Author Topic: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.  (Read 9091 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Wraithlike

  • Global Moderator
  • Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 1349
  • The Ichthyologist
Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« on: November 04, 2006, 10:08:09 pm »
Tutorial for Polyworks

Pretty much do something like this and you'll make a sexy map.
 
First, pick a sexy texture, I chose one of VTT's




Then begin placing your polys, make sure you put then in an orderly manner so you can shade easily, Like so:




Once you've placed your polys, move the verticies so you have a nice terrain. You cna also place your polys like this and skip the previous step.




Now give it your basic colors, I wanted a nice grassy area, so I chose green fading to brown with grey shadow on the bottom.




Now, you can dynamically shade it by picking areas that have either more or less light shining on them. like so:



Now you can begin placing scenery. I chose a simple grass, and placed along the polys:



After you've placed the grass, you can begin with trees and foliage. I chose some basic trees and placed them at 100% opacity in the front, and at around 60% in the back.




Now I've added some more variety to the scenery.




After that I can add some crates for cover. You must later place colliders in these.




now you can choose some nice bg colors.




and a sun and some happy clouds.




now to make the map more intresting, I chose to make a small building. make note of the poly structure.




and I shade the building.




then I add some nice interior scenery


 

Now I add colliders to all the crates.




And then add spawns and we have a map.


Offline Mistercharles

  • Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 1371
  • +
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #1 on: November 04, 2006, 10:23:21 pm »
The sun is in desperate need of a happy face.

An all around good tutorial. Our mapping styles are rather similiar.
shoutout to m'boyz eagles_arrows, echo_trail, wraithlike, sadistatheart, chakapoko maker, jrgp, aznblood, chakra, keron cyst, et al, miss you, let's '#gather some day

Offline Eagles_Arrows

  • Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 1889
  • The Thread Killer
    • My Webcomic
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #2 on: November 04, 2006, 10:25:20 pm »
*hugs you*

Excellent tutorial, now let's have sex.

"Sometimes it's a good day to die, sometimes it's a good day to have breakfast." - Smoke Signals

Offline Wraithlike

  • Global Moderator
  • Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 1349
  • The Ichthyologist
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #3 on: November 04, 2006, 11:47:36 pm »
Thanks, my intention was to make a tutorial that could help you make e map with out you having to read anything, you can pretty much just look at the pictures. Eventually, I may expand it to including basic wypting and multi texturing, but for now I'm just trying to get polyworks to work. :(

P.S.

E_A, Yes let's!

Offline Keron Cyst

  • Global Moderator
  • Rainbow Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 2872
  • will waypoint for food
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #4 on: November 05, 2006, 10:37:16 am »
You're a lot more organized than I am. I just throw in colors, scenery, and objects while forming the polygonal structure ;D

Offline Avarax

  • Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 1529
    • Official Hexer & MMod site
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #5 on: November 05, 2006, 01:32:40 pm »
the problem beginners will have with this tutorial is, that they don't know how to handle and where to find and modify the necessary tools
I like to have one Martini
Two at the very most
Three I'm under the table
Four I'm under the host

Offline jettlarue

  • Flagrunner
  • ****
  • Posts: 724
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #6 on: November 05, 2006, 01:45:12 pm »
You should throw in something about stretching, otherwise great for beginners.

Offline Vltava

  • Camper
  • ***
  • Posts: 325
  • Mr Avocado
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #7 on: November 05, 2006, 11:05:39 pm »
*hugs you*

Excellent tutorial, now let's have sex.

Not without me!

Offline Magic Odd Effect

  • Camper
  • ***
  • Posts: 371
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #8 on: April 16, 2007, 01:47:18 pm »
It'd be better if I knew what the strange yellow circle used for shading was...

Is it in the depth map? I know the "light source" thing is there, but how does the dynamic shading like that work? Do you make a directional light source or something?

And the thing about green fadin to brown....I don't get that either.

I get the basic stuff for Polyworks, just not shading...
Don't say that you're Magic. Because you aren't, and I am.
All-around good with weapons that aren't long range, except in TW.
Now be careful out there, soldier.
Best Newbie in the May 2007 Soldatforums Member Awards!

Offline -Skykanden-

  • Flamebow Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 3065
  • Hallowed be my name
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #9 on: April 16, 2007, 01:57:10 pm »
Thanks Wraithlike!!! i need that tutorial to do more good maps that will help me :)
^+1 un karma :D

Offline iDante

  • Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 1967
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #10 on: April 16, 2007, 03:49:07 pm »
You should throw in something about stretching, otherwise great for beginners.
isn't just moving the verticies stretching it?
the problem beginners will have with this tutorial is, that they don't know how to handle and where to find and modify the necessary tools
Well... I think he is hoping that most people will have used polyworks a bit before they read this. (or look at it)
You're a lot more organized than I am. I just throw in colors, scenery, and objects while forming the polygonal structure ;D
same here :)

The only thing I dont like is that there is nothing on what makes a good map layout.

Offline Keron Cyst

  • Global Moderator
  • Rainbow Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 2872
  • will waypoint for food
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #11 on: April 16, 2007, 06:07:01 pm »
... begin placing your polys, make sure you put then in an orderly manner so you can shade easily, Like so:




Once you've placed your polys, move the verticies so you have a nice terrain. You cna also place your polys like this and skip the previous step.




Now give it your basic colors, I wanted a nice grassy area, so I chose green fading to brown with grey shadow on the bottom.

...

This seems like a really big waste, now that I look at it. If you're going to make them all the same color, you should be able to get just about the same terrain variance with a LOT less polygons. The ONLY reason I would use a lot of polygons like that is if I were to use many, many different colors at every other vertex. Put it to use or lose it, basically.

Offline mar77a

  • Global Moderator
  • Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 1295
  • mad
    • random stuffs
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #12 on: April 16, 2007, 08:41:35 pm »
no polybugs this way  8)

Offline jrgp

  • Administrator
  • Flamebow Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 5036
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #13 on: April 16, 2007, 09:11:08 pm »
no polybugs this way  8)

Why not just do what Keron said and overlap the vertices?
There are other worlds than these

Offline Keron Cyst

  • Global Moderator
  • Rainbow Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 2872
  • will waypoint for food
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #14 on: April 16, 2007, 11:25:18 pm »
no polybugs this way  8)
Actually, polybugs can still occur, even at perfectly connected vertices as in Wraithlike's pic. (I've seen it and playtested it to verify, particularly around the central hill of Demonic's ctf_Cseri, and we all know how disciplined Demonic is in mapping ;)). The most sure-fire way to get rid of them is to overlap them in such a way that there is absolutely no chance of a polybug possibly occurring (overlap so that players only run on edges and do not actually touch any points of the polygon at all). Granted, repeating this method would not achieve smooth color-blending, but I never said to do it every single time, tho' I'm sure most would fancy gameplay over aesthetics.

But that's not what I was getting at, anyways :P I meant: what's the point of making sooooo many polygons if they're all gonna be used for the same basic colors? You could probably make the demonstration's land-mass example with half as many polygons and achieve pretty much the same effect; that's all.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2007, 11:29:53 pm by Keron Cyst »

Offline Wraithlike

  • Global Moderator
  • Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 1349
  • The Ichthyologist
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #15 on: April 16, 2007, 11:38:28 pm »
Thats true Keron, but the idea of this technique is to make shading smooth, simple, and fast. and you can have more radical coloring too. and yeah, overlapping polys is a good solution to most simple polybugs.

Offline Zephyen

  • Major(1)
  • Posts: 33
  • Living is Death while breathing...
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #16 on: April 17, 2007, 03:14:59 pm »
Hmm, that's a very clean cut and easy way of mapping.
What I do is get a general idea, set up one side and work my way across. If I am doing very difficult things (tunnels and such), I'll throw my gostek around and use the sketch tool, from there I simply connect my polygons together, shade as best I can, toss on the scenery and finish up with some waypointing and finishing touches after playing (both against bots and players).

I wish I could do that, but I'm too used to my style ^_^'

Offline zaraza

  • Soldier
  • **
  • Posts: 143
  • *Axeminster!*
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #17 on: April 17, 2007, 04:24:12 pm »
Then begin placing your polys, make sure you put then in an orderly manner so you can shade easily, Like so:




Once you've placed your polys, move the verticies so you have a nice terrain. You cna also place your polys like this and skip the previous step.



I'd love to see how to do it. I map alot but still  this is black magic for me :/

Offline Keron Cyst

  • Global Moderator
  • Rainbow Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 2872
  • will waypoint for food
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #18 on: April 17, 2007, 06:04:20 pm »
Make the hexagons through the grid, and select connecting points with the Vertex Selection Tool, dragging them around randomly :P The texture will naturally morph itself in the process.

Offline Laser Guy

  • Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 1679
Re: Wraithlike's Guide to Beginning Mapping.
« Reply #19 on: April 18, 2007, 08:11:12 am »
*hugs you*

Excellent tutorial, now let's have sex.
Thanks, my intention was to make a tutorial that could help you make e map with out you having to read anything, you can pretty much just look at the pictures. Eventually, I may expand it to including basic wypting and multi texturing, but for now I'm just trying to get polyworks to work. :(

P.S.

E_A, Yes let's!
either u guys r gay or u had a sex party...

and thx for the tutorial (tho i didn't use it)
Text goes here...