For instance, for making the armour in EQ:
1. Photoshop - make new 300 square pixels. Add noise - amount 100 and monochromatic.
2. Blur until it attains uniformly grey colour.
3. Create a new layer (layer 1)
4. Draw lots of lines, as in planks of steel.
5. Colour in as patches, then fragment or something fancy.
6. Adjust the opacity of layer 1 to about 36%.
Now you must merge visible and save in JPEG format.
(I have StrataProStudio 2.0 so this may sound a little off-beat)
Go into your 3-D ap.
Create new surface texture, put JPEG picture on top. Modify colour of it to whatever race colour you have.
Adjust micro-shine to preset: Titanium, and adjust it a little shinier.
Make a totally different JPEG and use it for Opacity.
Go to every single picture filter except transparency and put either your first or second picture in.
Do whatever you have to do to make it shiny.
And remember, - consistency is the key to immortality.
---------------
Intelligence is the function of our minds that controls our desire, a force of selfishness and identity. We destroy self in order to preserve the greater whole, and suppress desire in order to survive. - The Mesonic Creed