So, you really liked the last steel tutorial and wanted to take it another level? Want to give it a more grand or detailed pattern? Maybe change it's depth and structure or fashion it into a metal plate? This lengthy tutorial can show you all of that and more, but there is some literature on the subject that you should be familiar with first before we continue. You should of course have finished the "Creating Steel Textures (Part 1)" tutorial, as well as glanced over the "Basics of Creating Textures" article, and the all-important "Rulers and Guides" article. If you haven't, it my be easy to get lost. Photoshop power users shouldn't have any trouble with this tutorial, but a refresher never hurts.

    Ok. I'm assuming you saved the steel texture from the first tutorial, but the great thing about this guide is that it can be applied to almost any metal surface. However for this tutorial's sake, we'll use the texture from that tutorial as our template. Open it and make sure everything has been saved as one layer, or flatten the image (Layer > Flatten Image) if there are two or more layers present. Now the image should be labeled as "background" in the layers tab window. Go ahead and double click on the layer with the left mouse button and a "New Layer" window will appear. Make sure the settings match the defaults shown in the example and click "OK".

    As a new layer, go to Layer > Layer Style > Bevel And Emboss and try the settings shown here. Your current image should look similiar to this. Go ahead an flatten your image again, because the next few steps are going to get complicated.

    You need to be familiar with rulers and guides for the next steps, particularily with inputing new guides. The coordinates for your guides need to be input for both horizontal and vertical lines, and the measurements are based on the resolution of the original steel 1 texture (512 x 512). So if the resolution of the image you are using is anything other than 512 x 512, then these coordinates will not work. If you need to double check, go to Image > Canvas Size and look to where it prints "current size" to see the resolution of your image. The coordinates for both the horizontal and vertical guides are: 48, 56, 112, 120, 200, 208, 256, 304, 312, 392, 400, 456, and 464 (that's a total of 22 entries!). When you're finished, the guides should look something like this.

    The fun begins....right....about.....now! Press the "L" key to select the "Polygonal Lasso" tool, and start making your way through the guides in the pattern shown here (I filled the selection with black to make it easier to see). Repeat this pattern around all four sides of the image by holding down the "SHIFT" key as you add selections. The pattern should look like this when you're finished (again, filled with black to make it easier to see). Now that everything has been selected, copy the selections ("CTRL + C") and paste ("CTRL + V") them into place on top of your image. be sure to keep them as a separate layer, because we've got some detail work to finish below. I suggest hiding the layer (which we'll call the "Triangle layer") until you're ready to work on it again.

    With your lower layer selected (from here on, refered to as "the base"), repeat the process of making the same selected areas as you did with the Triangle layer. The only difference now is that we are going to invert the selection by choosing Select > Inverse or by pressing "SHIFT + CTRL + I". Now your selection should look like this (once again, filled with black to make things easier to see).

    So far so good. Select the "Dodge" tool ("O" key) and set the brush size to a soft, round 35 pixels. You might also want to make sure that the range is set to "midtones", and the exposure to 10%. Now move the tool over the edges of the insides of your selection, making the corners just a tad brighter. Keeping your strokes and intensity uneven helps solidify the realism of the texture, so don't get discouraged if you feel like you're not tracing the line as well as you'd like. As a suggestion, I recommend intensifying your strokes on the corners of the selections, rather than the center of the line. This helps to not only define the shape and contour of your texture, but adds realism and character to your image. Here's an example of what my texture looks like after this process.

    It only gets better. Switch over to the "Burn" tool (hold the left mouse button down over the dodge tool until the burn tool appears and select it), and change your brush size to a soft, round 200 pixels. Also be sure to set the range to "shadows" and set the exposure at 15%. Now lightly brush over the entire selection to give the metal a more chiseled and featured surface. The last piece of detailing advice I would recommend is using the sharpen tool with a soft round 35 pixel brush, just over the edges of your selection and lightly touching up the scratches on the metal surface. Check out the detail in the example shown here. Now we're ready to work on those triangles in the above layer.

    We're basicly going to apply the same details to these triangles as with the base of the texture, but with the exception that a layer style will be applied to the image. Open up the Layer > Layer Style menu again, and choose Bevel and Emboss. Depending on which way you want to go with this detail, you can change the direction of the lighting to make the triangles appear indented, beveled, or outlined. Just to give you some ideas, here are a couple of examples. I however suggest that for the continuity of this tutorial, you use the settings shown here.

    Now for more detailing. To get that spot in the center of the triangles, here's a little trick. Press the "W" key to select the "Magic Wand" tool, make sure that the anti-alias brush option is checked, and click anywhere outside the triangles so that the transparent part of the layer is selected. Next, press "SHIFT + CTRL + I" to invert the selection. Finally, go to the Select > Modify menu and choose Contract. Specify a measure of 8 pixels and click "OK". Voila! Now you can detail the inside of the triangles without worrying too much about messing up the edges. Use the Dodge, Burn, and Sharpen tools in the same manner you used to detail the base layer. When you're done, simply press "SHIFT + CTRL + I" to invert the selection again and work on fine-detailing the edges. Here is a picture of the detailing (the background has been made black to make the details easier to see). You may notice that in the very corners, I used a smaller sized brush with the Dodge tool to further accent the edges. This is important to note as we near the end of the tutorial.

    Once all of your detailing is done, look over the edges and corners and surfaces, and any place that may need touching up. If all looks well, then flatten the image and we'll move on to the final details. You will need to clear all the guides you previously entered by going to the View menu and selecting Clear Guides. Now we're going to set up some new guides, both horizontal and vertical, at the 12 and 500 pixel marks as shown in this image. Make a rectangular selection within the guides, and just like before, brush around the edges of the selection using the Dodge tool to help enhance those corners and bevels. When you're done with the inside, press "SHIFT + CTRL + I" to flip the selection around, and start detailing the edges of the image. Here is another image to help with some of those details.

    I'm going to speed through this last part because its super easy. Clear all the guides, flatten all your layers, and de-select everything. Make a new image (512 x 512) and proceed to Filter > Render > Clouds (using the default black and white colors) and then use Filter > Render > Difference Clouds a few times to get some good contrast. Select all ("CTRL + A"), copy ("CTRL + C"), and paste ("CTRL + V") it onto your texture. Change the opacity of the layer to about 15%, and set the blending mode to "Overlay". Now go to Image > Adjust > Hue / Saturation or press "CTRL + U" to bring up the Hue / Saturation controls. Check the "Colorize" option and try the settings shown here. Flatten the layer, and you're finished! Here is you highly detailed steel texture, ready to use and abuse. :)

    Wow that was long, but the end result is a great texture that you can really be proud of! Congratulations for making it all the way through, as it's a sign that you have what it takes to become a decent texture artist. You're developing some great skills that several game companies are always looking for, as well as art production houses and special effects studios. Just remember that knowledge is meaningless until you can apply it...so take what you've learned here, and apply it to all sorts of things. Be creative and have fun with it...that's the best way to learn.

Questions or comments? E-mail Mr. Lake