Andres' WACKY Costume Editing Tutorial

[Andres]

What you're doing to be needing for this is Adobe Photoshop, Paint (well, I do), 3dmm Pencil, and 7gen. You don't NEED Photoshop, but I do my editing with it because it allows you more versatility than when I spend days drawing Freddy Krueger's face pixel by pixel.

(BTW, I'll randomly alternate between referring to this as being ME doing it and giving YOU orders.)

The first thing you need to do is go to 7gen, pick Actor Extractor, fill in the details, UNCHECK 'make tilesheet', and extract it.



(note: there is a way to do characters using 'tilesheets'. I won't use that here since i'm going to be dealing with adding new textures instead of just replacing. Also, because its a stupid fucking way to edit a character).

After you do that, open 3dmm Pencil and start editing.

Ok, so when you open Pencil, you're going to see a bunch of different extensions. For the simplistic stuff we're going to be doing here, all you'll be editing are TMAPs and MTRLs, which are fairly easy to work with.



What I'm going to do here is I'm going to turn Jeremy into some typical kid of today. I am just going to be making this shit up as I go along, from easy to less easy, so when YOU do a character, it will probably be in a different order since you'll wisely have it preplanned.So I start going from TMAP to TMAP, extracting the textures from them all up until the shoes. This means you extract ONE COSTUME. What I've circled in the drawing is probably the most annoying thing you'll find about editing actors; the rest is a breeze. BTW, in case you've never used Pencil: to extract what you need, click on the TMAP, then go to View/Edit, and select Export To BMP, as I've underlined in the picture in case you're DUMB, like ME WHEN I STARTED.

What happens is that different parts of the character use the same texture. This makes editing a character a tedious ordeal if you're looking to make something that differs considerably from the original one. Each of those MTRLs is one of the parts that uses that, so to speak. But it's not just the parts; its also each specific costume. So in the case of Jeremy, which uses the same face for all 4 costumes, you have a billion MTRLs linking to the same image. Why is this is important? Simple. The hands, for example, use a specific part of the face texture for their texture. If you cover the face in, say, a beard, chances are your hands will be all beardy. So you want to change that, because it's pretty fucking obnoxious.

Now that all the textures are extracted, you go and start editing them. Since this tutorial is for the TOTAL amateur, I'll explain how to edit too.

Open the face BMP in photoshop, select the whole image, copy it, and paste it in a new image (of the same size; it should give you the same size as whats in the clipboard automatically). Why? Because the BMP has a fixed set of colors, which are the ones 3dmm allows. By making it a new image, you can use whatever colors you want, but more importantly, effects. The colors will eventually revert to the ones 3dmm allows, but you're doing this to be able to use photoshop effects, not for the colors.





Now that you've created a new version of the face, start editing. Now, what I do is I create a new layer (shift+ctrl+N) and set its opacity to something low. Then I use the Paint Bucket tool to fill it with a color that resembles skin tone. After that, I use the filter "Noise", set it to Gaussian, and you get a pixely skin. Now, that's just me. I like pixely skin. However, if you want more solid, natural like skin, such as the one the 3dmm characters have, a good suggestion is to just extract textures from a character and use THAT as the skin. For a few of my models, all of the skin consisted of the texture from Frank's arms. If your character's black, take it from Bo's arms. Be resourceful.




Ok, moving on. After the skin layer, I create another layer. This is the layer I use to make the character's features. Since the opacity in the skin one is low, you can see the character's features, so you can use them as a guideline as to where things should be and start tracing, or just drawing a totally different type. I also use that to draw little guides for where I should apply shadows. After doing that, I make a new layer, UNDER the features layer, and use it to color the eyes and mouth. This guy doesn't have eyes, so its just the mouth. After that's done, I shade the skin. HOW SO, YOU ASK? Easy. Photoshop has burn and dodge tools. If you're retarded, its the one under the paint bucket. This darkens/lightens the image. Apply as much as you want on the skin layer. It's preferably to have 2 copies of the skin layer in case you fuck up. Also, at this point you should have set the skin layer's opacity to 100, since you don't really need to see the features. Set burn and dodge to low exposures, BTW.

After you're done with the face, you need to convert it to 3dmm's pallette. To do this, just paste it over an image that has the 3dmm pallete, such as the BMP from which you originally copied it from. I do this in paint since Photoshop would fuck up at some point, I'm not sure why. This will drain some of the color from the character, and in many cases ruin some of what you have made, but FUCK YOU. That's just the way it is. Now, since you were using LAYERS, you can't just select copy and then paste. You've gotta select 'flatten image', THEN copy. Otherwise it'll just copy a layer instead of all of them. After you copy it, UNDO the flattening, in case you ever want to edit the image again.



Ok, so after that, go to Pencil, go to the TMAP whose BMP you just edited, view/edit, and import the BMP. Since you wisely didnt change its name, it should be the same number as the one you're viewing. Always click APPLY CHANGES after you do this crap. You're probably going to want to check your progress, so go to the folder that all this crap is in, select 'makevxp', click on the vxp made, and run it in your movie.



Looks like a hideous ape. But whatever. I will sort out this little problem in part 2.

Since you probably want consistency, you're going to want the ears to be the same texture type. So just extract them and do the same process. In this case, however, I don't want the character to have ears. So i'm going to delete them. The way I'll do this is by using a transparent texture. Just replace the texture by brushing it with the transparent color, which in photoshop is FF00FF (type that in the color window). That should get rid of the ears.

Now, in the case of the hair, I want this guy to have black hair. However, instead of doing a new texture, I can just work with the old one. Once again, copy it into a new image, and then Desaturate (shift ctrl U). Then go to image/adjustments/brightness-contrast and lower brightness / increase contrast so that it looks like black hair.



Now that the face area is done, let's go to the torso. We want to give this guy more normal looking clothes, not that bizarre-ass thing he's wearing. So let's give him a jacket. The same principle applies: Use the original image as a way to guide you as to where things SHOULD be, and make a new image over it using layers.

The chest is fairly easy. Now, things actually get a bit tricky when you want to edit the arms. The arm texture is used 4 times, as seen in this picture:



This means that ALL the arm consists of that texture. However, I want the forearm to be different than the uh...whatever the other arm is called. SO what do I do? Easy. I click 'export' and export THE TMAP. NOt the BMP, but the TMAP. Then I press the giant + button and add a new tmap by typing TMAP 1. Then I import the TMAP I just exported. This is going to be the lower arm. Then I go make the textures that I will need. After doing so, I'm going to have to assume the following: the first 2 MTRLs are one arm, the 2nd ones are the other arm. Now, lets assume that the 2nd one will be the lower arm. So I doubleclick on this MTRL, and it takes me HERE:



So what I'm going to do is I'm going to change the TMAP reference (which tells it which texture to use) to the one I just made (TMAP 1). Press the - button on the side to delete the TMAP reference, the + button on the side to add a new one, and type TMAP 1. Then use the UP button to have this reference be at the top (IMPORTANT). The new reference should look like this:

[Andres]

After testing, it looks like this:



Which is the essence of editing a character: fucking up miserably plenty of times. There are 3 problems here. First, obviously, the arms are the opposite of what I assumed. The first one is the lower arm, the 2nd one is the upper arm. Second, the neck looks bad. This could be for 2 reasons. 1 is that the collar he has is a separate part that also uses the torso texture. The other, less fortunate one is that thats just the way the torso model is made. Unfortunately, that's the case. So I have to go back to the torso texture and change the shirt type. So just reverse the damage you did on the arms by going to TMAP 1, reverting it to the TMAP it should have been, and do the tmap switch process for the 1st and 3rd MTRLs. The 3rd problem is that the textures in the arms look lighter, or less shaded. TO fix that, just shade it more, DUH. The good thing about these trial and error things is that you eventually learn what should be what. For instance, now you know that if both parts of the arm use the same texture, the first one is the lower one. The same principle tends to apply to the legs. And the first one will be the right one, the 2nd one the left one.



See? Now it looks fine. Now let's do the same thing, but with even more complications, on the legs. Since giving him normal jeans is too easy, lets give him ripped jeans. Since the texture is going to be used 4 times, you're going to need to make 3 new TMAPs to have a TMAP for each of the 4 parts, since the rips can't be all uniform.

Now, the beauty of photoshop is that the internet has a billion photoshop tutorials. So instead of trying to find wood textures from some remote site, just search for a tutorial on how to do textures. In this case, I searched for one that resulted in a jean texture. It looked like this after I did it:



If you're going to do something like this, however, run it through 3dmm's pallete first to see if it actually looks similar, because it not, it'd be a waste of time to keep working on it. After that, I did 4 separate texture for each part of the leg. I created the 3 new TMAPs, changed their textures, etc. Once that was done, I fixed the MTRL references so that there'd be an individual TMAP for each part. The result:



How did I do the textures? Just following a really really simple tutorial for jeans (use blue in the foreground, white in the background, fill with blue, select color halftone to size 1, contrast 5, and then use diffuse set to darken only), and then using the brush tool I painted the little rips. Then using the dodge tool I 'bleached' it.

Finally, the shoes. Just did them. No real hassle here.



There. Here you have a traditional character edit.



This ends the first part of the tutorial. The second part of the tutorial will focus on finishing the character and adding a few of the tricks and things that you can achieve via character editing. And I'll post the character.

[Graham Simmonds]

Really cool.

[Matt Allen]

Andres, you're a fucking legend. I needed something like this.

[Brimz]

This tutorial will bring many new models to three dee em em, especially from those who didn't understand Pencil++ great before (it's not hard after you get the hang of it guys, this tutorial will help you tons).

[Molotov]

Fantastic.

Uh, can Paint Shop Pro be an adequate substitute for Photoshop?

[Aaron Haynes]

Originally posted by Molotov
Fantastic.

Uh, can Paint Shop Pro be an adequate substitute for Photoshop?

Yes. Photoshop just has better tools and a better setup and all that. I used PSP5 for this before I had Photoshop.

[Gorosaurus]

Wow, awesome job, Andres. That's a whole lot of work, though. Probably gets really streamlined once you've done it twice

[Jesterfoot]

WHOOOHOO!

[Justin Wawrzonek]

Very nice Andres!! You have any specific sites you goto for Photoshop tutorials or do you just google it?

[Evil Ash]

Very, very nice, Andres.

Make an account and add the tutorial to http://www.v3dmm.com

Just so this never gets lost in time.

[Brimz]

Originally posted by drevilz4l
Very nice Andres!! You have any specific sites you goto for Photoshop tutorials or do you just google it?

I doubt he even uses tutorials, because those Photoshop layer effects are really basic.

[Saxon]

bump.

[Andres]

Yeah I don't feel like completing this fully, so one last detail:


Some things in 3dmm are made with gradients, not textures. For instance, Venie's fangs. If you want to edit something that uses gradients, what you have to do is find its MTRL. This should be easy, since its MTRL will be the only one that DOESN'T REFERENCE A TMAP. All the normal ones will. Go to a normal one, and extract it. Then go to the reference-less MTRL and import the one you just extracted. Then create a TMAP (by using an extracted TMAP) and make a reference to it on the MTRL that uses the gradient.

[Mike Mayea]

Thanks andres I made a skin but was stuck with pencil, this should help.

[Brossy]

How do I get rid of Jerzy's eyebrows

[Lord Blazer]

Find the bmdl and remove it?

[Andres]

It's the same BMDL as the beard, so you'll need 3dsmax or some other 3d editing program.

[Lord Blazer]

....that's gay.

[Frogman]

any way we can re-upload the pics?

[Jesterfoot]

hehe, I was smart enough to save this page and it's contents, right when it was posted.


I'll give it to you if you tell me the rest of the steps on Taco's tutorial.

[Frogman]

which one of taco's tutorials?

edit: Nevermind, I dont know what you do in pencil on that one. I was asking questions myself.

[Jesterfoot]

http://www.3dmm.net/image/tutorial.rar

[Frogman]

thanks

[Frogman]

OK how is this method different from just exporting the tileset and editing it all at once??

does this method allow you to ADD stuff instead of replace? and if so is this how you add multiple facial expressions to the same character?

Note- I skimmed through this thing so I am sorry if its mentioned.


Edit- hahaha,

"(note: there is a way to do characters using 'tilesheets'. I won't use that here since i'm going to be dealing with adding new textures instead of just replacing. Also, because its a stupid fucking way to edit a character)."

...my bad.