MerricksDad's Weapon-A-Day

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

The ticks are out in force this week, which reminds me, I always wanted a giant tick from Temple of Elemental Evil. Anybody make one of those that does NOT move with the spider animation?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

I didn't originally see your comment about the girth. Here's a different variety of atlas which could give the larger portion of the trunk a better variety of detail, and which would make it so the front side and the dark side of the tree didn't have to share a texture. The numbers shown are based on a 512 image

 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

I've got a perfect opportunity tomorrow to explore and photograph a beech/oak forest. Hopefully I can get a lot of images of various spring plants, as well as last year's ice storm damage. I counted no less than 20 unique varieties of dead wood. Also spotted about 15 or so downed trees torn up at the roots. Many of the trees are over 3 feet wide, so the texture sizes of their bark types all the way up the tree should be of very high quality. I think I may get a few hundred shots of tree bases too. Many of them are very unique where they enter the ground, or have extensive fungal damage, moss clumps, or cavernous entries.

 

Up at the parking lot, I should be able to duplicate about half that in oak and fir specimens. Very excited.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

Well today was kinda stressful, and my camera battery didn't last as long as I had hoped. About half as long. But I did get a good quantity of photos taken. After I got home, I put together a new textures package or two and posted them to the new vault.

 

Set 1400 contains the 256 textures I made last week for playing around with my tree builder. They are very bright, likely too bright, for most of your uses in NWN. I personally make areas that are brighter and softer. If that is your style, you will enjoy pack 1400.

 

Set 1500 contains the new 512 or larger files I made today. Most of the textures are from my trip today, but many of them are from older trips in other states. I've tried to take the lighting down to a level more equal to vanilla content, but I left a lot of the rock and sand at a lighter value. Most of the wood images are of dead trees. I personally didn't have half enough dead woods texture for my previous forest tilesets. When I redo them in full, I would much prefer to have realistic looking dead wood.

 

I have not yet packed any foliage because I haven't fully decided how I want it for my own use. I'll mention it here when I do release that.

 

There is still so much more to take pictures of in just this town alone. I missed 90% of the beech/oak forest and barely scratched the surface of the mixed area, and got none of the landscaped play areas. So many species, and not enough hours in a day. And that is just one of our parks.

 

http://neverwinterva...s-texture-packs

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

Today I hit up the pine and fir sections of the park. I'm uploading another 50 meg pack of textures. Many of the textures included fit nicely in the 1500 series, although some I have added to a 1600 series, which includes long thin strips. Many again are bark, but this time some of them have vines climbing the trees. There are also some foamy or rapid water images. I also found the edges of our old dam exposed in the soil, so I photographed them as saved them as granite wall blocks. There is also a tiny quantity of non-tree foliage in this pack.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ShadowM]

               

Great stuff, I been looking over it and you got a good variety in it and I do not think they are too bright. I think you hit a good middle ground that can be easily manipulated in gimp or other programs to everyones preference. Reminds me I need to get out and take some more shots with my camera.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

No reason to stop now, that park has some good sycamore and some great boulders that box in the river. In the back 100, there are birch stands, spruces, and giant field stone piles. Let's see what I can find.

 

Oh and that reminds me, I have some of my textures from 2001 thru 2008 in another folder. It isn't the full list I used in any of my older tilesets, by any means (because unfortunately, hard drives are not immortal), but would anybody care to view them, as is, no proper naming schemes or anything? Many of them are color changed varieties, and/or are based on TNO textures, or combined with other textures to make something in between. Others, I have no idea where they came from and might be copyrighted material for all I know. I could pack them and let you all decide.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

New 158 meg package of random texture bits is up. I don't know how useful that will be, but take a look.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_rjshae]

               

More free textures are always welcome. Thank you.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

More fun adventures with a camera today. I took shots of japanese yew, ornamental beech, red pine, old spruce, and I also found a boat load of silicon chunks on the side of the train rails on the way home. Never seen that before! Shiny! My inner ferret wants to go back and pile it all in the car.

 

Edit:

Woot! Keep away from open flame!

 

Edit again:

Lighting as bad, I may need to work on these new textures for a bit longer. When I process them the same as yesterday and the day before, the contrast is so much it makes the dark regions go totally black. Bla

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_rjshae]

               

If you happen to capture a good, hi-res, face-on shot of a spider web against a dark background, that would be useful. This is about the best I could find (under CC), but it's a bit blurry. '>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

we don't get good stuff like that this time of year '>

 

But does this edit make it better or worse for you?

 

or this one

 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_rjshae]

               

Yes that looks pretty decent. I'll give it a try and see how it works. Thank you.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

It stormed last night. Maybe now I can get some wet wood images. Maybe...right now...

 

But before I go, I am also now taking complaints and constructive criticism for the textures in the 1400-1500 range. I could care less about the 800 package.

 

If you have tips tricks, or lighting suggestions, let me know.

 

I've come up with an idea for taking better foliage pictures, which includes me buying one of those large poster board things. The one with the foam core and a white posterboard paper on the outside. I have no idea what that stuff is called. If I put it on a stick and then slip it behind the foliage I am trying to shoot, maybe I can get an instant masking color and get some perfect foliage shots. Worth a try.

 

 

Oh, one more thing: what is your take on using cube mapping to do textures for topiary? I was thinking the small yew, tiny spruces, boxwood, towering white cedar, etc., might be best represented by a single shape rather than a bunch of leaf-branch faces.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

Minor addition to the nature textures today. The new pack 1500-D has some seamless foliage you can use to wrap simple geometric shapes. These are probably no good for single branch geometry, but are still useful. I'll probably show some concept models you can make with these textures later this week. They're great for things like birdnest spruce, or hedgerow shrubberies. And who doesn't need shrubberies? Make sure you bring your herring.