Tiling issues are one of the most common problems in texture packs, especially with people who are new to texturing. It's tricky to get those bits to match up so you can't see any seams, especially if you're working in a larger resolution, or doing a cartoon pack.
So here's a brief little thing to show just how easy it is to create intricately-tiled designs no matter what style you use.
Even stuff like this.
Tiling your images:
This texture took me longer to crop and upload than it did to actually draw. It's not the best, and the pattern is very visible, but that's a design flaw of a different sort. One which I may touch up on later.
The first thing you want to do is open your texture file. Either create a new one, or just import the one you'll be editing. Either way, make sure it has some sort of a background, so you can see what your doing later on. I like a solid colour, since my pack isn't anything like the vanilla textures.
Expand your canvas to 200%. Don't resize the image. You want that original image in the middle, with the background square showing where the actual texture will be. You'll actually be doing as much work in the white area as you do in the box you created in the previous step.
Now, you create a new layer and start doing the basic shapes for your texture. In this case, it's a cobblestone. If you're not working with outlines, and just doing pixel art, do the base colour here. This is just outlined because that's how I draw, but the principle is the same for pixel art textures.
Leave the borders of your image on two sides. ´You'll probably do some shuffling about later on, especially if you wind up with an obvious pattern like this one did.
Once you've got a good amount (and there's no right or wrong for what a good amount is; that's up to you), copy that layer and make it invisible. You'll need it again shortly, but not right now.
On the copied layer, select the edges that are outside the background square, and move those bits over to the opposite edge. This gives you the outline of your texture, and shows you where the blank spots are to be filled in.
Now, go back to the first layer and fill in the blank spots. You want to fill in as much of the blank spots as possible without making it seem too cluttered or busy. Usually, this is the point at which I'd save the texture and check it in Minecraft for any obvious tiling, but I didn't this time, because I was lazy and not really thinking. When you're working on your pack, save and check the textures frequently. It will save you a headache later on. Just make sure to crop it back down to the original size before you do, because it will get really funny otherwise.
Now that you have everything laid out, go to a new layer. If you're doing cartoony textures, put it under the lineart. If you're doing pixel work, put it over your base. Only on the parts where the whole shape is outline, colour and shade them. Anything that's broke up by the border, leave alone. By colouring and shading and detailing outside of the texture area, you're keeping those textures even, and will avoid any lines at the seams from where your lines don't quite match up.
Once you're done with that, turn off the layer that acts as your guide. You're done with it now. Take your selection tool and move the colouring and detail over to the opposite edges, like you did earlier. It will match up perfectly.
Now, you crop the image back down by 50%, leaving only the texture itself. If you really want to, you can add texture and effect overlays to your image. But be very careful, because all that hard work can very easily be negated if your texture overlay doesn't tile up right.
You can see here the texture overlay not tiling, and also the horribad gaps in the pattern itself. I should have fixed this, but lazy. It's another common issue, and easy to fix, and I can show you how to do that next, if people want.
To add-on to your tutorial, here's my totally fugley tiling example I made a while back. It's a step-by-step process of how I do quick tiling:
Obviously the above example isn't a real texture, but it's just to show that even the roughest, ugliest of sketches can be tiled if you do it in the right order/steps.
(Your tutorial is much better though! Just thought I'd toss my example in too!)
@Loki, Ray: These are both great strategies... ones that I have yet to use, and will probably help me quite a bit, since I'm going to experiment with hand-drawing some textures with a ballpoint pen (they'll mostly be cartoony lineart-style drawings, like the example one in the OP).
It may sound like an easier approach until you realize how much trial and error it takes. I must admit that although I am not an avid texture artist, I do a few textures here and there, and I've thought of this process of copying and pasting and such, but I'm just too lazy at the time, but overall it just ends up taking more energy in the end. But it's good to see someone's finally gone and made a tutorial on this, good work
I have photoshop scripted to make a 3x3 grid from my texture, so i can check for tiling issues. I also use the offset method Ray and Loki describe. I can't imagine the tedium and frustration of trying to achieve the same level of quality without these basic techniques
I have photoshop scripted to make a 3x3 grid from my texture, so i can check for tiling issues. I also use the offset method Ray and Loki describe. I can't imagine the tedium and frustration of trying to achieve the same level of quality without these basic techniques
[derail-topic]
I love photoshop scripts, I built some custom ones to handle my animations. I have one that takes a 3x3 grid of animated textures (because of my random CTM, I have some random CTM that's also animated, like my brewing stands) and converts it into 9 36-frame animation strips that are MC formatted/ready, and saves them in number order 0-9 in a folder.. All with 1 single button click. Takes a tedious 45-50 minute animation job and converts it to about 3 minutes of tapping my foot waiting on photoshop.
I have another more simple one that's the same thing, but only does it to 1 texture instead of a grid of 9, for my non-CTM items like the stuff in /items/
...ohh ohh, I also have one that automatically makes my little "3d cubes". I just plot all the textures for the cube in a folder and hit "go" and it applies the textures to the cubes and renders it, ready to save.
I'm glad I'm not the only one around here that uses Photoshop scripts, it's a shame most people don't use/understand them.. they're such time savers when you're doing the tedious side of the work.
[/derail-topic]
Well technically speaking it's not either of those.
I hope it doesnt belong there, I have a bunch of texture pack tutorials planned and I dont want them buried in that mess :/
It doesn't belong in mapping and modding tutorials. This is "Resource Pack Discussion", so it's for all things discussed specifically for resource packs that aren't *actual* resource packs. Id est, this fits and so do any other tutorials specifically geared towards resource pack creation.
So here's a brief little thing to show just how easy it is to create intricately-tiled designs no matter what style you use.
Even stuff like this.
Tiling your images:
The first thing you want to do is open your texture file. Either create a new one, or just import the one you'll be editing. Either way, make sure it has some sort of a background, so you can see what your doing later on. I like a solid colour, since my pack isn't anything like the vanilla textures.
Expand your canvas to 200%. Don't resize the image. You want that original image in the middle, with the background square showing where the actual texture will be. You'll actually be doing as much work in the white area as you do in the box you created in the previous step.
Now, you create a new layer and start doing the basic shapes for your texture. In this case, it's a cobblestone. If you're not working with outlines, and just doing pixel art, do the base colour here. This is just outlined because that's how I draw, but the principle is the same for pixel art textures.
Leave the borders of your image on two sides. ´You'll probably do some shuffling about later on, especially if you wind up with an obvious pattern like this one did.
Once you've got a good amount (and there's no right or wrong for what a good amount is; that's up to you), copy that layer and make it invisible. You'll need it again shortly, but not right now.
On the copied layer, select the edges that are outside the background square, and move those bits over to the opposite edge. This gives you the outline of your texture, and shows you where the blank spots are to be filled in.
Now, go back to the first layer and fill in the blank spots. You want to fill in as much of the blank spots as possible without making it seem too cluttered or busy. Usually, this is the point at which I'd save the texture and check it in Minecraft for any obvious tiling, but I didn't this time, because I was lazy and not really thinking. When you're working on your pack, save and check the textures frequently. It will save you a headache later on. Just make sure to crop it back down to the original size before you do, because it will get really funny otherwise.
Now that you have everything laid out, go to a new layer. If you're doing cartoony textures, put it under the lineart. If you're doing pixel work, put it over your base. Only on the parts where the whole shape is outline, colour and shade them. Anything that's broke up by the border, leave alone. By colouring and shading and detailing outside of the texture area, you're keeping those textures even, and will avoid any lines at the seams from where your lines don't quite match up.
Once you're done with that, turn off the layer that acts as your guide. You're done with it now. Take your selection tool and move the colouring and detail over to the opposite edges, like you did earlier. It will match up perfectly.
Now, you crop the image back down by 50%, leaving only the texture itself. If you really want to, you can add texture and effect overlays to your image. But be very careful, because all that hard work can very easily be negated if your texture overlay doesn't tile up right.
You can see here the texture overlay not tiling, and also the horribad gaps in the pattern itself. I should have fixed this, but lazy. It's another common issue, and easy to fix, and I can show you how to do that next, if people want.
Obviously the above example isn't a real texture, but it's just to show that even the roughest, ugliest of sketches can be tiled if you do it in the right order/steps.
(Your tutorial is much better though! Just thought I'd toss my example in too!)
It may sound like an easier approach until you realize how much trial and error it takes. I must admit that although I am not an avid texture artist, I do a few textures here and there, and I've thought of this process of copying and pasting and such, but I'm just too lazy at the time, but overall it just ends up taking more energy in the end. But it's good to see someone's finally gone and made a tutorial on this, good work
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[derail-topic]
I love photoshop scripts, I built some custom ones to handle my animations. I have one that takes a 3x3 grid of animated textures (because of my random CTM, I have some random CTM that's also animated, like my brewing stands) and converts it into 9 36-frame animation strips that are MC formatted/ready, and saves them in number order 0-9 in a folder.. All with 1 single button click. Takes a tedious 45-50 minute animation job and converts it to about 3 minutes of tapping my foot waiting on photoshop.
I have another more simple one that's the same thing, but only does it to 1 texture instead of a grid of 9, for my non-CTM items like the stuff in /items/
...ohh ohh, I also have one that automatically makes my little "3d cubes". I just plot all the textures for the cube in a folder and hit "go" and it applies the textures to the cubes and renders it, ready to save.
I'm glad I'm not the only one around here that uses Photoshop scripts, it's a shame most people don't use/understand them.. they're such time savers when you're doing the tedious side of the work.
[/derail-topic]
Photoshop scripts sound very useful... but I use GIMP. Is there any scripting equivalent for GIMP?
[/continued derail-topic]
This is in the mapping and modding section...
Well technically speaking it's not either of those.
I hope it doesnt belong there, I have a bunch of texture pack tutorials planned and I dont want them buried in that mess :/
It doesn't belong in mapping and modding tutorials. This is "Resource Pack Discussion", so it's for all things discussed specifically for resource packs that aren't *actual* resource packs. Id est, this fits and so do any other tutorials specifically geared towards resource pack creation.