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NaviHuntress(Ranger)v6.0.blp

So this is a female Na'vi skin, the blue people in James Cameron's Avatar.
It represents an archer hunter, clothed with pieces of tanned animal skins, decorated with the hunter's dye.

She is armed with a bow cut in the wood of a pandoran green tree.
The cord that bends the bow is made of liana.

The cape is made of attached leaves, for camouflage in the jungle.
They are slightly tainted with their clan's teamcolor. Some of them were bathed into it to show a line of clear TC.

Ears were shortened and given a wooden earring; all the material i didn't find useful was removed; everything was freehanded except the very small parts that i still don't know where they can be seen, and the arrow.

There is no CnP, no recolor.

Don't hesitate to point out all the bad things, i still need alot of advice for skinning :D .

Reference picture:
158794-albums3202-picture27511.jpg



Proper Importing (how to get the archer portrait to work)

Import the skin twice (because of a war3 glitch), then set the paths to these:

Textures\Ranger.blp
This path works for Archer model and Hipprogryph rider model AND portrait

Units\NightElf\Archer\Ranger.blp
This one debugs the portrait for Archer only. If you don't use this path, Archer portrait will stay the normal night elf chick.

Special thanks to Misha for finding this out.
EDIT:
Skin updated with GIMP, now with alot of shading and highlights and stuff.
Also changed the pattern of the boots, and added the bright dots on the face.

EDIT: 4.0
Remade the whole skin (except bow) with much thinner body stripes, better shading and highlights, more muscle reliefs, improved clothes, more details, and bioluminescent dots on all parts of the body. Removed the black lines between zones.

EDIT: 5.0
Totally remade the bow and the cape, added even more shading and highlights about everywhere, and other minor improvements.
06-07-2010: screenshot updated.

EDIT: 6.0
Totally remade the eyes from scratch. Improved their placement and transition to the nose.
Remade the TC leaves on the cape from pure alpha, for much better visibility.
Refined bioluminescence dots (no longer 1 pixel), removed some of them, aligned them better, shaded them consistently with the surrounding shadowing.
Refined shading & highlighting in details for eyes, nose, neck, stomach, arm, leg, middle cloth, shoulderpad, bow handle.

Keywords:
na'vi, navi, archer, avatar, neytiri, pandora, huntress, hunter, jungle, alien, sexy, native, a v a t a r, green, camouflage, leaves, bow, hidden
Contents

Na'vi Huntress (Texture)

Reviews
18:10, 4th Jun 2010 67chrome: The thick, black outlines around most of the details make this skin look incomplete and cartoonish, I'd strongly advise removing the outlines outright and use shading and highlights to create the distinction between...

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18:10, 4th Jun 2010
67chrome: The thick, black outlines around most of the details make this skin look incomplete and cartoonish, I'd strongly advise removing the outlines outright and use shading and highlights to create the distinction between various textures and materials on the skin, the black lines make the skin look rather flat.

The smoothing that should be done with this skin is to combine layers of color/shading to remove any distinctive lines between them, and the details added should be added with small brushes to make things such as the clothing, jewelry, and hair look; well not like they are an island of solid color surrounded by thick, black lines.

I'd recommend using the eyedropper tool on your reference picture as well to make your colors as close as possible, right now the shades of blue used on the skin seem to intensely blue to be any type of texture that isn't emitting light. At least mix in a little more gray/ desaturate the skin a bit (nothing drastic, but enough to notice the change).

Also use a brush that doesn't show clear pixel definition, check for things like feathering. Or check out the 2D art tutorials section here, I believe there are things you could pick up there. Anyways, this skin needs a significant amount of work to be approved, but you seem to be started in a good direction.


21:41, 12th Jun 2010
67chrome: This skin looks passable now, and shows significant improvement. The eyes wrap a little funky, I'd suggest tweaking them so they look more almond shaped rather than triangular. the skin tone still strikes me as overly saturated, I'd recommend toning it down to more of a blue-gray. Other than that nice work.
 
Level 26
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Jun 15, 2006
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2,651
the whole texture needs shading shading shading shading and shading. Oh and highlights and more details aswell.

1 think you should also look more on reference pictures like http://i843.photobucket.com/albums/zz352/loaloauk/avatar4.jpg?t=1256947382 and study what kind of "material" their skin, their cloth, etc. are made of and afterwards you should transport your observations to the texture
 
Level 12
Joined
Oct 16, 2008
Messages
512
the whole texture needs shading shading shading shading and shading. Oh and highlights and more details aswell.

1 think you should also look more on reference pictures like http://i843.photobucket.com/albums/zz352/loaloauk/avatar4.jpg?t=1256947382 and study what kind of "material" their skin, their cloth, etc. are made of and afterwards you should transport your observations to the texture

I see, well i was using the picture attached below as a reference,
83166d1275675655-navihuntress-blp-neytiri.jpg

but the clothes seemed too dark to be seen from afar ingame (the cam is supposed to be zoomed out most of the time) so i made the clothes brighter, while trying to keep the animal skin theme.
Thanks for that picture, i didn't have that one yet, i'll see what it can inspire me.

Oh and i just found out there was no shading tool in paint.net, so i just switched to GIMP and it is indeed better. Now i can do the shading and all these things you guys told me.
 

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  • Neytiri.jpg
    Neytiri.jpg
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lookin' better. :)

however.. every, and i mean every part of the skin, including the skin, dress, hair. etc etc.. has to have it's shadows and highlights. as well as dropping a shadow on something.

for an example, in warcraft the "point of lighting" is always almost directly from above. so, any peace of wear or so should drop a little shadow below, like.. well.. boobs do drop shadow a bit below them :b
 
Level 12
Joined
Oct 16, 2008
Messages
512
67chrome: The thick, black outlines around most of the details make this skin look incomplete and cartoonish, I'd strongly advise removing the outlines outright and use shading and highlights to create the distinction between various textures and materials on the skin, the black lines make the skin look rather flat.

The smoothing that should be done with this skin is to combine layers of color/shading to remove any distinctive lines between them, and the details added should be added with small brushes to make things such as the clothing, jewelry, and hair look; well not like they are an island of solid color surrounded by thick, black lines.

I'd recommend using the eyedropper tool on your reference picture as well to make your colors as close as possible, right now the shades of blue used on the skin seem to intensely blue to be any type of texture that isn't limiting light. At least mix in a little more gray/ desaturate the skin a bit (nothing drastic, but enough to notice the change).

Also use a brush that doesn't show clear pixel definition, check for things like feathering. Or check out the 2D art tutorials section here, I believe there are things you could pick up there. Anyways, this skin needs a significant amount of work to be approved, but you seem to be started in a good direction.
Okay :) with so many precise details i should be able to pull that off.
I will remove the black lines, they were never meant to be black. I just shaded the dark brown of animal skins too much without noticing :O.
Also while skinning i have these 2D art tutorials perma-opened. What i need is more experience most likely. Well here i go skinning again :)


ahhhg!crap.i thought. . . nevermind.your skin is Indefinite, if you know what i mean.some details of your skin is PIXELATED.it's quite irritating.but the concept is good.

"You thought" what? Tell :eek: !
Also now i think i see what definition is, i will add that, and try to avoid the pixels.

lookin' better. :)

however.. every, and i mean every part of the skin, including the skin, dress, hair. etc etc.. has to have it's shadows and highlights. as well as dropping a shadow on something.

for an example, in warcraft the "point of lighting" is always almost directly from above. so, any peace of wear or so should drop a little shadow below, like.. well.. boobs do drop shadow a bit below them :b
So that is how one shades smartly... I'll take that into account. I had already given some parts (boobs included) a shadow but i hadn't thought of that. I'll try it out.
FOr the hair i guess i'll have to make them greyer, or how can i put shadows on black color? Or is it where highlights come into play?


*Glad you guys like the concept :)
 
Level 28
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Apr 6, 2010
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3,097
Works ingame I guess, but for some reason the Archer portrait is unchanged (Hippogryph portrait changes accordingly).

I have no experience whatsoever in skinning, but I can tell you the nose lines are too thick, cartoonish even. That and her nose still sticks out as opposed to being flat, making the effect worse.

(And will the other Na'vi units be getting a makeover as well?)
 
Level 12
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Works ingame I guess, but for some reason the Archer portrait is unchanged (Hippogryph portrait changes accordingly).

I have no experience whatsoever in skinning, but I can tell you the nose lines are too thick, cartoonish even. That and her nose still sticks out as opposed to being flat, making the effect worse.

(And will the other Na'vi units be getting a makeover as well?)

I can't do anything about the archer's portrait, that is a wc3 bug. No matter what skin you put on archer, portrait stays same.

About the cartoonish aspect, i am currently fixing that :)
Though th nose will always stick out because that is how the model is. I can't fix that with the skin, it needs modeling.

About other Na'vi units, unless i inspired some texturers into making some, i'll have to do them myself one by one :/

the skin is updated, so it still lacks of shading.blur some parts a little so it'll mix the shading.

Ah nice, thanks for the tip!
 
I can't do anything about the archer's portrait

yes you can, apparently, the portrait uses a different version of the same skin, probably lazy leftover from blizz guys.

open the portrait, read its skin-path and upload the skin again, to set the portrait path (rofl.. two same skins for one unit)

EDIT: Oh.. and.. NEVER Blur :3
 
Level 12
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yes you can, apparently, the portrait uses a different version of the same skin, probably lazy leftover from blizz guys.

open the portrait, read its skin-path and upload the skin again, to set the portrait path (rofl.. two same skins for one unit)

EDIT: Oh.. and.. NEVER Blur :3

Well i had already tried to set another path for archer_portrait.mdx, but it appears to be the same :/ and none of the approved NE archer skins i've seen seem to propose any other path than the one i'm using.
In these topics, i saw that people complained about that already (but that was after i had finished my skin >.> ).

For the blur, i think i know how to use it properly now :D i'm redoing the skin from scratch the way 67chrome described it, i am done with the "skin (in the common sense of the word)" already, it is a whole better now :thumbs_up:
I'm on to the leather parts now, it should be ready soon.
 
Level 12
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Hmm.. try these paths..

" Units\NightElf\Archer\Ranger.blp "
" Textures\Ranger.blp "

maybe one of those fixes the portrait, but try 'em separate..

HOLY CRAP IT WORKS! :O How did you find it?! I gotta check if the first path can work alone.
You, Sir Misha, are getting my special thanks. That, and extra rep lol.

Here is version 4.0 of the Na'vi Huntress, now with much higher quality :)

EDIT:
So one path works for Archer model and Hippogryph rider model AND portrait,
and the other one works for Archer portrait only.
Thanks for figuring it out :) but it means the skin has to be imported twice aswell..
 
Last edited:
Level 18
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6,414
The portrait is a seperate model in TFT, so not really hard to find. But oh well.. As talking about the skin, i can really see improvement compared to the last one, but as Misha already said, it needs shadows and highligts. And i think you really did good work, even though i hate Avatar and all the crap in it. Good work! :D
 
Level 12
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The portrait is a seperate model in TFT, so not really hard to find. But oh well.. As talking about the skin, i can really see improvement compared to the last one, but as Misha already said, it needs shadows and highligts. And i think you really did good work, even though i hate Avatar and all the crap in it. Good work! :D

Well i don't really mess often with the MPQ thingies..
For the skin, glad you can see the work :D
Misha said it needed shadows and highlights but that was before he saw this 4.0 version (in which i spammed that tool like wtf), so i guess i'll wait abit more before re-modifying it. :)
 
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Well i actually ment the lower part of the chest, as archer doesnt stand straight i think there should be a darker area under the breasts. And i was also thinking that are those some kind of vines or something at the cape (The green part) Cause if the team color is red they seem very unfitting
 
Level 12
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Much better!

Thanks ^^

Well i actually ment the lower part of the chest, as archer doesnt stand straight i think there should be a darker area under the breasts. And i was also thinking that are those some kind of vines or something at the cape (The green part) Cause if the team color is red they seem very unfitting

Ah well archer is straighter when attacking and running aswell as in one of the "stand" animations, so i just made shading like she was standing straight, since when she bends over her breasts will hide the shaded area below them anyways... or do u mean her stomach...
For the plants on the cape i made em green cuz it's pretty generic for plants, i didn't make em TC since it could look bizarre (when blue, pink, yellow player has them for example). So overall, you don't like current cape much, right?
 
Level 12
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Glad to help. but yeah.. blame blizzard for doubleimport :/

let's see... for that cape.. you should scrap that idea and do first somewhat totally vine'd cape, then add TC to some of the entwined vines, hm?

Ummm... well i can give that a try, even though i don't understand teamcolor that much so far lol. I'll see what i can do.

Now it is excellent! ^^

:D thanks, you've encouraged me!
 
Level 12
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Now this I would use! ^^
I especially love how the face looks now.

Now that you gots experience you need to make moar Na'vi skins!

Nice ^^ i took special care of the face, shading that is a pain in the a** lol, especially since Na'vi are much different faces compared to the base model (eyes, no eyebrows, wide nose, more skinnier etc).

I will make more Na'vi skins, because i need them for my map, and nobody wants to make them for some reason :/
Next is the Avatar most likely :) (i mean when this one gets approvez0red).
 
ughhh this still looks SO horrible. You have hardly done any basis of proper shading and the whole thing looks like a mess. idk what your doing with the cape but it looks so messy. Try actually HAVING a design instead of drawing random things on the cape and making it look random and completely unmatching to the skin.

And the bow... i dont even want to talk about the bow. Random black lines on the bow makes it look cartooney. and the fact that we can SEE your pixel lines is total lack of quality and makes everyone believe this is made with MS paint.

This still needs a TON more work and im not going to be approving this until i see a 100% improvement.
 
Level 13
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Well I think it is nice that you'll learn skinning to make some Na'vis for your map, but unfortunately it is not well executed.
Needs highlights, shading, some more "reality".
Overall I think it needs work.

Btw
ughhh this still looks SO horrible. You have hardly done any basis of proper shading and the whole thing looks like a mess. idk what your doing with the cape but it looks so messy. Try actually HAVING a design instead of drawing random things on the cape and making it look random and completely unmatching to the skin.

And the bow... i dont even want to talk about the bow. Random black lines on the bow makes it look cartooney. and the fact that we can SEE your pixel lines is total lack of quality and makes everyone believe this is made with MS paint.

This still needs a TON more work and im not going to be approving this until i see a 100% improvement.
verydemotival.com
 
I can't seem to find a way to alpha out a team color, is that even possible?, Like, shortening the cape without having nuclear red TC showing up there...

unfortunately, the "nuclear" red, as you say it, will remain there, unless you plan to edit the model itself to remove teamcolor.. :p

but.. since you only texture it.. well, you gotta make compromises. the cape stays that lenght :p
 
Level 48
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The face on the portrait looks quite bad. The nose seems very big, and the eyes are too close to it. In addition the eyes are just a block of yellow color, which looks bad. I'd suggest adding more of a shine in the eyes(make them not a single color), make the nose smaller, move the nose away from the eyes a bit, define the nose more with shading, move the pupils of the eyes a bit more to the upper end of the eye and make the eyes more 'sinister looking'(At the moment, she looks too 'peaceful', or, well, completely calm as though as she's sitting on a sofa in her house, relaxing).
 
Level 28
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Looks a lot better now with the team coloring and the nose job.

One thing that does look weird is the portrait's animation: since the normel archer doesn't have pupils, the new skin looks like she's just squinching without actually closing her eye. (Of course, I don't expect anything can be done about that, so good job on the whole.)
 
Level 12
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The face on the portrait looks quite bad. The nose seems very big, and the eyes are too close to it. In addition the eyes are just a block of yellow color, which looks bad. I'd suggest adding more of a shine in the eyes(make them not a single color), make the nose smaller, move the nose away from the eyes a bit, define the nose more with shading, move the pupils of the eyes a bit more to the upper end of the eye and make the eyes more 'sinister looking'(At the moment, she looks too 'peaceful', or, well, completely calm as though as she's sitting on a sofa in her house, relaxing).

Well for the nose, these people really have big noses ya know :/ see reference picture.
I will space out the eyes.
I'll trying adding more variation to them, since it looks like a block of color >.< okay for the "shine".
You can see on reference picture that there should be no space at all between eyes and nose though.
Okay for even more shading on the nose.
Okay for moving the eyes & more sinister look, you're right she's a huntress after all.
Thanks for the details :)

haha.. even eyes need shading and highlights :D :D
Sometimes i feel like one could make a skin with just 1 color, +only shading and highlights and it'd be "good" :/

Looks a lot better now with the team coloring and the nose job.

One thing that does look weird is the portrait's animation: since the normel archer doesn't have pupils, the new skin looks like she's just squinching without actually closing her eye. (Of course, I don't expect anything can be done about that, so good job on the whole.)
Thanks ^^
Maybe the eye thing will fix when i modify em the way debode described.
 
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