Skinning tips and tuts

[doctorchallenger]

http://freedomreborn.net/archive/index.php?topic=44247.0 by murs47

[life_matrix]

http://www.fxforce.com/GRYPHON/tutorial1.html
http://www.imaginationispower.com/images/game/tutorial/
http://www.geocities.com/skingalltut/texturemap.htm
http://www.geocities.com/skingalltut/alphatut.htm

Captain Spud Had a few that I hope he'll repost some day.

NPI Base Skin Thread, with link to Base Skin yahoo group:http://newpowerinc.com/original_freedom/viewtopic.php?t=314

House Quake's assement of various common skinning programs: http://newpowerinc.com/original_freedom/viewtopic.php?t=1121

There's a lot of useful and interesting tutorials presented or linked to in this thread. However, among others, the following links are broken:

http://pro52.msshost.com/~unfluffy/v3/skintones.htm

http://www.imaginationispower.com/images/game/tutorial/

NPI Base Skin Thread, with link to Base Skin yahoo group:http://newpowerinc.com/original_freedom/viewtopic.php?t=314

House Quake's assement of various common skinning programs: http://newpowerinc.com/original_freedom/viewtopic.php?t=1121

I could find an archived copy of the first two (Syn's Skinning Tutorials and Andrew G Davis' skin tutorial) on the Archive.org Wayback Machine. However, all the images are gone and without them the tute is not very easy to follow. The other two can not be found on Archive.org at all (being forum threads).

Any chance that someone can repost or offer an alternative link?

[UnfluffyBunny]

pretty sure I reposted my skintones tute on the wiki, but I dont have a link right now

[Tomato]

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/FFBaseSkins1/ -Direct link to the base skin group, as OF is down.

OF-Original Freedom, the NPI forum.

[ow_tiobe_sb]

Since finding software suitable for skinning has proven to be a perennial question with newcomers (and since House Quake's excellent review thread went down with the OF ship), I have reposted this information here to save the moderators the trouble of hitting the "Sticky" button.

The High End Software

Adobe Photoshop: The graphic industry's tool of choice.  This programme does it all: layers, customisable brushes, filters/plug-ins, channels/Alpha transparency, etc.  Photoshop CS4 currently costs $699, but you may be able to purchase it for less on eBay or at an academic price (if you are a student).

Corel Paint Shop Pro: The relatively inexpensive competitor to Adobe Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro has most (if not all) of the tools and capabilities of PS (especially for the limited purposes of skinning for FF) at a fraction of the price ($79.99, but actually $59.99 after $20.00 instant rebate).

Free Software

GIMP (The GNU Image Manipulation Programme): Absolutely free, GIMP works with layers/channels, has its own array of filters, and can save to TGA and DDS formats--everything you might need for skinning.  I've downloaded this programme myself, and I can assert that it is easy to learn and easy to use.

Paint.NET: Again, free with unlimited free, automatic updates, this programme uses layers/channels, plug-ins, and can save to TGA and DDS formats.  I have not played around with this application much, but it does seem to be less intuitive to use than GIMP.  'Tis worth taking it for a spin to see what you prefer.

There are other mid-level programmes out there, but these are the major applications (with all of the graphic tools you need to start skinning besides Character Tool from Irrational Games) that have demonstrated both popularity and staying power.

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning

[life_matrix]

Thanks for the comparison, ow_tiobe_sb. It should make deciding on what to use much easier.

I've been using Corel Photo-Paint 8 for years now. But I've never tried GIMP. And I only have partial familiarity with either Adobe Photoshop or Paint.NET. I did play around with Adobe Photoshop years ago at college, but not since.

I only recently installed Paint.NET and while I found it to have potential, the interface is, indeed, a bit intimidating. That, and I recently discovered that Paint.NET refuses to load some types of .DDS files. I know these files are not corrupted because I could open them with other programs. And the files were small, so it wasn't anything simple like running out of memory.

What really put me off of Paint.NET, however, is - ironically - their community. I posted a brief and polite explaination of my problem with certain .DDS files. But the thread was ignored. Eventually, I bumped my own thread... and it still got ignored. I waited a while and finally bumped it a second time... and then the admin chided me for bumping and LOCKED the topic. :rolleyes:

Anyway, some paint and image editing programs are far superior to others at certain tasks. In particular, I've noticed that MOST JPEG images on the Net were compressed using a vastly inferior algorithm. If you want to get the most compression out of a JPEG without any risk of artifacts, consider using a professional image editing program like Paint Shop Pro. With Corel Photo-Paint 8 I can get as much as 10 times more compression out of a .JPG before it starts to degrade - that's 10 X vs. what your run-of-the-mill digital camera or cheap paint program can do! (I vaguely recall reading an article on how Corel's patented JPEG algorithm is the most powerful.) Until recently I was stuck with dial-up and I know first hand how some users really appreciate small image size!

I wrote about this on a recent Morrowind mods thread on the Bethesda forums:

[REL] The Jacket by Illuminiel

What Alphax responded with was rather shocking to me:

Photoshop is the worst offender since it's implementation of JPEG is completely broken (it's hard to emphasise that enough) - the quality settings 6 and 7 are reversed and they do strange things with the progression of the quantisation tables across quality levels. See here for more details.

What...?!  :blink:  You mean, even though Adobe Photoshop is often touted as being the best at image editing, it still has such a serious flaw? Even though purchasing the basic version can cost $700? :wacko:
That's just shameful. :thumbdown: Almost makes me glad I'm still stuck with an outdated version of Photo-Paint. Perhaps then, when I do upgrade, this is still one more reason I'd be better off switching to Paint Shop Pro? Or should I try GIMP, instead? :unsure:

BTW: GIMP might be easy to learn. But does it have nearly as much functionality as, say, PaintShop Pro or Paint.NET? And is there a large selection of plugins and/or an active plugin development community?

[House Quake]

photoshop is the standard for design period. it can be used to create website designs or photographic retouching for high end fashion mags. it's functionality is massive. even if that guy is right and settings 6-7 have problems on JPG optimization it's not much of an issue. most of the world doesn't use photoshop to make low quality images. it's like dumping your girlfriend for having a single grey hair think of it that way.

Well you know I'm a supporter of Paint Shop Pro.  Am using PSP X2 now.  It lacks the over all 'depth' that photoshop has... but it's still feature rich and compatible with photoshop plug ins and such.  At a fraction of the cost... I've always felt it was the better product for the 'non' professional.  But even If you're an industry person... Photoshop is the standard... but not the absolute.

Their are free programs out there which can do competent graphics Art Weaver,  Paint.Net and of course the GIMP

[life_matrix]

The part I thought was shameful was not about having such a bug. It's a given that all software of any complexity is capable of having bugs and/or unintended consequences. Instead, what I thought was bad was how it should have been caught right away and users warned to upgrade with a patch.

even if that guy is right and settings 6-7 have problems on JPG optimization it's not much of an issue. most of the world doesn't use photoshop to make low quality images. it's like dumping your girlfriend for having a single grey hair think of it that way.

I don't think you would say that if you were still stuck on dial-up, like many people still are. I think it's an issue because I doubt that many who use Photoshop know about it and because of the potentially significant impact it might have on bandwidth and wasted storage space. By itself, one bloated image doesn't make much difference. But with many, many thousands of users, the impact starts to be felt... especially many images later.

Granted, this is only for settings 6 and 7, which are low quality. But I think that's exactly the type of setting that should be used for images shared on the Net. And admittedly, the huge, bloated size of most JPEG files can not be blamed entirely on a software glitch. I'm sure a lot of people are simply inconsiderate of others in terms of bandwidth and file size and choose to save with little or no compression (if they're even aware of such technical jargon or choices). And I'm sure a lot of others simply upload their JPEGs straight from their digital camera or whatever without attempting to shrink the resolution or add compression.

It's that kind of mentality that reminds me of people who used to send me huge email attachments filled with enormous images, flash animations, and/or movies - even though I've told them before that I only had dial-up. :rolleyes:

In any case, I think the primary use for any image editing program is to share the result with others. And in this day and age the primary means of sharing images is through the Net. Sure, you can share images in a lossless format such as .png or .tga. But, IMHO, you'd better have a good reason for doing so.

For things like desktop publishing, components of a software program, or skins or textures for a 3D mesh, this is perfectly understandable. Even for something like a desktop wallpaper, a lossless format (aside from .BMP) is acceptable. (Though, personally, I always save wallpaper in JPEG.) But for things like Internet ads, game or software screenshots, or even sharing photos of the family - for images of any significant size - these should always be saved in a high compression format. IMHO, there's no excuse not to. (And why anyone is still using .BMP is beyond my understanding!)

I use a high rate of JPEG compression all the time and, visually, the difference is barely noticable. However, I do notice the huge savings in download speed and storage space. It's so noticable, in fact, that sometimes I spend a half hour or so just loading downloaded images in Photo-Paint and resaving them in a respectable compression and smaller resolution - saving myself many megabytes of space.

While I'm on the subject, I've also noticed that a lot of game screenshots seem far too dark to notice details. (And my friend tells me my monitor is set so bright it's almost blinding.) So if I go to the trouble of resaving screenshots, I often apply some Gamma Correction, too.