[WIP] Singling - MAP

[Erik Rutins]

Coming along very nicely!

[Bil H]

ORIGINAL: Mraah

Do you recommend 2 masks per XfileNode as a maximum?

I find that I am having the game hang up on me if I try to add a 3rd.. which is a pain in the ass. Is there any way to have more than one Xfilenode for a mesh object? That too seems to hang the game...

Sorry to hijack your thread Mraah.. seemd the right place to ask this question. Your map is coming along beautifully, that shot with the church on the hill and the light reflecting off the hill in the background is almost photoreal.

Bil

[Stridor]

Bil you can, you need to define another xfilenode as you have mentioned. The more of these the more times the map must be redrawn so it is a balance. In fact if you have enough video memory your best bet is just a mega texture as that is drawn in one pass. Might be worthwhile investigating this, to see how big it needs to be to get the same detail as you get for tiling. You might be surprised (and then you can offer 2 version, fast for large vid memory, slow for low vid memory)

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: Bil H
I find that I am having the game hang up on me if I try to add a 3rd.. which is a pain in the ass.

Bil,

I use the Scene Editor to view any changes I make in the XML file. This help's me know if the change is any good and usually right away. After the loading, if the scene turns blue (instead of loading) then I know it's a bad command in the XML. Might save time with you loading it into game everytime. The funny part is when I make a change that's at the end of the XML file and my finger's are crossed as it loads ... only to go to a blue scene ... argh.

Sorry to hijack your thread Mraah.. seemd the right place to ask this question. Your map is coming along beautifully, that shot with the church on the hill and the light reflecting off the hill in the background is almost photoreal.

Oh, please feel free to hijack anytime. It's good to pass notes.

Rob

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: Stridor

Bil you can, you need to define another xfilenode as you have mentioned. The more of these the more times the map must be redrawn so it is a balance. In fact if you have enough video memory your best bet is just a mega texture as that is drawn in one pass. Might be worthwhile investigating this, to see how big it needs to be to get the same detail as you get for tiling. You might be surprised (and then you can offer 2 version, fast for large vid memory, slow for low vid memory)

Stridor,

Ok, this is good to know. I'm juggling with mask's and such to get the effect I want. This, so far, seems to be the toughest (and longest) part of map making (for me) since I'm trying to keep the original look without sacrificing detail.

Rob

[Mraah]

Ok ... I think I got the Mask, Texture, and Tiling down to my satisfaction ...

I decided not to use Kharkov grass because it looks like it was grown professionally for a golf course [:D].

So, I made my own, albeit using their grass but giving it an appearance of wear like my lawn normally looks like in August [;)].

In the Screenshot, the upper left corner is what the grass png looks like ... pretty ugly, but hey, check out the scene. This now saves me trouble of having to put in a forest texture since the clumps of grass has that foresty kind of look. I knew my lack of lawn care would come in handy some day!!

With this said and done ... I maybe over the hump went it comes to this part of map design.

Thanks for looking!!!

EDIT NOTE --- Oops, I forgot ... the road needs some wear too ... argh, I knew I forgot something!

[Stridor]

Excellent mask work. I like the weathered look of the fields.

This is going to be good!

Want to write a tutorial? [;)]

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: Stridor
Excellent mask work. I like the weathered look of the fields.

Thanks! I like the weathered look too ... gives that feeling of a war beaten town with neglected fields (and lawns!)

This is going to be good!

After I wear down the road I'm going to go back to the mesh and subdivided the faces by 2 on the roads and around where the fields meet each other to give that gully kinda look and to bring out the 3D effect. When that's done, I'll PM you the work so you can get first crack at the real thing since you're the smelliest teacher who taught us the art of PcK map making!!

Do you recommend subdivision by 2 or 4? I'm debating on that right now. I know the higher the better for detail but I don't want to go over board.

Want to write a tutorial? [;)]

Hahaha ... Ok, here's my quick tut :

1. Use your Eraser.
2. Be sure to have lots of cafeeine.
3. Remember to eat once in awhile!
4. Save your work frequently.

Edit Note : Repeat steps 1-4.

[:D]

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: Mraah

..... subdivide the faces by 2 on the roads and around where the fields meet each other to give that gully kinda look and to bring out the 3D effect. ...

So you gonna tells us total amatuers what that mean?

*g*

Looking good Rob!.

Rick

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: Rick
So you gonna tells us total amatuers what that mean?

*g*

Looking good Rob!.

Thanks ... still needs some trimming.

Subdividing .... yes ... Goto Stridor's Map Making Tut #2, post 13 .... he mentions a website http://www.golf-simulators.com/3d_model ... torial.htm where this shows how to make more faces on the polygons ... Have a look (very bottom of that webpage). This is what I'll be doing ... think of it like edging your walkway with the weed-eater [:)].

Rob

[Mraah]

Ok ... another SS before I call it a night ... err morning ... what time is it?[>:]

I tiled the grass a bit more, bumping it to 24 (was 2). This should improve close up viewing as well as filling in the dead spots a bit. These can be tweaked up and down as I need it.

Also, you'll notice I masked out parts of the town. I may mask some more but once I get 3D objects in there (bushes, tress, walls, buildings, etc) it should cover up or hide the last remains.

I still need to burn the road into the mask. Since I decided the road is part of one mask, I made it more difficult to simply slap a new road on. After I burn the road in I'll have to go back and wear it a bit (sprinkle some tread marks back and forth down the middle). I've been experimenting with different flavors of marks so this part shouldn't take me long ... perhaps finish that up tomorrow ... or today, later ... what day is this?[>:].

Anyway, the story continues .......

[Bil H]

ORIGINAL: Stridor

Bil you can, you need to define another xfilenode as you have mentioned. The more of these the more times the map must be redrawn so it is a balance. In fact if you have enough video memory your best bet is just a mega texture as that is drawn in one pass. Might be worthwhile investigating this, to see how big it needs to be to get the same detail as you get for tiling. You might be surprised (and then you can offer 2 version, fast for large vid memory, slow for low vid memory)

Hmmm.. when I try adding an additional Xfilenode (for Bleid_terrain.x) the map will fail to load. I put emphasis on the "I" as I'm sure it's operator error.

Bil

[rickier65]

Rob -

I'm looking forward to this. Between you and Stridor and Bil, looks like there will be folks to answer questions on how to use these 3D tools. (Scene Edit I'm ok on - but this mesh stuff and this mask stuff I just flounder along maybe I'll take some time and experiment with some 'mask' to get an idea how this works.).

One thought - and not a critisism. The road looks really dark compared to the fields. Unless theyre using asphalt, would't they be lighter than the fields. I notice this in quite a few of the maps - roads look darker than fields.

Youre fields look excellent by the way. I used to work with aerial photo interpretation a fair bit in my early work history - your fields show definite crop distress!

Thanks
Rick

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: Bil H

Hmmm.. when I try adding an additional Xfilenode (for Bleid_terrain.x) the map will fail to load. I put emphasis on the "I" as I'm sure it's operator error.

Bil

Bil,

Add another Xfile Node in the children folder ... should be first child, as it were. If you try to add the node directly underneath the very "parent" node it won't load. SOmetimes looking at the sceneXMl's from the other kharkov folders might help give you an idea on how the structure works.

Hope this helps,
Rob

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: Rick
One thought - and not a critisism. The road looks really dark compared to the fields. Unless theyre using asphalt, would't they be lighter than the fields. I notice this in quite a few of the maps - roads look darker than fields.

I don't mind critisism ... feel free, please ... I'm thick skinned [:)].

Yes, the roads are really dark ... this is my next task when I meant I need to burn the road into the mesh and then lighten it up with tread marks. I'm going to try several techniques (guess work!) to tone down how dark they are.

Rob

[Erik Rutins]

Looking fantastic, wow, can't wait to try these new maps.

[Mraah]

I'm going to keep the roads dark ... I tried lighteneing them and it's looks horrible.

Moving on to mesh tweaking now.

[Mraah]

Ok ...... with no luck lightening the road ... I decided to make my own road ...

Then ... I mixed a bit of mud into the scene ...

... added some weeds to the scene ... The poor wheat crops , they've seen better days!!!

THIS is really close to the final map ...

[rickier65]

Rob-

I think the roads look better in this version.

One thing I noticed though, was in earlier map - the vegetation (or texture) was more distinct between the town proper, and the field adjacent to the stream/ditch in the lower left central area of the map.

In some ways I like the previous map better - but maybe this one is more realistic - it looks like more untended fields in any event.

I need to learn how to change the look of things like you do.

Thanks
Rick

[Bil H]

The only thing I would say is that there should be more contrast between roads, fields, etc.. currently everything blends together.. how does it look down close?
 
Bil