Creating your own segments definitely adds a big aspect of 'mine' to the game. It also gives you a lot more variation, and your game being unique, to an extent.
It is an easy method that can make your game so much better, and requires so little effort.
I haven't actually used GIMP before, as I've always been fortunate enough to have Photoshop, however the principles are the same.
For the texture, you don't actually want to save it as the .bmp
BMP's are the most 'common' because they are used for the thumbnail (much less quality) image that is shown in the editor.
The default packaging of the textures with FPSC I believe is .dds
From what I have heard, it is hard to get a .dds out of gimp without plugins or some other external program.
.jpg or .tga will both work however, and you will find that these are the most common, not just with FPSC, throughout the whole gaming industry (.dds would probably be first, but like mentioned above, you will have difficulties with it)
Now, actually creating the texture.
Take a few photos. try and get them with no shadows, and straight on, so they could be good to actually start from. Take a few more. Things like rusted/scratched metal, dirty concrete floors, etc, and you can overlay them on your original photo.
Do this however many times you want, and with the added layers, experiment with the overlay/blending styles (or the equivalent in gimp)
After that, the major issue is just making them seamless. This can be quite difficult, and it is where most people fall through.
Once your texture is seamless, save it as a .jpg or .tga (or.dds if you have the option)
- Note there are a few different sizes that work best with FPSC. 512x512(smallest) 1024x1024(average/most common) 2048x2048(VeryHigh quality) 4096x4096(Extreme) - I recommend 1024x1024.
Now that you have your texture created, you have to get it into FPSC. You can do it manually, but that can be a tedious experience. There are a few programs that do it well, Ill leave you a link with them.
The first is a quite recent one, made by Doomster. Its the one I use, as you can make segments shader-compatible with it, but there is alot more effort in the creation process.
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=178331&b=21
Another one is FIRMA. Im not sure where the download for that is, but its floating arround somewhere.
Goodluck in this process. I know that I have found it to be alot of fun
Ben
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