Fabric and Textures in photoshop, how do you do it?

Hi guys, i've been elately messing around with making clothes in photoshop just for myself mind and i'm struggling a little with making the textures: i.e wool, cotton, silk even the little extra's like rope etc.

How do you guys do it, do you buy textures or use tutorials too make the textures, i'd love any tips or if you can point me in the direction of some good fabrics i can use.

Thanks

Read ALL of the sticky threads at the top of this forum very carefully. You'll find lots of important advice about handling transparency, working with proper file sizes and formats, and other tricks and tips that people have found useful. You'll also find links to some very good tutorials to get you started. Personally, I recommend the easy ones by Natalia Zelmanov (http://www.mermaiddiaries.com/2006/11/build.html). If you're just getting started, you'll find that they help a lot. Beyond that, use Google to search for fabric texturing tuorials, and do exhaustive searches of the archives of this forum.

Hi Rolig, i've gone over the sticky at the top and can do most of what it tells you on there, i have gone over alot of the blogs with tutorials aswell and can pretty much do everything on them too. I am no newbie too photoshop by any stretch of the imagination. I've tried searching google but it just brings up alot of mess or just tutorials that are not very helpful too me.
That's why i was asking if anyone uses actually premade textures they buy on Xstreet or something, maybe i'm posting in the wrong thread with my questions.

Ah... I misunderstood your question, then. I think you'll find that people use a mix of approaches. A lot of people do buy textures that other artists have made. There are excellent ones available in SL. Rather than recommend a specific one (everyone has a favorite), I suggest you either use in-world Search or go to XStreetSL, as you have already considered. There are also some great places to go elsewhere on the Internet. Again, a Google search will turn up more than you can count.

It's also fair game to grab a digital camera and shoot RL images to use later as textures. I can think of popular SL clothing designers who use that approach very successfully. If nothing else, a good digital photo can serve as a starting point for a texture that you customize and apply later.

Then, of course, you can draw your own textures. If you are adept at Photoshop and have artistic talent, this is arguably the most creative way to get fabric textures that you KNOW are unique. Sometimes tutorials can help by suggesting odd ways to use Photoshop that you would never have discovered on your own, and sometimes you can stumble on an unusual technique by just playing with PS tools and filters.

It would be foolish to suggest that there is a "best" way to develop your own file of textures. "Best" is whatever works for you, and each method may have its own advantages and drawbacks for specific projects. So long as you are sensitive to other aritists' intellectual property rights, you ought to just experiment and find a mix of approaches that feels right for you.

Hi Cera ,I`ve only dabbled with clothes but I love this link and use it when I get stumped. It`s a link to a post here in the textures forum. Here it is for you . /109/ef/286583/1.html. I hope it is helpful . I might add that using the patterns feature in photoshop is helpful for me for making textures from scratch. Have fun!!!

Dani

Here are some other tools and sources that can help -

https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=158462


http://www.imageafter.com/images.php

http://www.texturevault.net/

www.cgtextures.com

I've become addicted to Filter Forge (www.filterforge.com). You can download a trial of the program for 30 days without any limitations. It's a program for creating node based textures and filters, and you can also download and work with other users textures that have been uploaded to the site. I'm trying to earn a free copy of the program, so I'd love it if you (and everyone else who reads this ) used my textures!

http://www.filterforge.com/filters/author10651-page1.html

Hey Betty- I googled "node based textures" but didn't find a good definition- can you tell me what that means please? Thanks.

Here's a link that shows a pic of the nodes:

http://www.filterforge.com/features/editor.html

Basically, by connecting and editing the options in each the boxes (nodes) shown in that image in different ways, you can create textures and filters. It all looks quite confusing at first (at least it did to me), but a good way I found to learn how to do it is to open up textures that other people have submitted to the site and see how they were created.

I'm reading this thread and I'm posting this question because I think it relates to my main question. I don't want to create a new texture, but wish that when I'm retexturing an outfit in appearance (so we're talking about system clothes Jackets, shirts pants etc) that the texture was editable (repeats etc.) so that the texture was clear and suitable for clothes. All the textures applied are huge! Is there a size (dimensions) suitable for clothes texturing that a texture should be to avoid this? Like whats the highest and most detailed?

Read the sticky thread on Files Sizes and Formats at the top of this forum very carefully to get detailed answers to your questions and to avoid a lot of pain later. The short answer is that no matter what size you create your texture in Photoshop (or whatever), it will become a 512x512 JPEG2000 image when it is applied as clothing in world. With that in mind, don't make system clothing at a resolution lower than 512x512. Also, because SL will not let you upload a file with any dimension greater than 1024px and because dimensions must always be powers of two, the only other choice you have for upload is 1024 x 1024.

You can make your original drawing in Photoshop as large as you like -- in fact, I recommend making it at least 1024 x 1024. Doing that and then uploading a 512 x 512 TGA or PNG version will give you sharper lines and a cleaner look overall. Just remember that any details that are truly tiny in a 2048 x 2048 image (like 1px-wide stitching, for example) won't survive being shrunk, so there are definite limits to how much detail you can cram into a design.

ETA: On a second, more detailed reading of your question, it occurs to me that you might be thinking about simply uploading a patterned square (like a piece of fabric in RL) and dropping it into the texture window in Appearance when you want to create a new item of clothing. You can certainly do that, but your av will look like she's been wallpapered. The only way to create clothing that looks like clothing is to create the complete texture (with any cutouts, plus folds, shading, buttons, lapels, stitching, .... and careful attention to pattern matching at seam lines) in Photoshop before you upload. Once a texture is in world, you can't alter it, and you have no options for resizing or offsetting a texture when you apply it in Appearance.

I think what you are talking about isn't the filesize, but the scale of the texture. For example, this texture is shown at 100%, 75%, 50% and 25%:



I use Paintshop, and I can change the scale of a texture in the 'materials selection' area. I'm not sure how that translates to photoshop but I'm sure that it does.

If I upload a texture at 100% scale and use that texture on a prim skirt, then try to apply the same texture to system pants or skirt, the images appear huge. You would have to scale down the texture in Photoshop/Paintshop/etc., then upload the rescaled texture to use it like that.

Thank you so much! I understand now. I have a lot of reading to do! LOL