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Here I will show how you can add some nice battle damage effects to your units. I'll be using the stock republic skin rep_inf_ep3trooper.tga for an example. [!] indicate useful tips for those who know how to use GIMP fairly well. If you ignore them, you'll still get the regular skinning-for-dummies info, but your knowledge will not be complete.

The original, just to start it off:






1) Scratches

First, select the lasso-shaped free select tool.

[!] If you're familiar with the paths tool, you might use that instead to make more precise selections.

Drag the mouse over the skin in a straight, short line where you want to make the scratch. It doesn't have to be perfectly straight, but make it straight as you can. Once you've done that, you'll get something that looks like this:

[!] You can hold shift while your making the selections to make several at once. This can increase the speed of your work, since you can go over them all at once, rather than one at a time.

Select the paintbrush or the dodge/burn tool; both accomplish this next step well, though slightly differently.

[!] Another option would be to use Colors > Colorify from the menu, and choose a color that looks fitting.

Experiment with the settings on each. You should almost always use a low alpha setting, and it is usually wise to use either pure white or black for your color. Use the brush to go over the selection you made, and take a minute to look at your result. If you don't like it, undo and try again with different settings. It takes a trial and error to find the best way to go for any particular skin.

The result:





2) General Damage

There are a few good ways to do this, and for the best results you should often combine them. You can:

- A)
Use the "galaxy" paintbrushes and simply paint over the image


[!] The galaxies aren't the only brushes that can do well. Use some other brushes, too, every now and then.

- B)
Scribble around with the free select tool to select a sporadic area.

Then fill it up like you would a scratch, but typically with less alpha.

[!] This can be a great place to use the smudge tool sometimes. Just use it to smooth out some of the rougher edges of the stuff, and you can produce some much nicer effects. Be careful not to overuse it, though.

- C)
Smudge some stuff. This should be pretty self-explanatory, just use the smudge tool a little bit in a few places. Definately don't do it too much, though, because it will soon start to make your skin look much worse.

[!] The blur/sharpen tool can also be used similarly to the smudger.

As you can see, the difference is hardly noticable. It's a good idea to keep it this way when dealing with these tools.


- D)
Using the fuzzy circle brush and low alpha values for any of the tools, you can make some great, though subtle, enhancements to the skin.







2) More Damage Ideas

Use different colors other than just plain black and white and repeat the above general damage steps, to make the skin look dirty and not just battered.


Use a combination of brushes, smudging, and sporadic free selections in concentrated areas with a very dark black color to create scorch marks


If you're adding much mud and such, it's smart to add some extra dirt color and details on the feet and lower legs.


You can make white scratches and other damage effects on the colored paint to make the colors appear to have more wear & tear. (As you may have noticed, the stock skin already has a good amount of this.)




Now, let's compare the orginial to the result, side by side, shall we? Many maps can benefit from battle-worn skins, but know that this is not always the case; clean skins can be nice, too, sometimes.

the result looks like a clone trooper who just came out of a job flipping burgers.

Nice tut.

the result looks like a clone trooper who just came out of a job flipping burgers.

Is this a good or a bad thing


I will punish you if you're insulting my skinning.

Nice skin...Oh wait, it is a tutorial...Nice tut then

Edit:
Not that I say the skin isn't good, but if you sharpen him after your last step to something around 30, then it will be more detailed.
Just a hint.

Nice tut, i like the result.

This is a great tutorial by the way. May I comment on some things though?

-It's a good idea to work on a separate layer. It's what I always do when adding dirt, I find it useful to do for several reasons; if you work further on your skin and notice something that you did way in the past looks off, you don't have to ctrl+z all the work you did in the meantime away and you can try to vary with the alpha when you're done.

-Oh and if you paint over your skin to make it look dirty, you tend to lose a lot of definition from the skin. I found 2 ways to remedy that:
1. Select the parts you want to make look dirty in the scratchy way that you described and copy it to the new layer and use colourize on it. Then you can use smudge to spread it out a bit.
2. Open a completely shiny clean skin as a layer and select "move colour to alpha" and select white. Make sure you put the new layer on top of the old one and try setting the opacity at around 50%. It's an easy way to bring back the detail to a skin.



EDIT

Darth_Spiderpig wrote:Not that I say the skin isn't good, but if you sharpen him after your last step to something around 30, then it will be more detailed.
Just a hint.

I must say that I completetly disagree with you on that matter. Sharpening is very cruel to your skin and it may be a better idea to try to paint extra definition on, or raise the contrast on those parts.

This is a great tutorial by the way. May I comment on some things though?
-Isn't it maybe a good idea to work on a separate layer? It's what I always do when adding dirt, I find it usefull to do for several reasons; If you work further on your skin and notice something that you did way in the past looks of, you don't have to ctrl+z all the work you did in the meantime away and you can try to vary with the alpha when you're done.
-Oh and something you could may ad; If you paint over your skin to make it look dirty, you tend to lose a lot of definition from the skin. I found 2 ways to remedy that; 1. Select the parts you want to make look dirty in the scratchy way that you described and copy it to the new layer and use colourize on it. Then you can use smudge to spread it out a bit. 2. Open a completely shiny clean skin as a layer and select "move colour to alpha" and select white. Make sure you put the new layer on top of the old one and try setting the opacity at around 50%. It's an easy way to bring back the detail to a skin.

I hope you don't see this as me hijacking your great tutorial, I just hope to help anyone who reads your awesome tut by adding some extra information.

I tend to be a big-time perfectionist with most things, so if at first I don't get a skin detail completely right, I undo and then redo it, and almost never find it necessary to go back and correct something. When I do, however, I use it as an opportunity to make the skin more unique and defined, almost always completely erasing that portion of the skin and starting from scratch.

I quoted your tips in the tutorial, though, because I thought they were quite useful.


Additionally, to add more detail, rather than using a sharpen filter, I, if anything, use the blur/sharpen brush tool to just sharpen any blurry edges. Also, using the multiply or divide paintbrush options keep a lot more detail than using normal mode.

first post wrote:[!] The blur/sharpen tool can also be used similarly to the smudger.

Oh, and I mean no disrespect by editing your info for the quote, it's just you had a couple misspellings, and IMO a good tutorial with misspellings is like a pretty pink dress that looks all nice except the sleeves and bottom frill are crusted with mud. I hope you enjoyed my analogy.

cant see the pictures

jojo3450 wrote:cant see the pictures

I also do not

Try to make the most out of the text posted. The images are gone and there is nothing we can do until someone comes forth with copies. In the meantime you can also browse the web for tutorials similar to this one.

If anyone has copies of the missing images please PM me and i'll fix the links. I'll lock this thread until then since the last 2 bumps were due to missing images.