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Step 3: Creating Textures

In general, all textures created for the mod should follow the requirements listed in the sections below.

However, when we are creating a non-professional mod, we can keep textures as simple as possible, see the last section for details.

Format of Textures

All texture files must be in the .tga format.

Naming Scheme for Textures

All textures must be named according to the correct naming scheme. The naming of textures is strictly defined, since postfixes in their file names indicate the type of data inside them.

The name of the file is formed according to the following pattern:

name__postfix.tga
Where: - name – any appropriate name that does not include two underscores in a row (no __ inside it). - postfix – defines the type of data within a texture according to the table below.

__postfix Type of Texture Parameter in XML
__d Albedo Map AlbedoMap
__d_a Albedo Map + Alpha AlbedoMap
__n_d Normal Map NormalMap
__sh_d Shading Map ShadingMap
__em_d Emissive Map EmissiveMap

WARNING: The naming scheme for textures described above is mandatory. This naming scheme is necessary to enable streaming for textures of the mod, which may be essential. Particularly, mods with the wrong naming of textures result in memory leaks on consoles and will not receive approval for them.

Size of Texures

Suggested sizes of textures used for truck mods are the following:

  • External part of the truck and its low-poly cabin
    • For a regular truck – 1 texture, 2048х2048.
    • For a large truck – 2 textures, each of 2048х2048 size: one for the front part of the truck (cabin and its surroundings) and one for the rest of the model (chassis, and so on).
  • Glass (all glass part of the truck) – 1024х1024 or 2048х1024 (depends on the format of the glass).
  • High-Res Cabin – 2K.
  • Gauges – 1024х1024 or 2048х1024 (depends on the number of elements).
  • Glass of the Gauges – 512x512.
  • Tire – 1024х512.
  • Rim – 512x512.
  • Addons – may vary (depends on size/complexity), texel is ~230.

Location of Textures

Truck mod textures should be put to the textures folder within the folder of the truck mod. Or, to the subfolder there, e.g. to textures\trucks.

In the latter case you will need to mention this subfolder in the values of the corresponding attrubutes of <Material> tag. For example: 

...
    <Material
        AlbedoMap="trucks/mod_scout__d.tga"
        ...
    />
...

Textures for Our Simple Mod

Since we are creating an illustrative mod and are using simple color fills instead of professional textures that require working with UV, we will create very simple textures and only the diffuse ones.

Previously, we have created two materials (middle_part and lower_part_and_roof), so we will create two diffuse textures with 128x128 dimensions:

  • middle_part_texture__d.tga (shown below as .png, requires hovering to find it :)

    preview of the texture 1

  • lower_part_and_roof_texture__d.tga (shown below as .png)

    preview of the texture 2

WARNING: Previews of these textures shown above are in the PNG format, but the original textures must be in the TGA format.

So, we will create the textures\trucks folders in the folder of the truck mod and put the middle_part_texture__d.tga and lower_part_and_roof_texture__d.tga files there.

After that, we can proceed to the next step – the creation of the XML file of the truck mesh.