Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Martinus on January 20, 2002, 07:57:00 pm
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Aldo I was wondering what size you used for texture maps. Also what kind of mapping do you use? Single map or multimap? Thanks dude (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival."
- C. S. Lewis
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One of would usually say EMAIL IS A1 SUPAR!!!!1
...but techniques of experts should be shared.
I believe he uses 512x512 maps.. don't know if its single or multi.
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Originally posted by PhReAk:
One of would usually say EMAIL IS A1 SUPAR!!!!1
...but techniques of experts should be shared.
Aha, I'm glad to see you're thinking, this is something a lot of people like to know (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
The reason I'm asking is I remember a while back Aldo was messing with 512*512 maps and he reported that they came out pixellated. I was wondering if he'd figured out the problem or if he merely switched to 256*256 maps.
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but 512*512 (when working) will work for all users or only for those with registry hack?
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I too wish to learn the Texturing Technique of the Master Ninja Modders like Aldo. This whole texturing thing is like some mysterious secret art handed down in some bizarre masonic ritual I know none of it was ever taught to me. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
ruhkferret on ICQ/AIM
"Your guy was a little SQUARE! You had to use your IMAGINATION! There were no multiple levels or screens. There was just one screen forever and you could never win the game. It just kept getting harder and faster until you died. JUST LIKE LIFE." --Ernie Cline
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Originally posted by mikhael:
I too wish to learn the Texturing Technique of the Master Ninja Modders like Aldo. This whole texturing thing is like some mysterious secret art handed down in some bizarre masonic ritual I know none of it was ever taught to me. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
Texturing isn't so difficult, it has a steep learning curve but once you pick it up it's not too hard to keep going (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
Example:
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/staff/maeglamor/renders/c5per.jpg)
Two 256*256 texs, one for the wings and engines the other for the hull and gunpod and one 128*128 tex for the cockpit. I used LithUnwrap to map the UV coordinates and I used PSP 5 to make the texs.
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(http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
Can you say that again, Maeglamor, but this time don't gloss over the details? Your texture work there does indeed rock like Gibraltar, but I can't figure out how to do that to save my life.
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
ruhkferret on ICQ/AIM
"Your guy was a little SQUARE! You had to use your IMAGINATION! There were no multiple levels or screens. There was just one screen forever and you could never win the game. It just kept getting harder and faster until you died. JUST LIKE LIFE." --Ernie Cline
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BTW before someone says "he can already texture why's he asking this?". This is why:
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/reciprocity/aldopics/vCustom1_ps.jpg)
My texturing is OK but Aldos is something special (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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Originally posted by Maeglamor:
BTW before someone says "he can already texture why's he asking this?". This is why:
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/reciprocity/aldopics/vCustom1_ps.jpg)
My texturing is OK but Aldos is something special (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
GAH! I want that model. That thing would look good in Iwar2. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif) I can already see the 'legs' flexing when thrust is applied. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
ruhkferret on ICQ/AIM
"Your guy was a little SQUARE! You had to use your IMAGINATION! There were no multiple levels or screens. There was just one screen forever and you could never win the game. It just kept getting harder and faster until you died. JUST LIKE LIFE." --Ernie Cline
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The terrifying thing is when I asked him was he going to enter it into the model contest he said he's got two much better ships!! (http://www.3dap.com/hlp/staff/maeglamor/smileys/rolllaugh.gif)
[This message has been edited by Maeglamor (edited 01-20-2002).]
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did aldo smooth that one, doesn't look like it
oh and Mikhael, that could be arranged..
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Originally posted by Maeglamor:
BTW before someone says "he can already texture why's he asking this?". This is why:
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/reciprocity/aldopics/vCustom1_ps.jpg)
My texturing is OK but Aldos is something special (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
Actually, that one was pretty simple to draw.... it's just VCap textures. At the mo, i use 5 512x512 maps (with the registry hack), 2 for the sides, 1 top, 1 bottom, and 1 for the fron and back. Box map, I just have to tweak the UV a bit to move overlapping faces...in this case it was an absolute ***** to do.
Originally posted by PhReAk
did aldo smooth that one, doesn't look like it
oh and Mikhael, that could be arranged..
Er, I did, but not when I rendered it in 3d Exploration. Actually, I think this is the obj file I use for texturing, which doesn't have any smopthing data yet.
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Sounds fairly time consuming but at least I know why the texture detail is so high..
I'm still going to stick with planar mapping, it may be initally harder but it gives you a great deal more flexibility when it comes to messing with the textures. I'd say there's a lot of trial and error involved with overlapping texs right.
(not to say that you're not pretty good at it (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif) )
Thanks dude (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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yes very nice textures indeed, sometimes its better not to smooth, but the next pcs will allow for both in the same model.....
facet
auto facet
smooth
are all understood correctly....not sure if this is released yet...but i have it (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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i have a little question about uv mapping....
imagine to have a texture for an area with some faces vertical and some horizontal faces.... and your texture isnt simply a material but represent structures, etc (like in Maeglamors fighter in this post)
how do you map the textures?
i mean...
if you use a planar uv space as result you will have a good mapping for faces oriented in the sense of the uv space, when the others will have just "distorsions"...
if you use a cubic uvspace you will have the faces correctly mapped with planar space still well mapped, but in the other faces the texture will be reapplyed with no continuity to the other faces...its impossible in this way (for) me, to create a texture that covers all the faces, and with the other uvmaps i usually obtain too distorted maps...
how is possible to map a fighter with only one or two textures???
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Create an "edge" at the actual edge of the two faces. So you don't need to care about continuity.
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Originally posted by KARMA:
i have a little question about uv mapping....
imagine to have a texture for an area with some faces vertical and some horizontal faces.... and your texture isnt simply a material but represent structures, etc (like in Maeglamors fighter in this post)
how do you map the textures?
i mean...
if you use a planar uv space as result you will have a good mapping for faces oriented in the sense of the uv space, when the others will have just "distorsions"...
if you use a cubic uvspace you will have the faces correctly mapped with planar space still well mapped, but in the other faces the texture will be reapplyed with no continuity to the other faces...its impossible in this way (for) me, to create a texture that covers all the faces, and with the other uvmaps i usually obtain too distorted maps...
how is possible to map a fighter with only one or two textures???
You're looking at applying the same UV space to the entire mesh. If, instead, you apply your UV space to individual faces, like Maeglamor mentioned, then you just have to make sure that details that carry from face to face are positioned properly in the texture.
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
ruhkferret on ICQ/AIM
"Your guy was a little SQUARE! You had to use your IMAGINATION! There were no multiple levels or screens. There was just one screen forever and you could never win the game. It just kept getting harder and faster until you died. JUST LIKE LIFE." --Ernie Cline
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Yes it is very possible to map an entire fighter with one single texture, it's difficult though.
There are shortcuts you can take to make life easier for yourself as far as 'continuity' is concerned. You'll notice that the Morrigan fighter is symetrical, so what you draw for one side can be mapped identically onto the other. What this means is that you can overlap the UV map for the left side with that of the right side, you get the same effect applied to both sides but you only need to draw half of the entire texture.
There is a drawback to this though, you end up with mirrored effect which doesn't look as realistic or interesting (see Morrigan wings as example). If you put a blast mark on 'side A' you get an identical yet opposite one on 'side B'; which looks kinda silly you'll probably agree (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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well, actually for my ties i'm using a lot of textures ... with no mercy for graphic cards (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/tongue.gif)
i'm actually at 6-7 main texture (256*256) and one 1-3 textures (128*128) used to cover small group of faces for each craft, but most of em are shared from all the fighters...
i now this mean a lot of textures (actually about the same level of aldos if he used 5 512*512 textures) but i like that way...ships are more,more defined....
i tried with a less number of textures with the result of having pixelate distorsions...
my only problem now was the one i mentioned.... there are some textures that are not well mapped .... look at this pics, the "arms" between main hull and solar panels...
side correctly mapped:
(http://members.fortunecity.com/aranbanjo/screene.jpg)
side that suck:
(http://members.fortunecity.com/aranbanjo/screenc.jpg)
actually i've redone the texture i'm talking about and it looks far better but i don't have the possibility to update new screenshots until weekend...but you can see what i'm talking about even with this old versions...
well, i'll try to follow your suggests and see what can i obtain.... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
bye
[This message has been edited by KARMA (edited 01-22-2002).]
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One reason I stick to 256*256 max. is that most of the older graphics cards (my Voodoo 3 included) run a whole lot smoother when they don't have to deal with texs above this size. You're Ties are only going to look good with a pretty up to date machine.
Textures are the ultimate performance killer, the geometry of the model won't put such a toll on the graphics card (unless it's especially complicated). Unless it's completely nessicary (and it rarely is) 256*256 is the way to go, can you really make out all of those little details anyway? Not with ships moving at any reasonable rate I think.
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For my part, I use different numbers of maps depending on the ship, for exemple my NGTA ships usually use multiple maps (coz there's generic maps used on all the ships), but for some others, I use only one map, like on the benkei:
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/ott/variouspics/private/benkei.jpg)
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venom, i'm still trying to understand how you managed to have such a good detail level of textures for these fighters using only one texture.... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/confused.gif) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/confused.gif)
(and also how long it takes to to texture it assigning a specific uvspace for specific group of faces and then moving, scaling etc the textures to have the correct detail in the correct position (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/eek.gif) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/eek.gif) )
well i'm not surely at your level i dare...i've started just in october to model for the first time with ts5 and specifically for this proj..i'm still a newbie so, but i feel anyway little stupid trying to understand this secret ritual of texturing (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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Well, I make no claims to expertise (or anything close!) But I have a question: is there any real disadvantage to using multiple maps? I built my one and only FS2 model and textured it with some idea in my head that a single texture was superior. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif) Was that not necessarily the wisest decision? I just thought I remembered hearing somewhere about some problems that multi-tex mappers ran into.
It did turn out alright in the end... Go here if you want to take a look. ("http://sushicw.homestead.com/files/freespace/Act32.gif") I'm afraid the tex work isn't worthy to be displayed in the open in the same thread as those beauties. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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no real difference, just more maps to load when the mission itslef loads i think.
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Venom is basically correct, there isn't too much of a performance hit if you use more than one map. There is a big benefit of using fewer maps though, you get a more uniform texturing scheme and it's easier to edit large areas of the model all at once.
The Morrigan started out with two maps:
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/staff/maeglamor/maps/all.jpg)
This is the hull, gunpod and cockpit.
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/staff/maeglamor/maps/engwing.jpg)
This is the engines and wings.
You'll notice I outlined the cockpit in the top image, I was unhappy with how the cockpit turned out so I redesigned it. I gave it a map of its own:
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/staff/maeglamor/maps/cp.jpg)
You'll notice that the texture map for the wings and engines have only one wing and one engine drawn. I overlapped both wings and both engines so what I draw for one automatically applys to the other, this saves a lot of time and makes editing the overall texture scheme for the fighter a whole lot more convenient. The real bonus is that I kept the original mapping scheme for the ship:
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/staff/maeglamor/maps/Gun.jpg)
This is the template for the gun (the other parts are simply superimposed later). This can be quickly imported into photoshop or PSP and an entirely new texture for the gun can be built, this obviously applys to the rest of the model too so anyone can make a new texture map for the ship with ease.
Cool eh? (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
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Originally posted by venom2506:
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/ott/variouspics/private/benkei.jpg)
Must...have...BENKEI!
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Originally posted by Grey Wolf 2009:
Originally posted by venom2506:
Must...have...BENKEI![/B]
You must...wait...OVER THE TOP! (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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ok, i can see the point... you adapt the planar uvspace scaling moving and rotating it to have a face or a group of faces mapped with only a portion of a texture....
it is really timewasting i presume...but i think it can be done....my problem is... ts5 i don't know why don't recognize the voodoo2 nor the g200 (they both suck, i know...) so i can use it only in software emulation or in wireframe mode...if you use software emulation...well you can't simply work...too "jumpy"...and in wireframe mode you can only render time by time to see what you are doing but it will be a real pain in the *** to render after any modification of any uvspace i will use, untile i get the correct position of the texture...brrrrr (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/eek.gif) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/eek.gif) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/nervous.gif) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/nervous.gif)
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Originally posted by KARMA:
...and in wireframe mode you can only render time by time to see what you are doing but it will be a real pain in the *** to render after any modification of any uvspace i will use, untile i get the correct position of the texture...brrrrr ...
I assume you're using 'render area' instead of 'render scene' when you're testing your UVs?
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
ruhkferret on ICQ/AIM
"Your guy was a little SQUARE! You had to use your IMAGINATION! There were no multiple levels or screens. There was just one screen forever and you could never win the game. It just kept getting harder and faster until you died. JUST LIKE LIFE." --Ernie Cline
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KARMA, I think you are wrong. What they actually do is apply the fitting UV spaces first with a program like LithUnwrap, which also outputs the correct places for all textures on a template bitmap, that they then use to draw the textures on.
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KARMA, I think you are wrong. What they actually do is apply the fitting UV spaces first with a program like LithUnwrap, which also outputs the correct places for all textures on a template bitmap, that they then use to draw the textures on.
(http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/confused.gif) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/confused.gif) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/confused.gif)
where can i find this prog (or similar)? is there something like a manual somewhere?
I assume you're using 'render area' instead of 'render scene' when you're testing your UVs?
when you paint more than one face, the faces are rendered during the painting, but it suddenly turn to wireframe as the process is finished, then you have to render all the object to see the result (but you cant rotate, walk etc or it switch again to wireframe... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif))
[This message has been edited by KARMA (edited 01-25-2002).]
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Originally posted by Starwing:
KARMA, I think you are wrong. What they actually do is apply the fitting UV spaces first with a program like LithUnwrap, which also outputs the correct places for all textures on a template bitmap, that they then use to draw the textures on.
Yes, in theory. Lith is truely excellent but you need to mess around with it a little to get the mapping right. I highly advise this program to anyone who texs, it's 3DSmax's UVW mapping tools except it's user friendly. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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Originally posted by KARMA:
(http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/confused.gif) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/confused.gif) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/confused.gif)
where can i find this prog (or similar)? is there something like a manual somewhere?
Use the force Luke!! Or in the case of the force not being available in your area of the galaxy try google (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
LithUnwrap ("http://www.geocities.com/lithunwrap/")
...and an excellent tutorial:
Tutorial!! ("http://www.kaylon.freeuk.com/lithunwrap.htm")
[This message has been edited by Maeglamor (edited 01-25-2002).]
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Originally posted by Starwing:
KARMA, I think you are wrong. What they actually do is apply the fitting UV spaces first with a program like LithUnwrap, which also outputs the correct places for all textures on a template bitmap, that they then use to draw the textures on.
In my case, he's right, 'xcept it's quite quick to do.
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thx (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)