Android Sketch/Texture App

[Roswenthe Aluveaux]

I have an Android tablet and pen, and I'd like to be able to do some basic clothing texturing on my tablet. I'm not looking for anything fancy, just texturing some of the mesh clothes I'm learning to make in Blender. It's okay if it costs. Any recommendations for sketch or drawing apps that might work?

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

GIMP is commonly used for texturing. It's a bit awkward to learn but it's free and there are a ton of tutorials. You'd need to find a way to hook your tablet up to your computer to use as an input device but that's probably less bother than moving files from computer to tablet and back all the time. There are tablet-based alternatives (use a search string like 'GIMP Photoshop Android alternative' to find them) which might suit your needs better though.

Two basic ways to texture your own mesh -

- use one of the Render functions in Blender to create a texture with shadows etc (the downside to this is that you'll have to Render each variation individually, which can add up to a lot of computer time if you want to make it in different fabrics or colour ways)

- make a shadow (ambient occlusion) layer in Blender, then take it into software like Photoshop or GIMP to add to your fabric textures

Whatever software you use for the second method, it will need to support layers. Generally speaking, the AO/shadow layer goes on top, set to Multiply (GIMP terminology, don't know if other programmes call it something different), with the opacity adjusted to suit your preferences. Then trims and small bits, then the base fabric layer(s).

If you're using GIMP, use the Export command to make a single layer version. Open that version up, remove the alpha channel (unless you need it for sheer clothing) and Overwrite to save the non-alpha single layer version.

(You can also Merge all the layers once you're done and export that, but it's WAAAYYYY too easy to forget to save a pre-merge copy and pre-merge copies are very useful for making adjustments and using different fabrics.)

Inworld, you can try out your texture without paying the upload fees through the Local Texture option. Beta grid is also good, especially if you like some quiet for concentration. Local Textures is really cool because any changes you make to your texture will show up shortly after they're saved/exported in your graphics software. It's like magic and gives some instant gratification when trying out things like how opaque to make the AO layer.

That's the gist of it. If there's some reason why you need to work just on the tablet, then it would probably still be useful to start with GIMP or PS first because more of us will be able to help you with any questions while you're learning.

 

Edited July 23, 2018 by Bitsy Buccaneer