Sticker tutorial | The embossed foil version

In this guide I will give a brief explaination of an emboss foil sticker. What does this sticker do and how to make one yourself with the best result. I hope you guys enjoy this guide.

Hollandje

Introduction

Welcome to my tutorial

Making stickers isn't a thing you learn in one day. Every time you uploud a finished piece to the workshop you might realise that you should've fixed that irritating white line on your foil sticker, or that weird looking pattern on your holographic version. This is a problem I encounter daily when I try to come up with appealing and good looking designs for stickers in the Counter Strike Global Offensive workshop. In this guide I will give you a brief explanation of the embossed foil sticker and an example on how to make a good looking effect. In this tutorial I use my own work and my options/preferences might differ from your opinion. Without further ado Let's get started!

Programs that are used in this guide

What should I use?

• VTFedit[nemesis.thewavelength.net]
  
• Notepad++[notepad-plus-plus.org]
  
• Adobe photoshop[www.adobe.com]
  
• Nvidia texture tools[developer.nvidia.com]

Basic information

What is an embossed foil sticker?

A blunt but correct way to describe an embossed foil sticker is by saying it's a sticker with a certain depth. You basicly put a relief ontop of a sticker. So how do we recreate this almost 3D like effect in a computer program? The method we will be using is by adding a so called normal map to our image. Normal maps (a.k.a. Bump maps) are used a lot in videogames. By adding bump maps to a certain texture you create a 3D illusion. The bump map will play with the way light hits an object and therefor add more geometry without using more polygons.


An example will be the picture to the right. In this picture you can see that the wireframe is flat while it looks like the barrel is engraved with a logo. This is exactly what the bump map does. In order to create a bump map you will need to do some work before we even can start making this map.
In the following paragraph I will tell you how to prepare your work and get started with the bump map! Let's go!!

Preparing your sticker!

What preparations do we need to do?

Before we start on our bump map we need to know what parts of the sticker stands out the most. Which part do you want to emphasis on or what is the base of the sticker? If you got these things al set and done we can start to create, as I like to call it, our height properties map.


I made this bar in photoshop and it show you 2 values. The value 0 says that there is no height, everything that is colored in this color won't have a 3D effect. The value 1 will give you the biggest height effect. Here is how I did it with my sticker.

• .1 I chose for a very light color here because It's the little border that has a small amount of depth.
  
• .2 This is my base. I chose for the value of 0.2 because that one seems to work just fine. Not too high and not to low
  
• .5 This is my flesh wound. Since the wound actually goes in the arm it will result in a deeper surface. That's why this part has a lower value than the hand itself
  
• .6 Is the hand itself. This part of the sticker plays a vital role so that's why I wanted it to be in the face of the viewer.
  
• .7 The dirt is infront of the hand so that's why it has a higher value. The little contour lines in the hand are also .7
  
• .8 Is the ribbon. The ribbon goes infront of the whole sticker so it needs to have a value higher than .7 that's why I chose .8
  
• 1.0 This is the part that stands out the most. I wanted it to be the text and the border of my ribbon.

Save this image as a .png and save your project file! Now we can make our bump map!

Making our bump map!

What do I need to focus on?

A bump map comes down to personal preference. Sometimes you want a sticker that really stands out or you just want a subtle nuanced relief. I prefer stickers which really stand out but still are subtle in their height. Import your .png file in a new photoshop document. When everything is loaded up you go to Filter > NVIDIA Tools > NormalMapFilter...
A small pop-up window should appear with the following options. I order to let the sticker come out you need the white lines on the top of the preview image and the darker ones on the bottom. If this is not the case unselect the option invert Y. The only thing you need to worry about is the option scale. I reccomend using a number which is based between 1 and 12. If you go higher it will give a weird effect which you don't want. With my sticker I roll with the value 8. When the tool has done its job you can see your bump map.

If there are area's where you think certain parts are too stark I have a cool trick up my sleeve. Take the brush tool and select an opacity below 60%. Brush over the stark parts with the following color: "8080ff". This color is equal to our 0 value in the height properties map which does not contain any height. When you are satisfied with your result save the image as a targa extension (.tga).

This is my final result.

Making our .VTF file

What options do I need to check?

So now we have our bump map and 95% of your work is done! Now it's time to make Counter strike able to read our bump map. We do this by opening a program called VTFedit. Import your bump map.tga and make sure that the following 2 settings match:

• Normal format: BGRA8888
  
• Alpha Format: DXT5

When everything is loaded you need to check the following options. If you follow these options it should come out fine. Save the .vtf file with your desired name and next up we make our .VMT file. This file will tell Counter Strike what options to set for our sticker.

Making our .VMT file

What are the right codes?

Open up a text editing program. I prefer notepad++ in this case. Paste the following in there.

WeaponDecal
{
$DECALSTYLE 4 // embossed foil
$basetexture "//./C:/your/directory/filename.vtf"
$normalmap "//./C:/your/directory/normal map filename.vtf"
$unwearstrength 0.08
$envmap "env_cubemap"
$envmaptint "[ 25 25 25 ]"
$phong 1
$phongexponent 0.1
$phongfresnelranges "[ 1 1 1 ]"
$phongalbedotint 1.0
$phongboost 40.0
$phongalbedoboost 2.0
}

If everything goes according to plan you should save the text document as "filename.vmt".
That's it the work is done so now we can see our work in the modelviewer :D.

Admiring our sticker

Yay the work is done!!

If everything went according to plan you should now be able to see your own embossed foil sticker!! :D

Final words

Thank you for reading my first guide! I hope my english isn't too bad and I hope you learned something from my workflow. If you got time to check out my sticker which I used in this tutorial please do so by clicking the link below :] THANKS!!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=281574491

If there are requests for a guide on how to create a holographic sticker please let me know by leaving a comment. Stay frosty and peace out!

Hollandje

Guide for the hologrpahic version is now availible here! Check it out if you want to!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=287109570

[[UA/SK] Divine Lotus]

I meant GIMP 2.8.0

[[UA/SK] Divine Lotus]

For anyone that use GIMP (pasting my info to relative guides):

I recommend looking into the official Valve SDK Documentation for insight on how materials work in CSGO's Source engine, linked below:
GIMP alpha channel
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/GIMP

GIMP Alpha channel: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LQCziSTNJgQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9aZdPqs17M

Using GIMP VTF plugin?
Be sure you're using GIMP 2.80

Not using it? Follow this: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Creating_a_Material

I have a wiki that relates to the process of making skins / modding: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1501754039&searchtext=Wiki

Always try to read the manuals in anything, because they often give you some insight

Use .tga or .tiff image types instead of .jpg or .PNG since they're lossless and supports alpha. More info in the Valve Source SDK Doc

3D = Use Blender with GIMP

[Dūmtraukis?]

"Preparing your sticker " chappter is completely unclear. I understood nothing.

[<Madsta>]

You left out so much information out in preparing the sticker..Guide looks good But i like said you left out. i still got you as favorite i just wish you had all the info on how to prepare the sticker...

[💛 Hollandje 💛]

@Your mom and your dad

No that's correct. I believe NVIDIA's normal map plugin doesn't work with Ps CC. I personally don't work with CrazyBump so I'm not 100% sure about it. I work with NdO2 and in that program the bump map is different. So the black color will indicate a dent and the white color will indicate height. So if you make the bump map according to this tutorial and make a "negative photo" effect it should make it work for CrazyBump and NdO2.

[faye's ♥]

For some reason, that NVIDIA plugin thingy wont work with Ps CC 2014 x64 so I had to resort to using CrazyBump. I'm not getting that embossed thingy I'm expecting. Any suggestions?

[Hamwok]

ok

[💛 Hollandje 💛]

I drew everything in photoshop :]

[Hamwok]

where did u make the image? did you use Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop

[💛 Hollandje 💛]

@deadslayer

I'm not quite sure how to fix that. Do you have an Nvidia video card?

________________________________________________________

New tutorial on the holographic sticker is live!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=287109570