Creating game textures from photographs

Hi.

I'm trying to make some textures for a 3d game with a digital camera.

If you look straight at a wall, and take a picture of it, it will be most likely that the edges of the wall won't all have the same color, because of lighting.

I have no problem getting the perspective and size of the texture right - my problem is getting the shades of the texture even, so that the final texture is seamless (i.e. if you place them next to / above each other, you get the illusion of looking at one image, and not a bunch of squares which don't fit together nicely).

Do some of you have some tips on what I can do to get rid of my problem? Is there some way to "even out" a specified color range? Do some of you maybe know some tutorials on the web which discuss this (I haven't found any :()?

Thanks!

You can use the offset filter to see what the edges of the image look like put together, then you'll just have to use a variety of methods to even it out, depending on the image. won't be very easy.

This may help:

http://www.cadtutor.net/dd/photo/seamless/seamless.html

and this:

http://graphicssoft.about.com/library/tuts/bltut29cowspots.htm

I'll go play around a bit with the offset filter... but I don't think it'll be very useful for my purpose. I'm not trying to create a simple seamless texture - I'm trying to create textures from pictures... >_<

Well the method will be the same. The offset filter just reverses the edges and puts them all together inside (sort of). If you do the offset filter and then can make it so you don't see the seams in that picture anymore, you can then tile the picture. But it will take a lot of work to get a picture to not have seams. But those tutorials show you the basic method.

Well ... you can always measure your 3d wall (the object) and then load your picture in photoshop.
Create a new file with the same size as your wall. After that experiment with the patch tool, copy layers etc (offset filter too maybe).

Most people i know use a single image and copy it in several layers, use the patch tool ... and after that use the burn/dodge tool to lighten/darken a few places on the wall.

After that save the image in color and one in black/white.

Take the black/white picture and play with your levels. You can use this as a 3d bump map in your 3d program for extra realism.

So in stead of using one filter, just 'build' your texture in photoshop.

Hope i helped you out. ;)

In case someone has the same problem as I did: I found an excellent solution to my problem...

The High Pass Filter (Filters -> Other -> High Pass)

It evens out the shade of a picture. Unfortunately, it messes up the colors of the picture, but you can get that back quite easily by doing color overlays and color corrections...