Spicing up your textures!

[laptopman]

Okay, today I am going to teach you how to make your textures better. It is going to be short and to the point because I had written the long and sappy version but then my Internet browser crashed.
Lets get to it.
I am going to use a basic map/lighting because i just want to demonstrate what these things do.
So say I want to make a custom texture.
Heres my vmt

Lightmappedgeneric
{
	"$basetexture" "tuttex/tut"
}

I get the diffuse texture and it looks like this.
[media]http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/3282/texture0002.jpg[/media]
[media]http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/2972/texture0003.jpg[/media]
Flat and Pixelated (in the second picture) right?
Lets fix that.
We are going to add a detail map.
You can find sources detail maps in source 2007 shared materials.gcf in hl2/materials/detail
To add it, we use

"$detail" "Your detail texture path from materials/"
	"$detailscale" "10" --The smaller the number, the bigger the texture. I use 10 as a default but change it in some situations.
	"$detailblendfactor" .6 --Just leave as is, i dont know what it does
	"$detailblendmode" 0 --Just leave as is, i dont know what it does

So now my VMT looks like

Lightmappedgeneric
{
	"$basetexture" "tuttex/tut"
        "$detail" "detail\metal_detail_01"
	"$detailscale" "10"
	"$detailblendfactor" .6
	"$detailblendmode" 
}

Wanna see it in game? So do I.
Notice how it does not show up In the first picture further away, but it does a little bit in the second one because it is closer.
[media]http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/5014/texture0002p.jpg[/media]
[media]http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/7900/texture0005.jpg[/media]
Little better. Needs some depth to it, it looks really flat.
Lets add a bumpmap. If you are using photoshop, use [url]http://www.cgtextures.com/content.php?action=tutorial&name=normalmap[/url]
If you are using crazybump, just play with it until you are satisfied.
So now you have your normal map.
To use it, we add

"$bumpmap" "Texture path to bumpmap"

So now my VMT looks like

Lightmappedgeneric
{
	"$basetexture" "tuttex/tut"
        "$detail" "detail\metal_detail_01"
	"$detailscale" "10"
	"$detailblendfactor" .6
	"$detailblendmode" 0
		"$bumpmap" "tuttex/tut_norm"
}

Looking more interesting is it? How about in game
[media]http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/2368/texture0006.jpg[/media]
[media]http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/7463/texture0010.jpg[/media]
Still feels like something is missing... OH! the specular map.
A spec map is a grayscale image using blackness to show dullness and whiteness to show shinyness.
So desaturate your image and add a layer ontop filled with black. You have two choices from here. High contrast reflection/no reflection or low contrast reflection/no reflection.
For high contrast, Set the black layer's blend mode to "Soft light"
For low contrast, play around with its opacity until you are happy with it.
Now we add the vmt code

	"$envmapmask" "Specular map texture path"
	"$envmap" "env_cubemap" DO NOT CHANGE
	"$envmaptint" "[ .3 .3 .3 ]"  I dont know the purpose, just leave it.

So now our vmt is finished. Mine looks like

Lightmappedgeneric
{
	"$basetexture" "tuttex/tut"
        "$detail" "detail\metal_detail_01"
	"$detailscale" "10"
	"$detailblendfactor" .6
	"$detailblendmode" 0
		"$bumpmap" "tuttex/tut_norm"
	"$envmapmask" "tuttex/tut_spec"
	"$envmap" "env_cubemap"
	"$envmaptint" "[ .3 .3 .3 ]"
}

[media]http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/7476/texture0008.jpg[/media]
[media]http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/9493/texture0009.jpg[/media]
Much better.
Glad thats over.
Using these steps you can make almost any boring texture look really good. If you are ever considering getting into the professional 3d world, textures will NEED these things otherwise your work will not look nearly as professional or good.

[Legend286]

Maybe instead of the metal detail, if you're making a brick, grass or general terrain texture, use this:

"$detail" "gm_construct/grass_clouds"
"$detailscale" "0.03"

I know they're garry's clouds, but they make any texture look less repeating if you are looking at a big texture.

[laptopman]

I only used the metal detail because its a metal texture. There is also Concrete detail, brick detail, wood detail, etc

[robmaister12]

I personally would have started with a better texture because there's only so much you can do to a low-res texture to make it look good.

$envmaptint is a scale of how shiny, and what color shine you want the object to have, it's on a scale of 0-1 in the format [R G B]. So pure white (extremely shiny, polished metal) would be [1 1 1], and a redish tint of reflection would be [.6 .3 .3].

I usually start my textures off with [.1 .1 .1] with the specular maps made in crazybump.

$detailblendmode enables the detail map to darken the diffuse map.
$detailblendfactor determines how dark the diffuse map can become based on the detail map.

for the detail properties, you generally want to stick with valve's default scale based on material, at the bottom of this page: [url]http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/$detail[/url]