Editor Suggestions: Texture Alignment
SpiritVII
Join Date: 2009-09-02 Member: 68673Members
Join Date: 2009-09-02 Member: 68673Members
I've searched all over these boards and I haven't found anything dealing with this, so I'll go ahead and bring it up..
So far I'm really enjoying the Spark editor and how easy it is to use, but there's one thing that is really difficult to use, and that's the paint tool. As is stands, texture coordinates seem to be projected onto faces on a "per individual face" basis. This means that if I'm trying to create a curved wall or complex terrain mesh with seamless texturing, I need to manually pan & rotate each face to seem/blend into it's neighboring face. I am not a big fan of this method, I'm a level artiste` and I want to create high quality, atmospheres/environments quickly & painlessly (I wouldn't say effortlessly).
Here are some ideas:
<b><u>Solution #1</u></b>
Add an option so textures can be projected onto multiple-selected faces from the 3 axises.
This would be similar to Hammer's Texture Tool "World" button, where it automatically projects texture coordinates according to the nearest directional axis. The only problem with this is that certain faces would be "skewed", (think "texture axis perpendicular to face" in Hammer).
<img src="http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b323/SpiritVII/top.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b323/SpiritVII/front.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<b><u>Solution #2</u></b>
Add some sort of "Closest/Nearest/Relative Plane" option where textures can be projected onto a plane according to which faces are selected. I'm no programmer, but this seems like it would probably be the simplest and most effective solution with what Sparky has going for it already.
<img src="http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b323/SpiritVII/relative.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<b><u>Solution #3</u></b>
Implement UV mapping for simplicity (just kidding..)
But on a serious note, I hope you will take these suggestions into consideration. Textures that habitually don't line up are ugly no matter which game it is. In comparison, I don't even care if Sparky's paint tool continues to use floating point integers in a way that only scientific notation can describe.
If there is already a way of aligning the textures in the manner I described, please inform me. I would really like to get most of the faces seamed up on my map before I continue.
<img src="http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b323/SpiritVII/ns2cave.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Thank you.
So far I'm really enjoying the Spark editor and how easy it is to use, but there's one thing that is really difficult to use, and that's the paint tool. As is stands, texture coordinates seem to be projected onto faces on a "per individual face" basis. This means that if I'm trying to create a curved wall or complex terrain mesh with seamless texturing, I need to manually pan & rotate each face to seem/blend into it's neighboring face. I am not a big fan of this method, I'm a level artiste` and I want to create high quality, atmospheres/environments quickly & painlessly (I wouldn't say effortlessly).
Here are some ideas:
<b><u>Solution #1</u></b>
Add an option so textures can be projected onto multiple-selected faces from the 3 axises.
This would be similar to Hammer's Texture Tool "World" button, where it automatically projects texture coordinates according to the nearest directional axis. The only problem with this is that certain faces would be "skewed", (think "texture axis perpendicular to face" in Hammer).
<img src="http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b323/SpiritVII/top.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b323/SpiritVII/front.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<b><u>Solution #2</u></b>
Add some sort of "Closest/Nearest/Relative Plane" option where textures can be projected onto a plane according to which faces are selected. I'm no programmer, but this seems like it would probably be the simplest and most effective solution with what Sparky has going for it already.
<img src="http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b323/SpiritVII/relative.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<b><u>Solution #3</u></b>
Implement UV mapping for simplicity (just kidding..)
But on a serious note, I hope you will take these suggestions into consideration. Textures that habitually don't line up are ugly no matter which game it is. In comparison, I don't even care if Sparky's paint tool continues to use floating point integers in a way that only scientific notation can describe.
If there is already a way of aligning the textures in the manner I described, please inform me. I would really like to get most of the faces seamed up on my map before I continue.
<img src="http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b323/SpiritVII/ns2cave.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Thank you.
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