Gimp = Gnome Image Manipulation Program

Installation and Download

You dowload it and the Gnome libraries from The Gimps Website (GTK+ and Gimp) Edit: (You can also DL and install the helpfiles a bit below the Gimp DL too. I will get to this at the settings tutorial)

1. Start to install the Gnome Graphic Libraries (GTK+) (Redhat use a lot of GTK+ graphics for their Linux "desktop" and Gimp is part of it too *blinks*)
2. Install Gimp (and helpfiles)

3. Download and install the Normalmap plugin fromGIMP normalmap plugin
4. Download and install the dds plugin from http://registry.gimp.org/plugin?id=4816

So where should we install or unpack the plugins?
You have 2 places to choose. As gimp is made for network computers, the user cannot add things to the folders where the software is installed so therefor all private plugins, patterns, brushes, gradients.... .... should be installed, saved or unpacked at: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\.gimp-2.2 and you see the folder plug-ins? Drop the files there.

If you want to play god or root (administrator), place the plugins at: C:\Program files\GIMP-2.0\lib\gimp\2.0\plug-ins if you installed Gimp at the default folder that is otherwise you know where you installed gimp hopefully.

Two DLL from the Normalmap plugin package must be installed elsewhere:
Place libgtkglext-win32-1.0-0.dll and libgdkglext-win32-1.0-0.dll in the C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\bin directory.
For the latest versions of gimp install them in C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\bin
(Found that little gem of wisdom at http://davenunez.wordpress.com/2008/07/21/using-the-gimp-to-create-bump-maps-for-fsx/ after much frustration.)

5. Download and Install DXTBMP from http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/programs/dxtbmp.htm. I will explain later why.

DDS and Normalmaps

DDS
(Maybe we start in the wrong end but someone that knows graphic basics, will get started immediate with this info. We get into how to make graphics later on.)

There are 3 types of DDS or versions.
DXT1: Very handy as the files get two times smaller then the others types. (Probably more compression and less quality)
DXT3: I don't know much about this one as I never use it. (Probably less compression and higher quality)
DXT5: Semitransparent Textures like Eshme's Glass Armor. (Same file size as DXT3)

When you make a DXT5, you get what you see and you don't need to think about the Alpha Layer at all as you get it automatic with help from the DDS plugin (Dont think much about Alpha when you work with Gimp). I go into details later about how to make these in 2-3 different layers. It is the same with DXT1 and DXT3 but they cant show semi transparens as far as I know.

When you make a texture, you want to include mipmaps, the picture gets layered and each layer is twice as small as the layer above to prevent lag from objects far away. The Gimp DDS plug-in makes the mipmap Layer 2 and up (or down) totally BLACK so no wonder that my meshes became black when I started to use this plug-in. If the texture is not semitransparent but is either 100% transparent or 100% opaque:

• 1. Save as: (I use [A] for this as shortcut)
• 2. Type the filename.dds (Gimp will run the DDS plug-in automatic after you click [OK])
• 3. A new window pops up and you choose to save as DXT1 and don't check the [ ] genereate mipmaps check box as it is pointless.
• 4. Click [OK]

• 1. If you made the texture semitransparent, simply choose DXT5 at the DDS window that pops up and uncheck the generate mipmapping.

To be able to save as any DXT format, the texture must be 2X² which means (X² * X²) or 16*16, 32*32,,,, 512*512, 1024*1024 and so on.
(The ² really stands for binary in this case.)

• 1. Now load DXTBMP
• 2. Load or Drag and Drop your texture to it
• 3. Check the mipmap checkbox at the right side of the window
• 4. Save (The default DXT will be the DXT type/version you saved in the first place from Gimp or whatever (PSP and PS) but double check it in the save window that pops up.)
• 5. Do exact the same with your Normalmaps and Glowmaps as well

Making Normalmaps (*_n.dds)
The normal map plug-in is really damn cool and it includes 3D models so you can test or preview your Normal mapping as Flat, Sphere, Torus or a Teapot.

I made a shortcut for my Normalmapping at Gimp Settings and I choose the key [Alt-J] but we get to Gimp settings a bit later as there is a lot we can do there to get Gimp to work faster and smother for us. We will make it to a nice tool I assure you.

Making a Texture easy for this normalmap example

Skip this section if you allready have a good texture loaded and jump to the "Making the actual Normalmap" subsection below.

• 1. Press [Ctrl-N] so you can create a new canvas (picture) or go to Gimp main window and choose Archive - New
• 2. Make it 512 * 512 pixels at the next window that pops up.
• 3. Hit the fill bucket at Gimp main page or Press [Shift-B]
• 4. Below the tools at Gimp main window, you see the settings for each tool: Press or check Fill Pattern there
• 5. To choose pattern, you either click the pattern symbol at the field between the tools and the toolsettings or write dri at the row next to the [] Fill pattern and I think the pattern Dried mud will be visible as that is the one we will choose as it is so damn easy to create a goooood normalmap with such a texture
• 6. Go to your Canvas (Picture Window) and fill
• 7. You have created a damn good texture now. Congratulations *jumps up and down in excitement and screams*

Making the actual Normalmap

• 1. Load or create a texture or use the one we made above.
• 2. As we will play with the 3D preview, make a copy of the texture:

• 2a. [Ctrl-A] (Mark all)
• 2b. Pull down the menu Edit - Paste as New (I use the shortcut [G] for this one as use this feature daily
• 2c. Have this copy active as now we will normalmap it.

• 3. Pull down themenu Filter - Map - Normalmap at the copy
• 3a. Push the [3D Preview] so we see what we are doing and choose teacop from the pulldown menu at the 3D Preview window. Change texture at the first pulldown under the teacop and choose between the 2 that is loaded with Gimp and use [ALT-TAB] or the mouse to go back to the Mipmapping window again. Put them side by side. The 3D window also has a [X] fullscreen button, which is damn handy and you can have the Mipmap window visible during fullscreen mode as well. Very nice. It is you that choose how you want to arrange your windows and choose the texture to use as preview though of course.
• 3b. There is many filtertypes and I use Sample 4 but try others as well.
• 3c. Minimum Z: I allways set this to 1.0 which is min, and I thought it was max really... Well play with this one and see how it changes the teacup.
• 3d. Scale: This is the most important setting I think and it can be set between -100 - 100 and I usually use 3 but I will be less carefull in the future really. Putting it at 30 and Minimum Z: 0.5, gave the bloody teacop a new dimension, the 5th dimension I think. *grins* (Even I learn a lot here when I make this tutorial and I will make much better Normalmaps after this tutorial is finished for sure as I play with gimp right now when I write this of course.)
• 4. I usually don't touch other settings, exception is the Option at the right side: Invert Y, which I use if I feel that the Normalmap feels inverted. Setting the Scale negative will solve this I noticed, -3 instead of 3 so you choose.
• 5. Follow the Save instructions now for DDS and save your Normalmap as filename_n.dds in next to your filename.dds
  
  When we find our favorite settings, making the Normalmap will only take a few seconds but I think I will use the 3D preview much more often now though.
  
  Previewing Alpha at the Normalmap 3D preview? Well, I think we can do that after we saved as DDS and loaded the file again. I will test this later.
  
  Lets see if I start to write section 3 today or not. It took over 3 hours to make the 2 first ones. I think section 3 should be about settings so we use the same environment in case I mention: Press a key or something that you haven't mapped.
  
  
  Usefull Gimp Settings
  
  Before we start making icons and stuff, lets tweak Gimp and try to make it easier and faster to use. *starts gimp*
  
  Gimp has looooads of different settings and tweaks and I only use some but maybe I find a new while we are inside the settings window? Lets find out.
  
  If you are in a hurry and don't want to read it all. Look at Row number 3 and 8.
  
  
  Go to Gimp main window, the one with tool icons and tool settings
  Pull down the menu Archive and the Settings. (damn what a big window that popped up) *grins*
• 1. How would you like a new canvas to look like when you press [New Picture]? Play with it now or when you feel like it
• 2. [Helplines settings] Well we skip this one for now. We will use them during the tutorial later on though.
• 3. Now we get serious. [Interface] at the 3rd row is very important I think and I allways go here when I install a new Gimp version
• 3a. Check everything. [X] Dynamic Shortcuts is something I will teach you later when we closed the settings window
• 3b. If you want to make shortcuts now already, press the [Edit Shortcuts] button but 3a is funnier and faster. Dynamic ones. But one shortcut that I use is only editable here or Gimp quit itself so we click it.
• 3bI. Click [ + ] File Scroll down to Save as and click it.
  Press the key [A] and every time you want to save something as, you press the [A] key and saving as new is something I do very very often. Always I would say and I will explain why later i don't use Ctrl-S when I save and it is about being effective and planning the future and making texture templates.
  

Close the Shortcut window now.

• 4. [Themes]. At Linux, we have 100 or 1000 or 10000 themes or more maybe. Here we have 2 at Windows. I think we can DL Gnome themes and put them at GTK+ really. Lets make a test at a later tutorial really. (Am I tempted to try it? YES I AM) Hmm. That is Gimp themes though but we will play with GTK+ anyway later as i am convinced they will work as GTK+ is GTK+, no matter if it is Unix, Linux or Windows
• 5. Did you Download and Install Gimp Helppages? Well I just did myself as i often forgot them and here you can make settings for them. I test GIMP internal Helpfile reader right now and it is okay. Small letters though so the webbrowser is maybe better? Well it didn't started for me so I will use Gimp helpfile reader instead. Press [F1] whenever you need help.
• 6. [Toolsettings]. Edit: Change the default Scaling from Linear to Cubic
• 7. [Toolbox]. They are good as they are
• 8. Picture Window (or Canvas as I call it). Set [X] checks everywhere if anyone is empty. I hate when a window stay small if I want to zoom in and I want the window to change size when I scale. This is settings i always do when I reinstall Gimp or update it.
• 9. [Look]. This one confuses me a bit as we have settings for normal and fullscreen look. Fullscreen? What do they mean by that? I don't see anyway we can turn gimp into a PS like fullscreen application?? maybe we one day understand this settings here better?
• Lets skip a couple of rows or you look at them your selves later
• 12. [Settings for other Input Units]. I think you can make settings and get other units to work with Gimp here like a Drawing pad or what it is called. I think this settings is for Linux users maybe as I think Windows will handle this but I am not 100% sure.
• 13. [Input Units settings]. Here we have many interesting Keyboard mappings and how the mouse wheel should act if you hold down shift, ctrl, Alt or combinations. I think I have lot to learn here and I don't have a mouse wheel where I sit at the moment so i cant test them. But I think you should read the settings and test them though. Lets go back to this later on when we find good use of it.
• We jump to 16. [Folders or Directories] Do you want to have your own brushes, patterns and so on stored at your homedirectory or at the Program folder? That is up to you really as long as you don't use Gimp from a Program Server that is as then you shouldn't touch this at all.

Making an Icon for Oblivion

without adding nor editing the Alpha Channel and still let it have an Alpha channel.
Hmm Sounds complicated, doesn't it? It isn't really.

Remark: This tuturial looks long and complicated, but it take me max 10s to make an icon this way and it will for you too when you get used to it.

Either we make an icon manually, which should get the best visual result as it will become sharp and crispy most likely but it takes time too.
Easiest and fastest way to make an icon is to create it from a screenshot from your Mesh that it represent. Well you can handmake an icon and follow the example as well if you want too of course.

As we will take a screenshot, lets use Gimp for it. Lets start to make a Shortcut key for the Screenshot and I use [Ä] which makes things very complicated as that is a Swedish/Norwegian sign, which is not even used in Denmark. I tried to find a good key for it as we will add more and more keys but I cant really. The second key from L to the right. Lets always call it Ä even if it should be ] at English keyboards if I am not misstaken. We have ] at another place at our Swedish keyboards.

Dynamic Linking works at those menus too it seems so lets make one.

• 1. Go to Gimp main page, the one with the tools
• 2. Pull down the Menu Archive and click [get] or [insert] or what the submenu above settings might be called in English.
• 3. At row 3 at that submenu, we have screenshot. Let the mouse hover over it and hit [Ä] (the ]) key.
• 4. Done

Lets make the icon now.

• 1. Doubleclick a Nif file (I assume that you have Nifscope associated with Nif's?) a book Nif should be good as books are damn easy to use in this case.

• 1b. If you are at CS, you can also draw a book out at the preview window as alternative to Nifscope. Be sure nothing is behind it so it is grey and nice there.

• 2. Let it be small but not to small

• 3. Activate any gimp window, Main or whatever as it doesn't matter
• 4. Push the new key you made [Ä] or []]
• 5. Gimp asks if we want to dump the whole screen or only a window. Dumping the whole screen is luxury so we [X] Catch a Window
• 6. Now you get a crosshair in the middle of a small window. Grab it put it at the Nifscope window.

• 6b. (Alternative way to make screenshot: Press [Alt-Print Screen] when Nifscope is active and go to Gimp and press [j])

• 7. Go to (activate) the window containing the screenshot.

• 8. Lets make a rough cut with the Knife tool (I don't know the English name for it) use Key [shift-C] and frame the book like this with your mouse from one upper corner to the opposite lower one:

• Now click within the frame with your mouse, click the book as one example, and it should look like this now:

• 9. That picture has a ground layer that is opaque so we shall copy it and delete the opaque layer and make a new that can handle transparency instead

• 9a. Open the Layer window with the key [Ctrl-L] and click the (copy button) and click the Lower Layer one time and it will look like this:

• 9b. Now click the Trashcan button or hide the lower layer by clicking the eye next to it, which sometimes is very handy if we want to reuse the original Layer, which we will mostly but not this time though

• 10. Lets get rid of the grey part now. We will us the wand now which is mapped to the key [Z] so press it.

• 11. Click with the mouse at the grey area and click [Ctrl-X] and we got rid of it and it should now look like this:

The grey square pattern surface show us that it is nothing there behind the book. Just Empty Void.

• 12. It is time to start zooming but we should remap the zooming keys first really.

• 12a. Rightclick the canvas (Picture)
• 12b. Click Row 4 at the pop-up menu called [Show] - [Zoom] at the next submenu (row 3) and let the mouse Hover above the:

• 12bI. [Zoom Out] --> Press the [-] at the numeric pad
• 12bII. [Zoom In] --> Press the [ + ] at the numeric pad

• 13. Go to the book picture if you are not there already that is and zoom in by clicking the [ + ] key a couple of times, lets say 2 or 3 (I click 3)

• 14. We will make a new cut now with the knife so click [Shift-C]

• 15. Frame the book and focus at where you put the right and the left borders of the cutting frame. Try to set the like this:

(Now we see clearly that I forgot to include the new bookpages.dds that I made together with the "Halls of The Phoenix Order" mod as the pages are completely white. I will have to make a patch.)

• 16. Go to the cutting window that always pop-up over the picture when we want to cut something. Irritating, but I am sure you moved it away a bit, didn't you?

• 16a. We see at the cutting window that the width is 103 pixels (Bredd in Swedish) and that the Height is 100 pixels (Höjd). If you got it 103 as well, then it is a miracle as it is most likely that you have a different width. Change the height so it is the same as the width so I change it to 103.

• 16a. Adjust the Start Y: so the book gets as close as possible to the center.

(One remark here is that the 4 corners of the cutting frame works a bit different. 2 of them move the corner if you drag it and 2 of them moves the whole frame. I am sure that you find out which corner is doing what very fast. *blinks*)

• 16c. Click the button [Cut] or go to the book and click in the middle of it, well somewhere within the cutting frame at least.

• 17. Time for some scaling and we should now create a scaling shortcut and i think is a proper one.

• 17a. I think you will manage to make the dynamic shortcut for this one but I can tell you which menus that has the scaling tool and you right-click the picture as usual.
• 17b. [Picture] - [Scale Picure]. Hover over it and hit ( is usually the Smear tool but I don't smear often really, well except when I make your screenshots into paintings though...)
• 17c. Damn, it didn't worked as that key is occupied so lets go in to Gimp settings then and assign the Scale Picture to . It is best to use the Scale Picture really and you find it at [Picture] at the shortcut window. There is also a Scale Layer, but it only scale the current layer, which can become very usefull sometimes but Scale Picture is something that we use to 99.8% I think. If you don't find the settings, Read the previous Tutorial about Gimp Settings, specially Row3.

• 18. Hit your new key or if you failed to assign Scale to S, then use the pulldown menu Picture - Scale picture

• 19. Change 103, 103 or whatever your picture is to width 64 and Height 64 (64, 64 from now on). As long as the chain is closed, the scaling will be proportional, the same in X and Y.

• 19a. Before you hit scale, go down to the Quality section at the Scale window and set Cubic Interpolation instead of Linear and we get higher quality for sure. You can also increase the X and Y resolution, which NeilV adviced us to do a couple of months back, but I don't see much differens if I do that with Gimp really. Maybe PS reacts differently there. I am sure it does when we use the Sharper function but lets debate that 3-4 rows down.
• 19b. A sidenote about scale settings. Linear Scaling is default so go to Gimp Settings, Row5 [Tool Alternatives] and change default Scaling to Cubic. (I will add this later to the Setting Tutorial)

• 20. Hit the [Scale] button now.The book is very blurred now so lets sharpen it a bit and we will assign the the [F] to the sharpener tool.

• 20a. Right-Click the Canvas
• 20b. Open the submeny [Filter] and next submenu [Improve] and let the mouse hover above [Make Sharper] and press the [F] key.

• 21. Press your new [F] key

• 22. I have never got confirmed if you can set how much or less you can sharp pictures at PS and I don't care much either really but here we can set the sharpening from 0 to 100 and for our pictures, textures and screenshots, I think 35 is absolute MAX and I lowered it a couple of months back to 30 so lets use 30

• 23. The quality was good before we sharpened but now it is excellent i think and the icon is finished.

• 24. Press the [A] key (Save as)

• 25. Name it BookExamleIcon.dds and save it wherever you want really. I suggest that you save it as DXT1 but it is up to you really.

• 26. Icons are usually saved at textures\menus\icons so you can put it there if you want to test it ingame

• 27. Be sure the mip mapping is unchecked. Icons will never be mip mapped and bookart inside books are never mip mapped nor normal mapped as far as I know

Checking the icon with DXTBMP

• 1. Start DXTBMP or doubleclick the BookExamleIcon.dds at your file explorer and tell XP that you wish to use DXTBMP as primary program to use when you doubleclick DDS. (Associate dds to DXTBMP if you don't prefer any other programs of course but DXTBMP is Superior really when it comes to those pure dds tools that I have tested.) The default path to DXTBMP is: C:\Graphics\MWGraphics\DXTBmp\DXTBmp.EXE but I installed mine to c:\program

• 2. What we see here is that the Gimp DDS plugin created an Alpha Channel automatic and it fits the picture perfect. There is not much we can do at DXTBMP, except exchange the Alpha Chanel, mirror the picture and save it with a real mip map as you see close to the right border but don't do that with the icon or CS will scream at you.

What is an Alpha Channel? For some of us it is very obvious but it is easy to use words here that we are used to use that maybe 40% understand and if i do, then you must ask me what it means and also tell me that I am a freak and an idiot that use such complicated words. *grins*

You see that the real DDS picture is not transparent at all, even if it looked like it at Gimp. The background is completely black here and we can change it to standard light purple if we want as that is most common but it doesn't matter really. Look at the Alpha Chanel at the Screenshot of DXTBMP and the black part will make the black at the ordinary layer to become Transpartent. If it was a DXT5, then we could have different grey scales at the Alpha channel to let it have different levels of transparency or opacity that is the opposite. Hard words to remember and I have called it wrong to somewhere at the tutorial. It seems we have to help eachothers to set a name for right thing really. I also think that we have a Alpha Chanel tutorial here at this forum made by Mr Dave. (I cant find it)

You that read the different tutorial at this thread. Was it good with the screenies? Shall I make the next with or without them? The next will be semitransparens and DXT5 and it will be shorter as I will try to not repeat some basics that i wrote in detail here as i will assume that you know how to make the icon and...

...how to map keys, scale, open the Layer window, settings, save dds, _n.dds and sharpen


Remark: Morrowind icons are (32, 32) and are saved at Data Files/icons

Semitransparent textures (DXT5)

Choosing a texture for this tutorial is not easy but I found one and we shall fill it in a new way that I learned last week. [Shift-B] is the fill bucket but do we need it? I am sure we do and I will often by old habit but... (Dragging something will fill everything which the fillbucket will not, but there is loads of different settings for this as well)

• 1. Make a new canvas with [Ctrl-N] and make it (256, 256)
• Open the pattern window (Single click the icon below)

• 2. Choose the Bricks and drag them to your new canvas/picture.

• Sidenote: We can grab and drop a lot of things at Gimp, like drag and drop a color instead of coosing the fill-bucket first. Very handy, if the Gimp main window is not hided behind another window somewhere and we are in a hurry ---> [Shift-B] instead

• Our canvas should look like this now and I want to make one brick semitransparent, not that we usually want that but with this technique, your artistic ability will do the rest. I am sure there are more then one way to do this but...

• 3. Open the Layer window [Ctrl-L]

• 4. Press the copy button at the layer window TWICE and delete or hide the lowest layer. Well DELETE IT. I made up my mind. mark it and Press

• 5. I will refer to Top and Bottom layer now and I mean the 2 active layers now, not the hidden or hope fully deleted one. Hide the top layer with the button so we see what we are doing.

• 6. Activate the bottom layer.

• 7. Drag the Opaque (Opasitet) slider to 50.0% or something around there like this:

• 8. To make it easier to see what we are doing with the top layer as we will work with it now, we create a white layer between them

• 9. Have the bottom layer still activated and hit the new Layer button at the layer window.

• 10. Make it white

• 11. Activate the top opaque top layer now and make it visible by clicking where the eye where earlier
• 12. Now comes the harder part to cut out that brick that we shall make semitransparent.
  

Sidenote: Gimp sometimes CTS if it has to much stuff at memory and it crashed for me now. Don't have to many active windows and save often. I have all screenshots active + the tutorial bricks. *grins and kills gimp with help of Taskmanager*

• 13. Go to your Canvas/picture and hit [ + ] a couple of times (I pushed it 8 times I think)

• 14. Press or go to Gimp Main Window and click...

• 15. Activate your canvas and start go around your brick and put dots. Try to make small steps, which gives the best result but if you are in a hurry, make big steps. I zoomed out a bit to be able to create the next screenshot but you should soon have something that looks like this or similar.

• 16. Activate your gimp window and push this button to create a trail or loop around the brick. What is the right name? Well let the last points be a bit apart and not on top of eachothers.

• 17. Activate your Canvas and hit [CTRL-X] and it should look like this:

There is a loooose brick in the wall and it will soon fall apart.

• 18. Get rid of the white layer. Delete or hide it. Deactivate at your canvas by clicking [R] or again.

• 19. Are we finished? No we are not: Hit [CTRL-M] and merge all visable layers or we cant save as DXT5

Yeapp we are. Save as xcf if you want to keep all layers or as DXT5 dds if you want to use it in game with semitranparens. Not very usefull but who knows? A form of transparent brickwall window maybe?