Step 1: find a pattern through google that you like...doesn't neccesarily HAVE to be camo...here's what i found and decided to use
Step 2: open that pattern in Photoshop
Step 3: use the magic wand tool to select ONE color, not multiple colors, unless you want to merge 2 of the colors in the pattern together (it helps to zoom in first) Edit: you may notice in the pics below contiguous is checked off at the top of the screen, it's easier if it's unchecked
Step 4: at the top of the screen go to select>save selection, save it as anything that will let you know what color the selection is for
\\step 5: with the selection still loaded go to select>inverse to select everything that is NOT the color you previously selected, then use the magic wand tool to deselect the color you do not want selected
in this case i inverse the black selection to end up selecting the green and the brown, then deselect the green to be left with the brown selection
doing this ensures that, unlike simply selecting the brown, there are no gaps between your previous selection and your next selection
Step 6: there is no need to select the 3rd color, the reason will be shown later, now after saving the selection you just made, open the texture you want to put camo on...Im going to use the shotgun...if you DON'T want to cover the whole thing in camo, disregard the following sentence. If you just want the entire texture to be covered in camo, skip steps 7, 8, and 17
Step 7: use whatever selection tool you want to select the parts of the skin that you want to have camo over, and ONLY the parts that you want to put camo on...
Step 8: hit Ctrl+C, then Ctrl+v, if you're on a mac its Command+C then Command+V, this should create a new layer which consists of JUST the stuff you want colored...
Step 9: Use the marquee tool to drag the first camo selection you made onto the skin, then go to select>transform selection, then scale it to either fir the screen OR if the pattern is too big, have it fit 1/4 of the screen...you'll see...then go to select>save selection, name it the same thing you named it in the pattern file, just so it's easier to remember which is which...
Step 10: if you have it fitting 1/4 of the screen... with the selection loaded, go back to select>transform selection, then drag the side of the selection that is touching the border of the document to the opposite side of the skin, YOU MUST FLIP IT OVER, IF YOU JUST MOVE IT YOU WILL GET A WIERD TILE LOOKING PATTERN...then go to select> Save selection BUT DON'T SAVE IT YET
Step 11: click on where it says Channel and scroll down to the selection you just saved, mine is Marpat brown, then with that channel selected, new checkboxes appear at the bottom of the selection saving thingy, check off "Add to Channel"
Step 12: load the selection you just edited, then go to select>transform selection again, then this time, if you followed the tut as shown in the pics, grab the dot at the top of the skin and drag it down to the bottom, if you didnt follow as shown in the pic, just grab the opposite side as what you grabbed before, im sure you can figure it out, then repeat step 11 when you get it right
Step 13: Repeat steps 9, 10, 11, and 12 with the next selection you made in the pattern document
Step 14: load one of the selections then go to layer>new adjustment layer>hue/saturation, then click ok...check off Colorize in the bottom right corner, bump up the saturation a bit temporarily, then edit the Hue and lightness untill you find the color you want, then mess with the saturation until it looks natural...this will change the object's color while keeping the details and without using a bad looking transparent mask if you are trying to get only part of the skin to have the camo pattern, you may notice that despite making that new layer, it still covers the whole image, just bear with me, ill show you how to fix that when you finish a few more steps),should look like this
Step 15: repeat step 14 with a different selection
Step 16: load one of the selections you made, then go to select>load selection then check off "Add to Selection" then load the other selection, this will have both the selections loaded at the same time, right then you want to go to select>inverse to select everything that you haven't saved a selection over, then repeat step 14 with that selection, looking for the other color that was in the pattern
Step 17: select both of the hue-saturation layers, and the layer that contains JUST the parts of the image that you want camo on, and right click on one of them and click merge layers. then the camo will be on just the parts you want
step 18: select both of those layers and merge them, it wont let you save as a DDS from here though, so you have to save it as a seperate PSD, keep it open, then reopen the original, copy the whole picture of the new one and paste it over the old one, merge the layers, THEN it will let you save it as a dds
the finished product:
If you use this tutorial on the cyborg skin, use different shades of gray instead of colors by taking the saturation all the way down when u go under hue\saturation, or else player selected colors won't work, so i've heard
