Author Topic: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial  (Read 11312 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Chakra

  • Inactive Staff
  • Flagrunner
  • *****
  • Posts: 937
Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« on: April 19, 2006, 11:55:01 am »
Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial for PolyWorks

This tutorial assumes some previous experience with PolyWorks.



Design Your Map

You should have some idea of what you want your map to look like before you start. I recommend having a simple sketch to work from.





Preparing the Texture

I chose two default textures for this map, ananas.bmp (snow) and pistacja.bmp (rock). Photoshop was used to create two smooth vertical transitions between the textures. I arranged the two textures and the two transitions so that the resulting 128x512 bitmap would tile seamlessly. It's not necessary for the texture to tile but it makes things a little easier later on.



One thing to keep in mind is that textures are automatically scaled up to the nearest power of two, so it's best to use bitmaps with dimensions that are powers of two so that the texture doesn't appear stretched.



Building Blocks and Shaping

In PolyWorks I load the texture and change the background colours to something more appealing.




Then in the Properties window I set the texture dimensions to the dimensions of the texture.




I start making the map by creating some 128x128 blocks to determine the offset of the texture.
This is easy when using the grid at default settings (spacing = 32, divisions = 4).



These are the basic building blocks of the map. With these polys and the duplicate function I start putting things together.




To make the map more detailed it's necessary to create more complex arrangements. The split function is useful at this stage.





I continue to add more to the map and begin to give it a more interesting shape, using the split function wherever needed.





Colour and Shading

For my palette I chose to use 4 shades of blue for snow and 4 shades of brown for the rock. For the transition I just blended the blue and brown together to get 4 shades of a colour halfway between the other two.




I decided that most of the light was coming from the left side of the map and applied colours accordingly.



One thing to remember is that lighter areas often appear closer to the viewer. This is an easy way to add depth to your map, but it shouldn't be overused.
















Finishing Touches



When choosing background colours I find that using colours similar to the ones in the map works well. After the poly placement was mostly done I added some scenery and colliders. Finally I tested it for poly bugs and fixed the ones I found.

One problem I had with this map was that the poly count was quite high for the size. In Soldat, high poly count maps cause the frame rate to drop because of edge rendering. To counter this problem I didn't include an edges file. However this causes some problems for people who download the map by joining a server. (It's also possible to turn off edges.)

[EDIT]
I forgot to mention that fixed texture should be turned OFF for this method.
Also, you can make something like this to help determine if your texture is aligned correctly:

[/EDIT]



Conclusion

This is just one basic method for creating multi-texture maps. With more experience and experimentation it could be refined to be more practical and efficient. I hope that after reading this tutorial you've gained some new and useful knowledge. Happy mapping ;]



Credits

Thanks go to all the mappers in the Soldat community; I learned a lot from looking at existing maps.
Thanks also to everyone who helped to test my map and gave me suggestions, especially cooz <3



Topic and tutorial originally created by Anna.
MM; seriously Chakra, stop the fisting
Yes, I'm still alive.

Offline Studio 8

  • Major(1)
  • Posts: 19
  • Banned - Hacker
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2006, 09:13:06 pm »
thanks for the tuts man!

Offline Mothafix

  • Camper
  • ***
  • Posts: 323
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #2 on: June 10, 2006, 08:03:36 am »
thanks for the tuts man!

Man? I thought Anna is girl.. But anways gr8 tutorial!

Offline chrono

  • Soldier
  • **
  • Posts: 235
  • Elite CTF
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #3 on: June 10, 2006, 09:04:00 am »
Thnx man. Very nice explanation. Btw, wat did u name that map?
I decided to remove my signature, since jrgp was picking on me by sending me annoying PM's. - Chrono, Wednesday July 27, 2007



Offline Anna

  • Soldier
  • **
  • Posts: 213
    • my dev blog
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #4 on: June 10, 2006, 10:12:43 am »
Thanks for the comments :)

I named the map EskimoGirls (a reference to the interview with MM on soldat radio).

Offline Link-X

  • Major(1)
  • Posts: 44
  • Intoxicating!
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #5 on: July 28, 2006, 02:26:12 pm »
this has helped me but its still bloody confusing



Offline Eagles_Arrows

  • Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 1889
  • The Thread Killer
    • My Webcomic
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #6 on: July 28, 2006, 02:30:25 pm »
^Don't worry, as you learn more about PW over time, you'll understand this completely.

Thanks for the tut Anna!

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

Offline Crumpet

  • Major(1)
  • Posts: 1
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #7 on: August 08, 2006, 05:37:21 am »
How do i waypoint

Offline Mistercharles

  • Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 1371
  • +
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #8 on: August 08, 2006, 05:52:22 am »
It's a shame this is virtually obsolete now, due to the textured quad function.
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 Wraithlike

  • Global Moderator
  • Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 1349
  • The Ichthyologist
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #9 on: August 10, 2006, 05:46:59 pm »
I never learned how to use the textured quad, and I never plan to, so I still use this. :p

Offline Ransom

  • Major(1)
  • Posts: 18
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #10 on: December 04, 2006, 07:44:28 pm »
I can't for the life of me figure out how to turn on the wireframe. Anybody?
In ur house, steelin' ur pie.

Offline Keron Cyst

  • Global Moderator
  • Rainbow Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 2872
  • will waypoint for food
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #11 on: December 04, 2006, 11:30:46 pm »
Windows --> Display; tick the Wireframe checkbox

Offline ultraman

  • Flagrunner
  • ****
  • Posts: 797
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #12 on: December 05, 2006, 04:26:00 am »
Texture quad FTW!
Great tut, I've been looking for an alt multitexture method, sometimes the texture quad is annoying >:(

EDIT: I just realised I contradicted myself :-\
« Last Edit: January 17, 2007, 10:51:29 pm by ultraman »

Offline wedding

  • Camper
  • ***
  • Posts: 338
  • [AdkZ] BuTcH3r
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #13 on: January 16, 2007, 05:15:56 pm »
Very nice tut and explanation thanks!!  *Thumbs Up*....But how long did this map take?...please answer....cya
Sex is like Hacking.You get in, you get out,then you hope that you didn't leave something behind that can be traced back to you.

Offline Red Neck

  • Soldier
  • **
  • Posts: 171
  • in game: &gt;RE&lt; Monomaniac .:|FA|:.
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #14 on: January 17, 2007, 09:44:18 pm »
thx this will help me

Offline Hessu

  • Major(1)
  • Posts: 13
    • ^^
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #15 on: August 21, 2007, 07:49:06 am »
Good job Anna  ;D

But I have one little problem, my player and bots fall behind polys. Polys aren't ground where can walk, it's like air. Polygon properties : Normal ( I have tried all of the list : ice, deadly.....) And I have tried all scenery levels: ( front, middle and back) didn't work, my guy falls behind polys again with parachute. :P


can you tell me what I need to do to get it work ?

Offline ~Niko~

  • Rainbow Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 2410
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #16 on: August 21, 2007, 08:08:51 am »
lol... did you try compile the map?  ;D

Offline Hessu

  • Major(1)
  • Posts: 13
    • ^^
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #17 on: August 21, 2007, 08:11:19 am »
lol... did you try compile the map?  ;D
   

THX NIKO !!!!!!!

Now it works :DD
« Last Edit: August 21, 2007, 08:15:27 am by Hessu »

Offline Laser Guy

  • Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 1679
Re: Anna's Multi-Texure Mapping Technique Tutorial
« Reply #18 on: August 29, 2008, 05:03:34 pm »
IMO it should be Stickied, look where it ended up :-\
Text goes here...