Texturing

I've tried to arrange these tutorials in order from least-intense to most-in-depth. Hopefully the progression will be hopeful and not overwhelming; good luck!

A basic tutorial of Blender 3D
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~jli023/opengl/blendertutorial_main.htm#materials
Very entry-level materials and texture descriptions. Contains a walkthrough making two simple textures and applying them to an object. A good place to start, and also simple enough that you can do some experimenting on the methods they list without unexpectedly getting out-of-control.
Content covered:
Creating materials
Applying materials
Creating textures
Modifying textures
Applying textures

Ira Krakow's Multiple Materials Blender 2.49b Tutorial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCYViRJFf5w
Fairly dry, but very straightforward, tutorial on assigning separate materials to separate faces of one object. No UV wrapping, just Blender materials. Good practice for super basic material creation and assignment. Very low-complexity materials used (just colors). This would be a good practice to go through once you’ve done a little bit of playing around with materials; I think we’ll be doing more UV Wrap-based texturing, but it’s a good and follow-able tutorial for entry level material assignment.
Content covered:
Material creation
Material Assignment
Multiple-face material assignment




Blender Tutorial - Basic UV Mapping
http://www.switchonthecode.com/tutorials/blender-tutorial-basic-uv-mapping
Super simple step-by-step with lots of pictures to supplement the directives. Not assuming in one’s familiarity of Blender or modeling in general. This is the easiest tutorial I’ve found to get all the way through UV unwrapping and applying a texture. It takes you through all the steps involved in texturing, from creating seams, to unwrapping, to exporting and re-applying maps.
Content covered:
Texture Mapping
Seam definition
UV Unwrapping
UV Exporting


LSCM UV Unwrapping
http://www.ibiblio.org/bvidtute/mytut/uvtut.avi
(This technique is now called “Conformal unrapping”)
“UV-Mapping is the art of wrapping a 2-D picture around a 3-D object” – sums up the whole concept beautifully.
This is a fantastic, slow-paced but THOROUGH tutorial on getting through unwrapping more advanced objects. Talks about a bunch of great tools used for unwrapping and making UV maps. The author of the video shows a great deal of competence and know-how. I recommend watching the video once through to see all of the features he goes through, and taking notes as you see a key shortcut or technique with which you’re unfamiliar. With that said, tho, the video by itself is ridiculously boring. Put on some very, very quiet music in the background so that you don’t fall asleep. You may have trouble loading the video; I was not able to watch it in Quicktime, and when loaded into VLC it warned that the file may have been corrupted, but after repairing it, it worked fine.
Content covered:
Defining seams
UV Unwrapping
UV Map adjustment/correction
UV Map exporting


CGSociety - The Top Ten Tips of Texturing
http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=4678
A good thought process behind complex texturing. Not Blender-specific, but it covers many of the ideas behind texturing in general, from materials to bump maps to a tiny bit if UV unwrapping. Lots of picture examples. Fairly advanced in concept: check this out if you’re going to be attempting some more realistic texturing, or if you’re interested in seeing the process that goes into creating a lifelife texture.
Content covered:
Texture painting (creating an image that, when used in a modeling program, will look like a real-life texture) – all in PhotoShop, Gimp, or any image editor