(sticky it)Tools:
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TRANSFORM Click and drag to move the current selection, or if nothing is selected click and drag near a vertex to move it. Hold shift for vertical/horizontal movement. Hold ctrl to scale, ctrl+shift to scale proportionately. Hold alt to rotate, alt+shift to rotate in 15° increments.
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CREATE Click to create polys using the current colour. Right click to select the type of the poly to be created. Hold shift to constrain the angle to 15° increments relative to the last vertex placed. Hold alt for vertex selection. Hold ctrl to move the current selection.
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VERTEX SELECTION Click and drag to select vertices, or click on a poly near the vertex to select that vertex. Hold shift to select additional vertices and alt to deselect vertices. Hold ctrl to move the current selection.
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POLY SELECTION Click in a poly or scenery to select it. Hold shift to select additional polys or scenery and alt to deselect them. Hold ctrl to move the current selection.
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VERTEX COLOUR Click and drag to colour vertices. If there are vertices selected only those will be affected. Hold alt to get a colour from a vertex or scenery. Hold ctrl to move the current selection.
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POLY COLOUR Click in a poly or scenery to colour it. If there are vertices selected all of them will be affected. Hold alt to get a colour from a vertex or scenery. Hold ctrl to move the current selection.
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TEXTURE Click and drag to change the texture coordinates of vertices. If there are vertices selected only those will be affected. Hold alt for vertex selection. Hold ctrl to move the current selection.
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COLOUR PICKER Click to get a colour from a vertex or scenery. Hold shift to get a colour directly from the screen.
Introduction to Polyworks
As stated before, Polyworks is a new user-friendly mapmakers created by Anna. Through this page you should become familiar enough with the interface in order to start placing polygons.
Polyworks features:These are features and benefits of using polyworks, only easily-achievable through this mapmaker.
++ Invisible Polygons: Select all three vertices of a polygon and press control+r.
++ Untexturing: Select all three vertices of a polygon and press control+u.
++ Multitexturing: By creating a texture file featuring two seperate textures its now possible have multi-textured maps.
++Snap to Grid or Vertice This option can be selected to allow a minimal amount of polygon bugs. It also allows you to draw straight lines and easy shapes.
++ Color Palette: Featuring the possibility the load and save different color pallets it makes switching colors super-easy.
Shortcut Keys and other options
UNDO [ctrl+z] Undoes the last operation performed.
REDO [ctrl+y] Redoes the last undone operation.
DUPLICATE [ctrl+v] Duplicates a group of selected polygons.
CLEAR [delete] Deletes everything in the current selection. (click on a polygon and then delete it by pressing DEL)
SELECT ALL [ctrl+a] Will select all polygons, or anything else displayed on the map.
DESELECT [ctrl+d] Deselects current selection.
ARRANGEMENT:BRING TO FRONT [home] - Brings selected polys and scenery in front of the rest.
BRING FORWARD [page up] - Brings selected polys and scenery forward.
SEND BACKWARD [page down] - Sends selected polys and scenery backward.
SEND TO BACK [end] - Sends selected polys and scenery behind the rest.
FIX TEXTURE [ctrl+f] Sets the texture coordinates of all selected vertices depending on the position of each vertex.
UNTEXTURE [ctrl+u] Sets the texture coordinates of all selected vertices to the same value.
REVERSE VISIBILITY [ctrl+r] Makes all selected polys invisible if they are visible, and visible if they are invisible.
SPLIT AT VERTEX [ctrl+l] Splits polys in half from the selected vertex to the midpoint of the opposite edge.
JOIN VERTICES [ctrl+j] Brings all selected vertices to the coordinates of the first vertex selected.
Other Features:TRANSFORM:ROTATE 180° - Rotates all selected vertices and scenery by a half-turn.
ROTATE 90° CW - Rotates all selected vertices and scenery clockwise by a half-turn.
ROTATE 90° CCW - Rotates all selected vertices and scenery counterclockwise by a half turn.
FLIP HORIZONTAL - Flips all selected vertices and scenery horizontally, along the vertical axis.
FLIP VERTICAL - Flips all selected vertices and scenery vertically, along the horizontal axis.
Basic Interface and Functions:Ok lets start out by getting used to the polyworks interface as it is much different then the original mapmaker. Click on the CREATE TOOL in your tools menu to begin, lets draw our first polygon. Step one: Click anywhere on the background to set vertice #1. Notice Points, wireframe, and grid are enabled to help you see details, they do not need to be on.
Step two: After clicking once, move your cursor down to set your second point/vertice.
Step three: Drag the mouse once more in a direct to place the third, final vertice and create your triangle. Notice: In polyworks, unlike the other mapmakers, you do NOT need to hold control while creating polygons.
Congratulations you have made your first polygon. You are on your way to making some talented maps!
You still have a lot to learn. Moving on, you should have noticed that I selected a green color from the pallete to draw my polygon. I am now going to draw a second polygon, selecting a darker color from the pallete. Draw the next polygon going the opposite of the first (See below). Next we are going to use the VERTEX SELECTION TOOL
to select the entire polygon. Do so by clicking and dragging, making a box that surround the entire polygon. My preference is to use VERTEX SELECTION TOOL
for any kind of
selecting however there is also a POLYGON SELECTION TOOL
which will do the same thing by just clicking on the face of the polygon.
As you have noticed the polygon has turned red, similar as in mapmaker. This indicates it has been selected. Now we want to use the TRANSFORM TOOL
to move the selected polygon on top of the other, and in turn create a square. Do this by clicking on the selected polygon and dragging it over on top of the other. Notice: If you have your grid on, and snap to grid it makes this process a lot easier.
Here is what your new square should look like. However, it is still obvious there are two triangles. To fix this problem we are going to want to color the two joining vertices. Notice: If "Snap to Vertices" is enabled there will be only one point instead of two. Zoom in to make sure. To color the points we are going to want to get out our VERTEX COLOR TOOL
. To make this tutorial user-friendly I selected a red color, however unless you are going for some rainbow map, you may want to choose a darker green or a brown depending on your theme. Anyway now with this tool enabled you will see a circle which radius can be changed in the color pallete window. Click the point joining two vertices together and they will both turn into the color you chose (in this case red). Do that on the other side, and now you have completed disguising the two polygons from each other. This is your first step towards shading and coloring.
For an advanced shading tutorial click hereFor an advanced colouring tutorial click here
Now that we have practiced using the VERTEX COLOR TOOL
, lets switch over to the POLYGON COLOR TOOL
. This tool will turn all three vertices into to the color you have chosen. As seen below I chose white for the bottom polygon. Change the color of the polygon by simply clicking anywhere on the polygon. For the top I obviously changed the polygon color by selecting a darker gray.
Now that we have completed the basics on the color tools, lets move on. In this part of the tutorial Ill show you some simple texture stretching. This is one of the harder features of mapmaking, but it gives a good 3d effect if used properly. Begin by selecting the TEXTURE TOOL
. You can click on any vertice you want however in the screenshot below I used the outer corners, those not connected to any others. For the bottom polygon I clicked on the lower left hand corner, and dragged my mouse down. For the other side I clicked the top right hand corner and dragged the mouse to up. Experiment as see what different kind of effects you can achieve.
Basic Shapes:
This is a simple tutorial on the different shapes you can make. Obviously you can make any shape you want but I just wanted to show you a few tricks and hints on achieving the best way for some particular shapes. For the first few shapes, I have turned on the grid and set the preferences for Spacing to equal 40px and divisions to equal 1. This made it easier to draw straight lines. Anyway here are the shapes:
The triangle:
Just a simple polygon, the one you are going to become most familiar with of course. This happens to be a isosceles triangle where 2 sides are equal
The square: By duplicating the polygon and both flipping and mirroring it, I was able to create a square with 4 outer points.
The alternate square: By splitting the outer edges of the polygon I was able to create a square with a point in the middle. Why would you want this? Well there are two reasons. First, now you can shade the center of the square. And second, well look for yourself:
The Octagon: By selecting the center point and splitting from there I was able to create 8 outer points rather than 4. I moved out the middle vertices and created an octagon shape. You know what this is looking like already dont you, you can guess the next one will be....
The circle: With 16 edges this looks like a relatively smooth circle. Just repeat the same process as you did with the octagon, you also will want to change the divisions in your grid to be more around 4-8 to help give a more round look.
The "perfected" circle: I continued and did some special effects to create a "perfect" circle. Notice a quick texture stretching can be applied if you select the middle point and press control+u.Now with 32 edges there is a lot more room for smoothing and I turned the grid off to make it easier to move the edges and points around.
NOW YOU KNOW THE BASICS OF POLYWORS.Download Polyworks version 1.4.0.5 (newest released atm.)Will add other tuts later about shading and colouring too.
*special thx to sml* Btw, this has been ripped from
here
