How I make ground textures

Retro00064

New member
Third-party programs used in this tutorial:

- IrfanView, an awesome image viewer that also has some image editing functions. http://www.irfanview.com/.
- GIMP, an awesome image editing program. http://www.gimp.org/.

First step is to take your digital camera outside during the day and take some pictures. Hold your camera high up in front of you, pointing at the ground. We want the camera to be high above the ground because the finished texture will cover a 10m x 10m square in Trainz; while the objects in the texture will thus be laregr in size than in real life, we still want them to be as small as possible. Try not to include your shoes in the photo! You may want to keep objects like big sticks out of the photo, because these objects may create a noticeable repeating pattern in Trainz. Make sure to keep your camera as still as possible so that the photo will be sharp. Turning your camera's flash off might be necessary. Sometimes you may need to retake a photo multiple times to get a good result.

Once you have the photos, and have transferred them to your computer, pick out the best ones. I then open one in IrfanView and crop it to a square. To do this, choose the "Create custom crop selection" option in the "Edit" menu, enter a size for the selection that is a perfect square, and apply it. Then choose the "Maximize and center selection" option in the Edit menu to expand the square's size to the height of the photo and center it. If you want to crop the photo to a different portion besides the center, then move the selection using the right mouse button. To crop the photo, choose the "Crop selection" option in the Edit menu. My camera's photos are 2304 x 1546 pixels in size. I crop the photo to the center portion to create a 1536 x 1536-pixel square.

Once the photo has been cropped, choose Edit -> Copy, the open the GIMP, and in the GIMP go File -> Create -> From Clipboard.

Now choose Filters -> Map -> Make Seamless. This will automatically make the texture seamlessly tileable.

If desired, you can make adjustments to the color or brightness and contrast.

You now have a high-resolution "master" image. Save it. I save texture masters to the GIMP .xcf format. If you need to modify your texture later on, then you should do it to the master image.

Next comes making the texture files for Trainz use from the master image.

For UTC, TRS2004, or any other Trainz version up to Trainz Classics, the texture needs to be 128 x 128 pixels in size and saved as a 24-bit BMP file. Use the Image -> Scale Image option to resize the image. The "Cubic" interpolation option should be okay.

For TS2009 and up, the texture can be as large as 2048 x 2048 pixels, but unless your texture contains details that require the 2048 x 2048-pixel resolution (which can cause the texture asset size to be huge), 1024 x 1024 pixels (which I use) should be a suitable size. The texture needs to have a pure white alpha channel; otherwise, your texture will be very reflective in Trainz. Choose the Layers -> Mask -> Add Layer Mask option, selecting the option to initialize the layer mask to "White (full opacity)", click the Add button, then go Layers -> Mask -> Apply Layer Mask to convert the layer mask into an alpha channel. Save the final image as a TGA. Make sure that the "RLE compression" box is unticked and the "Origin" box is set to "Top Left" in the options dialog that will pop up when saving the TGA.

Next comes setting up the texture asset for Trainz.

For UTC, TRS2004, or any other Trainz version up to Trainz Classics, continue here.

For TS2009 and up, continue here.

Comments and suggestions for this tutorial are welcome. :)
 
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