Modding:Art

Here are the different sub-topics of the Art discipline of modding. For each sub-category, a number of tutorials are listed; generally the easiest to follow will be listed on top for each sub-topic. Beginner Level tutorials are very basic and fundamental; others should not be tried until these are complete. They may also include common simple tasks from this discipline. Intermediate tutorials are more advanced and often more specific; they will teach you all of the necessities of modding, enough to create a mod. Advanced Level tutorials are for more experienced modders, looking to push what is the expected norm.

The first thing you will want to do is read [Art for Total War Primer (I need to get to writing it eventually/soon)].

Beginner Art/Texturing

• Introduction to Photoshop Video Tutorials
• Skin Editing in Photoshop
• Creating Unit Cards
• Photoshop Eye Candy Tutorial

Beginner Art/Modeling

• 3dsmax Unit Editing Video Tutorials
• 3dsmax Unit Editing
• Rendering in 3dsmax
• UVW Mapping in 3dsmax
• Skin Modifier in 3dsmax

Intermediate Tutorials

Intermediate Art/Foliage and Terrain

• Tutorial links here

Intermediate Art/Banners

• New Faction Icons
• New Faction Icon Skins

Intermediate Art/Sprites

• CA's Sprite Generation Tutorial

Advanced Tutorials

Advanced Art/Animation

• RTW Binding and Skeleton Tutorials
• Animation Utilities
• M2TW Animations from CA

Advanced Art/Custom Texture Painting

• Painting Hair
• Painting Ears
• Ben Mathis' Deliah Series Textures for gun, face, hair, and body.

Advanced Art/specular, gloss, normal maps

• Video Tutorial on Creating Normal and Specular Maps
• Normal Map Workflow

Tools

Here are program-specific tutorials for learning programs. These are not necessarily TW-specific, but are high quality tutorials relevant to the programs and tools.

TW-Specific Utilities

Animation Utilities

Knight Errant's M2TW Mesh Converter

Knight Errant's Mesh Converter Docs

Banner Template

.texture <-> .dds Converter