Nasoa's Guide to Mapping Techniques

Author Topic: Nasoa's Guide to Mapping Techniques  (Read 10070 times)

Welcome to Nasoa's Guide to Mapping Techniques! This guide contains some elements of mapping that I had to figure out mostly on my own, as there were no tutorials to go off of. This guide is primarily for those who feel confident enough in basic mapping to add a little more. To get started on mapping, go to Ostinyo's Mapping Tutuorial at http://forum.blockland.us/index.php?topic=139748.0

1. Texture Alignment
Texture alignment and scaling is an extremely important aspect of interior creation, and can really boost the quality of what you make. Lets start with basic shrinking to fit:

This is a cube that I applied a 512x512 texture to. The texture is at full scale and looks pretty bad, because it doesn't tile.


To make it fit, switch your selection to "Faces" and simply click the "Stretch to Fit" in the Object>Face tab.


Using that, we get this much more appealing look:


You can also do this to all the faces at once by simply dragging the mouse over the entire object and pressing "Stretch To Fit"


Individual faces can have textures applied to them, just select the face, go to the texture album, and hit "Apply" Then do "Stretch to Fit", and you're set!



There are some cases when you want the texture to not stretch across the whole face, but still line up with a side. What you can do is keep the same scale, but align it to an edge.

Here, you can see that the studs are not lined up properly.


Stretching to Fit doesn't work, it's not the proper size:


So what you do is either select "Justify Right" or "Justify Left" to align it.


Nice! The studs are just an example, this comes in handy in many other cases as well.


2. Manipulation of Primitives

There are many ways to manipulate the objects in your interior, and I will only go over a few.

I tend to shy away from changing size bounds, because it warps the textures. My main method of adjustment is by moving faces. This easily adjusts it and keeps the textures the same size and alignment.

This is very simple, just select the desired face:


And move it on each axis with the arrows:
Y

X

Z


Very easy, and will get you far. COMING SOON: VERTICES


3. Lighting
There are two types of lighting I will go over: Interior and Mission Editor.
      
        a. Interior: Ambient lighting is an extremely useful tool that will add alot to your interiors, large and small.
To use this, go to the Entities () section.
Next, go to the scroll down menu and select "light_omni". Click somewhere on the scene and then click the "Make" button.


What is this lightbulb that has appeared? Don't worry, this will not appear in your map, this is just to select and move the entity. Move the light to where you want.


From here you can adjust the color, falloff, and size of your light. The color is simple RGB, 0 0 0 being black and 255 255 255 being white. When adjusting the falloff, make sure that falloff1 is smaller than falloff2, or there will be no light.

Above is a light with larger falloff values.

        b. Mission Editor: Coming soon!

4. Replicators

Under Construction!

RESOURCES:
CG Textures
Mega Bear's Mapping SDK
Paint.NET
Crafty
« Last Edit: October 20, 2011, 06:06:33 AM by Nasoa »


Useful, I didn't know that stuff about the brick textures and how to justify them like that.

Useful, I didn't know that stuff about the brick textures and how to justify them like that.
Thanks! Added a Resources section.

Haha wow, didn't even know that you could move the faces around to change the object's shape like that. I thought you could only modify the textures using the faces brush ;P

Anyways, it's nice and fairly simple. I'm still wondering why your light entity's falloffs are shaded in and mine are not, however. 'Tis strange...

This is not so much "Mapping Techniques" it's more "Interior Making Techniques".

He's adding a mission editor section soon.

great work
Hey Nasoa how about an Endor map?

This is not so much "Mapping Techniques" it's more "Interior Making Techniques".
I'm about to add a Mission Lighting section and go over Foliage and Shape replicators.

Thanks for the lighting but your guide doesn't tell me how to add flickering lights.
« Last Edit: October 28, 2011, 12:23:20 AM by Lørd Tøny »

Thanks for the lighting but your guide doesn't tell me how to add flickering lights.
Light_Flicker is one of the default datablocks in the light list

Light_Flicker is one of the default datablocks in the light list

I tried that and it doesn't work. Strobe does not work either.
« Last Edit: October 28, 2011, 03:24:23 AM by Lørd Tøny »

Light_Flicker is one of the default datablocks in the light list
Unfortunately, the only light that appears to work is omni.

Light_Point works for me, but it reacts a little oddly with shapes by making shadows a little longer than desired.

Animated lights do not work in TC.
There is also a feature called "Alarm Lights" that is in TC and TGE but that doesn't work either.