* Before you read beyond this point, make sure you have this file PNG.8bi

When I was 4 or 5 years old, I'd sit and watch my older brother work for hours on his military modeling. Then when I was 8 or 9 I saw a little movie called Star Wars ( If you have not seen this movie I highly recommend it ) I watched as very lived in looking space ships moved around and went through all sorts of hell. Then later I saw a movie called Tron (you could skip this one :-) But that movie started my long climb as a graphic artist and 3-d animator. I've always loved the used and abused look of things. It just looks more natural..

Any Ways this is the tutorial to make your skins in Tribes 2 have this look and feel... I've broken it up into these topics

1. Getting Layers set up making highlights
2. Deep scratches
3. Paint chips and dirt
4. Blood stains
5. More Alpha Channels

Getting Layers Setup and Making Highlights

For this tutorial I'm only going to work on the shoulder armor of the light class.

1. Zoom into the area you want to work on

2. Add a new layer

It now looks like this

3. Use the selection tool to *mask* out the area your working on

4. Fill this area in. In my case I use a military green

5. Select Filter > Noise > Add Noise,,, Set to your taste

6. Create a new layer ( make sure to keep the current selection, in fact you keep the current selection till the end of the tutorial)

7. Set the tool to paint brush, color = white, size = 27 or so.

8. Make a line down the middle.

9. Select Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set to your liking

10. Set the layer blend mode to Screen and the layer opacity to 26%

11. Right mouse click on the layer, select Layer Properties..

12. Rename the layer to something that makes sense. In this case "Shine"

Thats the end of the first part. You've learned a few things that we'll use in the next parts....

Page 2 >