[Tutorial] Gun Knowledge

Metal
Lets just straight off the bat. You all know what metal is and what it looks like. It's pretty neat when encountered while modding, but you can make it look better than you'd imagine. Let's take the L96A1 for example. I've selected 3 points on it that are metal and somewhat close to metal, keep in mind there's probably more areas but I chose these 3 since several different examples of metal is good enough. When you have your parts, I'd suggest brushing over it so you have that as a layer, then you'd want to set your blending settings as "Color", but I'd recommend using white if you do plan on brushing over it. Now head on over to Color Overlay, and have White set on Overlay on 100%, same goes for Satin with White on Overlay at 100%. It looks pretty bright, but in game it'll have a better effect. You can do the same with colors such as red, blue, green, etc, but do keep in mind you'll want to change Color Overlay to any RGB you want and still on Overlay but with no more than 50%, I'd suggest using 10%, it'll give a better effect but it wont be as bright as you'd probably want.




Plastic/Rubber
This one is similar to metal, except you don't want any of this bright. You'll want to keep these quite dark, but not so dark. Continue with the same process, brush over your area, set it to Color or Overlay if you want on general blending. On Color Overlay I'd suggest having a pure black color on soft light at 100% opacity, as for Satin have the same but on Soft Light at 50%. This will make it quite dark rather than being so bright that it'll just get in your face. With Rubber/Plastic you'd want to have it dark at most time, rarely will you want it bright unless you're using gradients, or patterns to compensate for the brightness. Personally, you can do the same as you did with Metal and have a slight color on the body but that's all up to you and how you want it. Just stay away from making it bright, it'll just ruin the mod itself.




Colors[/u][/b]

Colors. Colors have a great impact on your mod and the outcome. You'd never want to do something like a UMP with pink all over the entire .DTX because it'd just ruin the gun and work that could've been done better to make something quite worth the time. When I deal with colors on my mods, they're not always 100% opacity, why you ask? Because if they're 100% opacity, they wont match the theme, nor would they have any good pros into the sections. Really though, you wouldn't want to put 100% opacity for a rusted M4A1 because that really isn't rust at all, rust shouldn't have it still clear, it should be pretty worn out, which is were 20% opacity can come in handy, along with some patterns if wanted. Scratches, Marks, or anything that makes it look worn out or used will give it a good rust feeling if you do it right.




Gradients

Stay away from gradients. Honestly, they won't do you any good in modding, nor will they give your mod anything good. I'd only use a gradient if it was for something in a very small area, like the scope on the L96A1. Because really, it wont take an effect on other places, and the gradient look on something with a big area isn't so good. If you want, use a gradient, but don't try and use it on the body of a gun, use it on a design to give it a better look or shine, or possibly gold? It'll work with any metallic if you set your colors right however.


Patterns

Patterns. Oh how I love such a creation. Since making scratches or metal scratches or anything you want like cubes, circles, or a tribal design is very time consuming, you can just google an image and define it as a pattern if you have it saved. Either that or just downloading patterns off the internet, it's not hard to find any, but I prefer grabbing an image or creating my own and just making it into a pattern. Just open the image, have a transparent background, go to "Edit" and then "Define Pattern", then name it to whatever the hell you want.




Text

Text. This is one of the hardest things to do in modding. First off, you can't just throw text onto a gun, you gotta make it blend. Engraving it is one thing, or having it look like it was taped on will do. They just take time, and some knowledge of photoshop. Use as much effects as you can since having just color overlay and satin will not make it engrave by itself.


Designs

Designs are tricky. Like text, you can't just slap it onto a gun, you gotta do some more. Fiddle around with the settings, I've done it and it always works for me because if you rely on how someone does it in one way, you really are just a copycat and one way will eventually get old and a new one would look much better. Really though, you just need photoshop knowledge and the area of the design. You can do anything you want, just as long as you're happy with the outcome.