Skins & Palletes

[Tim.]

Alright now, I supose you could call this kind of a request, and kind of a question. I have my texture done basically, however its inteneded to be metal, so I smooth it. Great looks perfect. However as we all know Wc3 has its wonderful palletes that screw everything up. (See attached screenshot)

So, is there a way to avoid the pallete issue? If not, is there someone who could possibly assist me in evening out the colors on my texture without causing this problem? Thanks.

 

[halo]

It's impossible!
Stop trying!
Warcraft was made this way.
You cannot change a color pallete.There is a difference between modding a game and completly changing a game.
The point is you can not.
I've told you multiple times...
...oh and no one realy cares about that,one third of the people who play warcraft will think that it looks strange.The rest are normal not even a little bit artistic people.

Now good luck with finding acceptable wc3 colors,you will need it.
-halo aka CMB,mrstaby

 

[antihero]

I'm not understanding this, what colors are you trying to use that wc3 wont show.

 

[Goliath the God]

I've made alot of skins.. well.. not alot. But I've never experienced a problem with teh palette. And that texture of yours, I think it looks ok. Quite realistic, if you think about it a little. And it probably won't show too clearly when you zoom out?

 

[Tim.]

The game is a FPS, you will never be zoomed out.

Okay fine, then lets solve something else instead. I smoothed the texture because of a flaw in the texture, at one point the texture should have blended to a different tone, however it seems it did not quite work. If I do not smooth, then the texture looks perfect in-game aside from this flaw. Attached is a screenshot.

How can I fix those pink areas to look better? Every attempt I make ends up like the image at the top.

 

[Goliath the God]

Is there supposed to be a difference between the skin and the wrapped model, or what? As for now it looks all the same, and it doesn't look too bad, perhaps a little smudging will do it. (The only thing I can see that wraps a bit wrong is the green shadows.. those needs some work.)

 

[Tim.]

The problem I am refering to is the hard line where the metal changes from purple to pink. This is very clear along the center piece.

 

[Goliath the God]

First of, I can't see a hard line that goes from purple to pink, I see a soft line, but still visible, that goes from purple, to light purple. If you're so angry at it, why don't you smudge it? .. I really can't believe it can be any hard. Thats not to be rude.. the skin is great.. and what you're complaining about is a trifle.

 

[Tim.]

I'm a perfectionist, it goes with the territory.

Anyway, by just smudging it, I get the nasty product in the first post. However I tried something else (blurring the area and then sharpening it again) and that made the color blend more without looking too much like crap.

Unless someone else has a better solution, I suppose I'll stick with this.

 

[Sansui]

umm, no...

you want the model to look perfect with a texture wrap it better and make the skin higher rez.

personally i think purple is a bad choice for a skin anyway.

 

[Tim.]

This model is intened to be a replica of a vehicle from the Halo universe, the Wraith. (See below) As such, I have no choice but to use purple.

 

[Sansui]

you could use any color, purple isnt that great...

whhats up with people and thinking it has to be exactly the same as somthing else....

where are the new ideas?

 

[antihero]

Ok so....you are skinning a halo vehicle for warcraft....warcraft.
Therefore you need to not just copy the halo texture map. It is just a color layover, it has no real specular added to it.
You need to do that yourself.

Here is an example, now I wasn't sure which parts wrap where so I just did a general thing

The environment is outside so you need blue in the highlight for the sky and green on the bottom for the reflection off the ground.

 

[Tim.]

whhats up with people and thinking it has to be exactly the same as somthing else....

This is a TC for Wc3, converting it from Warcraft III into Halo. The entire point is for it to be identical. I choose this not because I have no personal creativity or because I like Halo, but because I want to make a good multiplayer FPS system for Warcraft III. I choose Halo because it is convenient.

@antihero Perfect, you got it. Okay so can you explain a bit more in detail what I need to do to the texture? Just add colrs and blur a little more?

 

[antihero]

Ok...I know nothing about the halo texture system but I'm going to assume the part you have extracted is the diffuse map. This is the map that lays the basic colors and decals onto a model.
What is missing is a lightmap bake texture and a specular map. this means that you need to add this in yourself (does halo use "normal maps")

Therefore you need to add a specular and shadow to your model. Now since warcraft has only a primitive lighting system, you will draw the light as coming from a single point ie the sun straight up.

Metal is highly specular so these highlights must be strong and all over. The upper part of the model must reflect the sky so therefore the model needs to have a blue tint to its highlight

Similarly, metal or anything that points down needs to have green tint to it.

Final, since this is a FPS, you need to have a highlevel of detail. First smudge your skin out as it is too pixelated. The unsharpen filter is about to become your best friend. After smoothing, run that filter. Smudge some more, then take a 1 pixel brush set to low opacity and create scratching in the metal.

Anything else?

 

[Tim.]

Great, thats all I needed.

Thanks for the help!