Creating Realistic Flag Textures
 

I've been looking around the internet trying to find a good Photoshop tutorial on creating a realistic fabric texture for use with the various ship flags. Can anyone help me out with this?

Hey Luke,
a while back somebody posted bunch of flags for SH4. I have created a blank template and can pretty much create any flag of any nation.

As a matter of fact I already have all the nations in SH4 created and could make any additional if you need to. I could just zip the. dds files if you like the style.
Some examples:
Italian merchant
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k.../Italian_m.jpg

blank
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...us00/blank.jpg

I've already tried them in SH4. They look pretty cool.
Let me know what you think.

-Libor

Hey Libor,

Those look really good. What resolution is that in? RFB's flags are 512x256, in DDS format.

Oh, these are only 256x128, Luke.
I tried to resize them but the texture looses quality.

Maybe you can use this one
http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/e...mplate5kf6.png

http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/e...erret/FLAG.jpg

Well I liked Dowly's "weave" so I re-worked the master.
What do you think now?:
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...0/Italy_m1.jpg

Photoshop? Good work.

Are you applying the texture as a top layer (overlay or screen) or displacement map?

If it's losing effect after resizing (and your texture is a top layer) try color burn and reduce the opacity a bit.

You could try filters>texture>texturizer try canvas or burlap and adjust the scaling and relief.

If you want the flag to actually conform to the rise and fall of the material shown in the examples you need to use a displacement map in addition to the texture effect.

If theses are static and not going to have dynamic lighting applied you might want to try filters>render>lighting effects to contrast the light/shadows for depth effect and burn the textures in. If you mean the flags waving on the mast tops then a flat texture without any 'sag' might be better since it might fight any render lighting effects.

These effects are possible in other raster based applications (Corelpaint, Gimp, etc) but they may change the tool names.

Looks good! I'm willing to give them a try when you're happy with how they look.

I'm ready. Shoot me a list of all nations you need.

Libor,

I updated some of the info above when I realized my old information was inaccurate.

Ach, I had to make one more correction (for India's flag). :88)

Got them ready, will post you a link in a minute.
The only thing is: I believe that South Africa flew (during the WW2) orange/white/blue flag without those three small flags inside the white stripe.
But I might be wrong.
I will include both versions, just in case.

Here is the link: http://www.mediafire.com/?n0djyecj3zc

Let me know if you need any changes made.

Thanks! I'll give them a run-through and let you know if there are any issues with them.

Libor,

Unfortunately, while the "ragged edge" effect looks great, it does not show up in the game. :( We'll have to forgo having that option.

Otherwise, these flags look really good! There's nothing really negative I can say about them.

Damn. I had the textures originally made for SH3. Do you have any idea why SH4 does not support alpha channel, Luke?
Which also brings another question: how does SH4 deal with flags with "cutouts" (i.e. Norway, Poland, Sweden battle flags)?

I can, of course, redo them but it would be nice if we can find way how to implement them with ragged edges...

The game treats the flags with cutouts the same as the other ones. If you want to try to get the effect to show up in game, then check out flag.dat (it's in /Data/Library).

I'll look into it and will let you know...

Got it. The alpha channel (ragged edges, "cutouts" on some flags) will work if you in flag.dat tick option "Disable z-buffer write + enable alpha blend"

Can you email me your flag.dat (and any other files associated with "adding nations")?
I would like to try on my end.

Sure thing:

http://www.filefront.com/15567703/flag.dat

EDIT: if you need to add any additional entries to that file, feel free to do so. I know some nations at this time (like Norway and Sweden) don't have separate merchant and naval flags.