Techniques, tricks and tips for graphics development

[luxtram]

I am starting a thread to share some of the techniques, tricks and tips I am using to create my graphics and I hope that it would be useful for other and also more people will join in to share and discuss useful bits, basic or advanced, for graphics creation.

[luxtram]

This is my first tip, initially discussed here viewtopic.php?p=1172243#p1172243 for adding texture to the large surfaces.

In principle it consist applying noise layer to the uniformly colored surface.

I generated a block of noise (GIMP->Noise->HSV Noise, brown background, desaturated later, if you want to experiment, I had to tweak it a little to get the desired results, if I recall correctly, I mostly changed Hue value as others added undesired characteristics to the noise, but it still may be good for your use case).

Noise

Noise.png (124.59 KiB) Viewed 1957 times

You can take this already generated noise sample or experiment with your own parameters.

Then put this noise layer above the surface you want to add texture and use appropriate selection tool to select only desired elements. Change the layer type to Burn layer.

Do not be disappointed when you do not see any effect or if your graphics turns just dark. You still have to tweak the result by changing opacity and brightness and contrast (for example with the curves tool) to get the desired result.

Here I applied this technique to my IKEA Arlon graphics.

Example 1

IKEA Arlon with noise.png (77.81 KiB) Viewed 597 times

You are not limited by the roofs. Quast65 also experimented with adding it to the whole building here viewtopic.php?p=1172258#p1172258 with surprisingly good results.

Here is my attempt to generate some grass for the games field.

Example 2

Court.png (4.43 KiB) Viewed 1957 times

[luxtram]

If you do not know how to draw something small, then it might be that you know how to draw if it were bigger.

Draw it then bigger first and then rescale to the desired size.

Scaling Example

Scaling.png (2.11 KiB) Viewed 1821 times