Pepakura tutorial

[PapaBear]

Anyone can easily learn to texture a model.
How good the texture ends up will also depend on your personal ability to paint or draw. Just because you have photoshop doesn't make you an artist.
As Art Decko said, a bit of patience, practice and eye for detail is a good start.

There are also some killer methods that can be learnt that will help greatly whether or not you are good at texturing a model.

If I have attached the images correctly, they are examples of game models which have been textured based on a game engine. The track on the Stug is in fact just a rubberband. The wheels look detailed, but trust me, they are solid with no bolts or even rim detail. Only the sprocket and idler wheels have very minimal geometry modelled.

Attachment 8028

Attachment 8029

The gun models are same but modelled for a PS2 game engine. They are very low poly but the detail is in the texture. Each weapon is modelled solid with no separate moving parts.

Its about understanding how the eye perceives what is believable, colors, contrast, light, shadows, etc. These concepts can be learnt and practiced.

PBear

[Art Decko]

Great examples of the power of graphics to convey detail!

This is what I mean when I suggest that some designers do not give sufficient attention to graphics. If the graphics are detailed and realistic, the "geometry" or "dimensionality" of the model can be *simplified*, even as the level of apparent detail increased!

As PapaBear pointed out, this practice is common in the pc game industry, where the "skins" are as important as the "wire frames" they are wrapped around.

Something for developers to consider: spending all that AutoCAD time designing tiny, perfectly-shaped scale parts may in fact not be the best way to develop a model. Spending less time on the geometry, and balancing it with more time spent designing realistic "skins" could lead to more convincing results, achieved with much less trouble for the builder.

After all, printable surfaces is one of the key distinctions of card modeling! Why not take full advantage of this ability instead of treating it as much less important than part design?

[keith]

Originally Posted by Art Decko

Yoohoo, any trained artists around cardmodel.net?

Yes, but we're all surrealists

I'll have a look in my old bookmarks, i think starship modeller has some nice weathering tutorials.

[Mace]

I was searching in the deep corners of my HD because I remebered that Nobi created an AT-ST once using a game model and he'd written a tut about it.

Guess what, I found it

I attached it to this post (Hopefully)

It explains both Metaseq and later the unfold in Perpekura.
It might be a bit dated because he wrote it over 2 years ago but you might pick up a few tricks because Nobi is one of the best.

[Elliott]

This is too good to leave buried away. Since this was originally posted on Cardmodels.net I have posted it in the Downloads section under Tutorials. Title is Convert Gaming Model into Paper Model.

Thanks Mace for bringing this out into the light!!

Elliott

[Mace]

Yer Welcome Elliott

I started doubting myself because i couldnt find the post here anymore. And sorting thought about 2.5 gigs of papermodel-pdfs can be a bit fustrating aswell (I might need a new way of sorting my stuff).
Luckily I found it