Dirt Texture Help

[TheMightySketch]

Could somebody help finish one dirt texture so that I can get a good visualization of how I should approach the rest of the textures? Eric mentioned adding in a few more colors to give it a really artistic feel.

[BabyMaybe]

Hey Nick, I just uploaded some files for you, I have to run now, but I'll see if I can explain them a bit when I get back in an hour or two.

[BabyMaybe]

Ok so let me break down what I've uploaded for you. There are three things for you in there. Firstly I stylized your dirt a bit closer to the direction we wanted to head in. I gave you the whole photoshop document so you can see whats going on in there. Pay particular attention to the layer blending modes. I think I only use 3, Multiply to darken, Linear Dodge (Add) to lighten/glow, Overlay to increase contrast. If I've got something else in there just ask me about it. I tried to group and label things as best as I could, but there are 4 main sections going on in the file.

• At the base there's your original texture (I just copy pasted it a few times to make the image wider)
• I painted a little bit on top of that, thats the second section with the blending modes (they're in the folder labeled "Edits")
• The third section is where I masked out the ant hills, and then came back in and did highlights and shadows around the edges like Chris suggested.
• The fourth section is called "Original/Sharpening." I wanted to keep as much of your original texture in there as I could because its got a really nice textural quality to it, so I mixed it back in as a normal layer, an overlay layer, and then finally with a high pass filter as an overlay again to really sharpen the whole thing up again.

There's also a fifth group thats called "Backgrounds/Placeholders" just to visualize how the anthills look with something behind them, be sure to turn that layer off when you Export it as a PNG though so we can get the alpha showing through.

The second PSD I put in there is a template to get you up and running with the skies. First thing to note is that these are big files (2K X 4K) so you can really zoom in pretty far to them to work on them. On my screen it opens at 33% to fit it all on the screen.

In the file I have 3 color palettes for the 3 different skies. Each has a base palette with some accents that I think could look good in the highlights and shadows. Feel free to alter these palettes, add some colors, get rid of some, or just ignore them completely. I just wanted to give you a general idea of where to start.

It also has a layer called Brushes, which is related to the 3rd file in there for you. That is one of my favorite collections of photoshop brushes that I've downloaded, and what I've been doing all the concept stuff with. There are a TON of brushes in there so I pulled out a few of my favorites that I think would be good for the style were going for. As far as settings go they can mostly be used pretty much as they are, I tend to keep the flow pretty low (around 12%) and the opacity all the way up, but fiddle with both depending on what I'm working on. And again switching the Brush Blending Mode between Linear Dodge (Add) and Multiply, depending on if I'm darkening or lightening parts of the image.

A word of caution though, you'll come across a section on there that start with Cloud. For the most part I would avoid those for doing actual clouds. They're going to look too flat and cookie cutter. The only two exceptions to that are going to be Clouds Soft and Clouds Softest, those two are amorphous enough that you can make your own clouds with them and have them look alright. And remember to keep individual clouds on their own layers so we can manipulate them in the game.

OK. Sorry that's a lot to take in there, but hopefully that explains things and you find at least some of it useful. Also I realized that I'm used to discussing photoshop with people who use it to make a living and might just be speaking jargon here so if there are ANY concepts I discussed that you are unfamiliar with (Blending Modes, Installing Brushes, Editing Brush Presets, Flow/Opacity, Layers, Masks....) please let me know and I'll do my best to explain them. I know I didn't know about some of these even until after college (some not until this year), and that there is no linear path to learning photoshop which leads to everyone who uses it knowing bits and pieces from different parts of it, so I don't mean to presume what you do or do not know, but just know that I am available for questions at any time.