Adding A texture to a Model

[iowa101]

What is the best free software to use and how do I go about it?

I want to be able to isolate different area's of the ship say this list.

Deck, Hull, Details, Castle etc. What would I do and how would I do it?

[fred8615]

If you're talking about editing DDS files, GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/) is both free and very good. You will need to download and install the DDS plugin though.

[Webster]

another good program that is also free is PaintDotNet

the nice thing about it is you dont need to convert files to edit them it can edit and save dds files as they are

find it here along with lots of other modding tools: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=155786

[Admiral Von Gerlach]

Great advice here, these programs listed will get you started on this challenging task. Get a good dds viewer too that will help a lot.

[iowa101]

I will take a look at them, but the first thing I need to find out is how to uvmap a complicated model like my carrier.

The problem is the fact that I don't know how to and don't know what good uvmapping software his out there.

[stanger]

Here are some links Ive found for you:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/UV_Map_Basics

http://www.evermotion.org/tutorials

and this one, can be more useful as its videos in HD, but the guy is talking in Polish; but on the other hand, he's from Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, so seems he's credible:

http://waw.asp.krakow.pl/index.php/en/tutorial-uv-mapping.html

Sorry I can't be more useful.