model it properly, but in the end I decided it is worth it, so I tweaked the model and modified the map.

Now as I could use other parts of the map already existing this wasn't a big thing. So I used inset and extrude to make the top of the pipes. And then used the usual mapping techniques (Unfold Mapping mostly) in order to unwrap the polys. I then placed them over the areas that could reuse them...being the current pipe texture. This actually worked out well as the rust and stuff carried through.

In the end I'm pretty happy with the result, I will probably start on the other maps. I will probably come back to this one once I get a better overall feel for the character.

And here's one we prepared earlier!

Well, maybe not...but by using the same methods described so far with the torso I was able to come up with most of the arm. Once again there were a few little things I added...such as the glow canisters on the forearm detail etc...but I won't go into them for the sake of time and my sanity...

For the moment, the arm is now done also. I presume I will come back to it once I finalise the rest for that final, and inevitable 5% touch up for that extra level of coolness.

Once again I have jumped forward a bit in order to save time and actually get this thing finished...in doing so I have actually learned a few things that will help...so I'm going to have to go back and tweak the tutorial...so sit tight while I look back at what I have done (mapping especially) before we move on...

...still here? Good, you must be eager to learn more then.

The final texture (with boots and jacket) was the hardest of all three. I could probably say I haven't finished these yet...as I could take them further. But for this exercise they will most certainly do to continue on getting the character into UT2004 before the next Unreal engine comes along and makes me obsolete. Digital me that is, not me me.

A quick overview of the third texture.

Time, patience and good reference. The main reference I had was the Trench coat from Blade 2 and a Boot from the New Rock range of shoes.

The subtle leather texture was gained from a texture CD I have (tweaked and applied as a multiply layer) and the rest...well the rest was from studying the reference either by sight and trying to emulate the effect on all it's levels (light, texture, colour) or using the reference directly and then editing it into the map to suit my purposes.

I used a LOT of layer effects and blending tools. Things like multiply and bevels and drop shadows and the like.

Above all however, is the study of reference. By studying good reference you can, in essence, copy reality for all it's worth to duplicate the effects you need. If you aren't going for reality...you can still use reality as a basis and then work from there.

A good method I prefer to use is the base colour, a multiply layer for shadowing, an overlay or Screen layer for highlights and a 'texture' layer on it's own that defines the grain of the surface. In this example it's leather or skin. On top of that is any other minor details to make up an 'object' as such in your texture. This may be done as a whole or as individual units to build up a complex texture. The boots, in this case, were made up of HEAPS of layers in order to build up the straps, leather layers, buckles and detail that ended up with the results you see before you.

This method has a number of benefits...mainly that of being highly adjustable if you need to tweak base colours. It also allows the surface texture to always reside untouched, regardless of underlying colour or shading.

Save each of your images as .psd's where you can find them. We will be saving these as .bmp's and .tga's in a sec in order to import them into Unreal Ed...but for now they are fine sitting nice and tight in the folder on their own. It's OK, they're adult images now.

And here you have it. One modelled, mapped, textured...er, me!

Now we get to move onto rigging a custom rig for our character so that the shoulder plate can move and that we can get some steam coming out of those exhausts.

I also intend on having a little bit of cloak movement so he doesn't look so stiff. It will be a very tiresome exercise to get the cloak working well...but how else am I going to show the world the wonderful texture work I did on the boots!

Before moving on however I would like to say a thankyou for reading so far and I hope you have learnt something from it. If you have any comments you would like to donate, feel free by emailing me here. I'll try to answer / help if I can however I can't promise anything cos work has a tendency to take a lot of my time.

Before moving on we will set our textures up to import into the Unreal Editor. There are two ways to do this, either by using a plugin for photoshop to export directly to .dds or import an image into Unreal Editor and convert it there. We will do the latter, as you will need less tools to do so.

The file formats that Unreal can import include the following : .bmp / .tga / .pcx / .dds / .upt

For flat images you can save as .bmp's. For images that use transparency you would use .tga's and use the 32 bit channel to export the alpha information. So make sure that is turned on when you save out.

So first up, open your texture files, flatten them all and resize them to the desired size. Save them all out as .bmp's in your UT2004 folder, You should have the following files, feel free to name them as you see fit of course:

1024x1024 Skin_01.bmp = head and torso skin
1024x1024 Skin_02.bmp = Trench and Boots skin
512x512 Skin_03.bmp = Tech arm skin
256x256 Skin_01o.bmp = opacity channel (not used due to technical difficulty...for now)

I will eventually be making a specularity map too, but I will save that for later.

Once done and you want to jump straight into getting the textures into the engine (or that's all you want to know) jump over to the import section of the tutorial here and I will continue with the import of the textures.

Otherwise, to the next chapter we go! This is where our character will come to life.

It Lives....It LIVES!!! Huahahahahahahaha....*ahem* yes well. Moving right along.