Hello

We are currently small team that makes games for smartphones only. I am facing a little problem.

I work in 3ds max and UDK and my colleague works in Photoshop and UDK. I make the model he makes the texture. However, its getting really hard to make communication channels effective. We are wasting time, because it takes long for me to explain which part is which. What I want to ask is should I learn Photoshop in order to fix this communication problem or is there another way to fix it? Is it common that 3d artist also works as a texture artist ?

Thanks

Well... It would be a useful skill to have in the future, wouldn't it?

In this case I would suggest learning a little. It wouldn't take any more than a day or two to figure out what tools to use and where, and how he takes over from where you left off. Furthermore, it might improve your own workflow to help him out.

But looking at it in a broader sense, I think this would be a good thing to know for your own sake. Every little piece of knowledge is helpful.

Well i guess you are right. In long term it would make sense , the time i waste in workflow will be the same as the time i need to learn photoshop.

I have a Bamboo that is just collecting dust anyway.

Photoshop is quite easy to use, the hard part is making good looking textures(this is difficult regardless of what tool you use), buying a second photoshop license if you don't have the skill to really take advantage of it is a bit of a waste to be honest, it might be enough for you to use a cheaper tool to create a color coded texture (Where each color indicates a part of the model)

Use GIMP., and use color coding (as simon said) + a new image layer to add descriptive text.

Also, export your model to OBJ for him, and get him to install Blender. He can edit the texture, and hit the reload button in Blender to see what it looks like on the model in real-time. It's very hard to do a good blind texturing job.

There is always photoshop essentials, if you just want to show parts?
Also: You can rent the complete Adobe collection for only about 36-90€ per month.
If you are working on project basis without wanting to spend big, this is a nice way to go.

The simple answer here is yes. You would be suprised at how little of the tools you will actually use in Photoshop in regards to texturing, I used Photoshop for around 11 years as a graphic designer and while using the tools to texture and paint models I use only a fraction of the tools available. I don't use it any more however, I'm a Linux convert and I use GIMP 2.8 with a Photoshop hotkey set (This is a great way to get used to the tools and then switch between the programs.) Photoshop is the better of the two, that goes without saying, but you can do exactly the same stuff in it as Photoshop for texturing (maybe you'll miss Layer Styles for simple stuff.) as you can in GIMP, and it costs nothing at the same time.

Understanding the following is key for texturing:

- Layers and Layer modes.
- Layer Masks (For a none destructive workflow.)
- Making Selections (1008237428934 ways to do this as well.)
- Basic Level, Curves and Hue and Saturation (theres 100 ways to do the same thing in Photoshop, finds what suits you.)
- Channels (Helps with Normal maps and other coloring issues + alpha selections)
- Basic filters: Gaussian Blur, Motion Blur, Unsharpen Mask. These tend to be your bread and butter, 70% of the filters are just junk for anything serious.
- Brushes (For painting and building up textures.)
- Basic hotkeys. V - Move Tool, B - Brush tool, E - Eraser, ctrl+z, ctrl+alt+z (more undo basicly) and afew others.

Those really are the only things I use tool wise for texturing.

some useful sites:

ctrlpaint.com (Many of these excellent tutorials are towards concept and photoshop but they will give you with basics, there's even a 101 Photoshop series.)
cgtuts.com (Check out the texturing section of the next-gen Dumpster game model series.)

Hello,

I would also recommend using GIMP (opensource and free) for most situations:
- if you just want to try it out and see how it works, use GIMP, it's free and you don't pay much for software you probably won't ever use for real work.
- if you want to communicate with your colleague, GIMP should also be fine. There might be tools missing in one of the two products (yes, there also is awesome stuff that can only be found in GIMP) or they're in another location, but the important parts of how you work and what is possible/easy are the same.
- if you want to become autonomous and do all your textures by yourself, GIMP might also be a good choice. It's just as hard/easy to learn as Photoshop, I really can't think of anything you can't do with GIMP that you'd need for creating textures and, the big advantage, it's free for commercial use.

However, if you want to work really closely together with your colleague, with both of you editing the same project file, you pretty much have to use Photoshop. GIMP has an importer for psds, and it work's fine for most parts, but there are some flaws (text layers for example) that will make professional work pretty much impossible when working with two different programs and the risks of breaking layers or such when exporting back to psd are too high. Of course it would be just fine if your colleague would use GIMP as well, but he's most likely not going to switch, so yeah, this would be the case where you actually have to buy/rent and learn Photoshop.

bw,
Tobl