How do modders make textures?

[rpayne88]

Title says it all. I've tried GIMP, Inkscape, Paint and I, for the life of me, can't make anything that looks halfway decent. I've even tried editing textures from other mods (by simply changing colors, but instead of changing the fill, its always made these weird undefined shapes with the new color.

Hell, I'm pretty damn good with Solidworks. Can I just design them in that?

[Kittenpox]

Idk if this is useful, but: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1114369188 Alas, part of this complication when it comes to creating art is this: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/868486767897562092/88E1C5E9E059154AE502F121550A5C182CB97CC7/

There's a couple others on here: https://www.rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Modding_Tutorials#Art_Tutorials - the Animals one might also be worth a look; and I think might answer some of the problem you're having. (Esp. if you're editing in Paint).
I don't know much about art, but the bit about layers and masking seems useful.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by rpayne88:

.... but instead of changing the fill, its always made these weird undefined shapes with the new color.

Hell, I'm pretty damn good with Solidworks. Can I just design them in that?

It sounds like what you're encountering is a PNG/(other uncompressed format)/transparency artifact related to transparency/opacity/alpha background settings. Sometimes, "web things" <hand waves> can attempt to compress an uncompressed image file format, too.

While Rimworld's Unity base is a "3D Game Engine" the pawns/objects in-game are sprites/billboards I assume. (I also assume they're on their own rendering layer in-game.) There's a discussion here about certain considerations, extracting files, opacity settings and the like that appear to be very important to get the new art to appear correctly:

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=2325.180

Rimworld/Unity has a colorizer thingie too, it appears. (RGB, so that's likely another consideration - Make sure you're working in an RGB file-compatible mode. Getting a good color palette fingerprint is artistically desirable, too. )Likely to help with slight variations/unique individual sprites, but without the overhead of having to load unique image files. So, that's a consideration as well. I assume most of the tutorials will cover this, but the ones I came across when searching for refs for this post... aren't really very good "Tutorials." /shrug Good luck. :)

"UnityEx" was mentioned above as a tool for extracting Unity assets. I'm not familiar with it. (Apparently, one should be advised to be sure one is using the authorized, true, "UnityEx" as well as being careful when searching for it 'cause... virus/etc, I assume. Look for "Official" downloads if you want to use it.)

I'm a 3D dude, so all these "colors" and "texturizingness" thingies stuff is outside of my zone of knowledge if it doesn't have to do with making memes or horribly murdering billions of pixels by trying to create my own textures. :)

[whatamidoing]

GIMP works on my machine.
Also, PNG is compressed, but with lossless compression as opposed to lossy compression like JPG. BMP is an example of an uncompressed image format.

[Helixien]

First, don’t use Paint or GIMP or any program that does not allow you to create your textures using vector art.

Personally, I recommend Adobe Illustrator, it’s what a lot of people use these days, including the artist for the DLC textures and VES Series, Oskar. Alternatively, you can use Affinity Designer.

Why vector? Because its easier once you are used to it. It allows you to not only make things much faster but also change them easily or tweak them without any problem. You can also export to any size you want without the quality suffering. Things will always look clean.

Oskar has three videos about making textures:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ncyy-FYxHn4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWxRpQJ6BeE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8ciZv_sx74

[The Manual]

@Helixien

They are for free?

[Helixien]

Originally posted by The Manual:

@Helixien

They are for free?

Let me refer you to the link Kittenpox posted, there is a section that covers how to get Photshop, same applies to these programs.

[The Manual]

Alright, thanks.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

GIMP works on my machine.
Also, PNG is compressed, but with lossless compression as opposed to lossy compression like JPG. BMP is an example of an uncompressed image format.

Ah, I always thought PNG was uncompressed. But, I'm not a textures guy, so that's my excuse for ignorance. :)

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Helixien:

...Why vector? Because its easier once you are used to it. It allows you to not only make things much faster but also change them easily or tweak them without any problem. You can also export to any size you want without the quality suffering. Things will always look clean....

^-- This.

The things available in paint mode are not the same sorts of things one really needs for creating icons/etc for clean, crisp, computer display and ease of use/changes. I suck at it, tho...

It's no secret - I've used 3D to create assets that would ultimately be just 2D icons only because I can do that more quickly with better results than I could with Paint/Vector... 'Cause I suck at those. And, to think, I once had my hopes on becoming a "Medical Illustrator" in my youth. :) Now, I can't freehand a map showing directions to the corner store... I can "3D" the heck out of one, though. :) Let me at Substance or any node-based materials system and I'll be able to create textures for it... eventually.

[Security Cam #7]

Originally posted by Helixien:

First, don’t use Paint or GIMP or any program that does not allow you to create your textures using vector art.

Personally, I recommend Adobe Illustrator, it’s what a lot of people use these days, including the artist for the DLC textures and VES Series, Oskar. Alternatively, you can use Affinity Designer.

Why vector? Because its easier once you are used to it. It allows you to not only make things much faster but also change them easily or tweak them without any problem. You can also export to any size you want without the quality suffering. Things will always look clean.

Oskar has three videos about making textures:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ncyy-FYxHn4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWxRpQJ6BeE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8ciZv_sx74

You'll have to export it to PNG files either way because rimworld will not use vector files. It'll also reduce resolution of items by itself as well (things like guns and stuff, not buildings) so any HD resolution is just unnecessary size on your mod folder.

If you are proficient with a program specialising in raster art I say use that instead of vector art one.
For example, all textures in the thumbnail of my mod were made in Gimp:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1586735724

I'm not an artistic person and don't have drawing skills, but I think they turned out good for me. Rimworld's art is basically pixel art but on higher resolutions than for example 16x16 (32x32, 64x64, 128x128 etc)

[Raymond]

Paint3D will work. I use it to fix all the graphical related issues in mods I use and it work so far.