I think this thread misses the point of its title, It doesn't exactly explain how to make your map LOOK good, but it helps it run smooth... so its not useless but in the idea of what I thought this was about :
when building your map, be sure to build to scale, try to keep things in a standard, if you use one type of door button in a space ship, use it for most doors, accept those that are obviously diffrent (such as security doors "may" have a diffrent keypad...)..
<b>brushwork</b> When building your map, its always best to start by building a basic shape of the area your working on (for some this may be the entire layout, or just one room) then you start making the brush into smaller peices for more detial. Alot of detials can be done with just the texture, but it is NEVER alright to just make a flat wall no matter how nice the texture, you need to have something breaking it up. Also don't be afraid of useing the smallest sized brushes possible, this is often a good way to do some detials. I personaly Like to keep a process in my head, Is this area seen alot, is it hive traffic, if yes then make it look good and run smoothly meaning I let the textures do more work. If the area is less traffic but may have alot of people working in it (such as a defendible position) alot of nifty things should be added just to keep it interesting to the poor souls stuck building there.
<b>texturing</b> You ALWAYS have people telling you to scale your textures up to keep the speeds down and such, this is sorta good advice, there is a point though were you begin to loose quality, floor textures should not be textured over 2x there original size, and never smaller then .5x their size. Wall textures should have some sort of working along the top and bottom if they go full wall, if they don't you should consider another brush on top and/or bottom to give it a trim. Ceilings are often neglected and are very important for NS maps, they should have a not to busy texture usualy darker giving the illusion of less light going up there, and can often be several textures and layers of brushes to give depth. Also one MAJOR pet peeve i have over textures is these stupid "photo realistic" textures that have a bright white colouring from a camera flash, its okay to take a picture to make a texture, but PLEASE for the love of our children touch it up and paint the colours stronger!
<b>layout</b> Every Room needs some sort of purpose, dont' just make it a room, give it some reason, a control station, a power generator, a bunch of pipes along a hall? give it a valve station! Do something to give a sence that the room was used for something, heck as much as a small table with some papers on it could be enough! (at times, but not usualy).
- 3-pixel patterns (mentioned by Fam) and other patterns that don't fit but need to look consistent in a 64, 128, 256 sized texture CAN sometimes be made to work with a little trickery. This little trickery is to make the pattern 4 px (or 2 px) in places until it tiles properly. This might not work on some patterns without showing up like a skulk on the South Pole, but this idea worked wonders for some of my textures... made them fit nicely and look a little more natural too!
- The NULL texture is GOD. I'd like to repeat that it can be used on the unseen sides of entity brushes to kick down wpolys because its a darn good idea... when it comes to wpoly reduction, every little bit counts (to the point where I make my brush-based railings triangular instead of square, to cut down how many faces it has... and the railings don't look half bad that way!)
- Highly detailed textures do NOT look good plastered onto long flat walls or floors without grates over them... people seem to like the detailed ones from the NOS and R25 texture sets (r25_silowall seems to very popular for this). Please don't do it. It hurts my poor little eyes.
- Texture lighting is NOT the ONLY way to fly. Light and Light_spot entities can be used to great effect, if you know how... I myself actually use them more than texture lights! Although this is mostly a matter of preference, you'll find, if you know what you're doing, you can achieve really nice lighting with both methods.
- Oh yeah, one more thing. When I designed my maps with mostly custom textures in mind, I used a flat white texture with a grey grid for the brushwork before I made the textures for it, and I found this to be very helpful even when I already had textures ready for the face. Only the face you're supposed to be using is then textured, and everything else is white. This makes it easier to find leaks and position and size your brushes with ease!
- One more thing came to mind: Corners. Quite often a 45-degree bevel will look WAY better than a 90-degree corner. It only adds one extra face. Also, some architecture looks pretty nice rounded off, too (just 2 or 3 extra faces, in this case).
- Speaking of rounded off, there's a RAD parameter I ALWAYS use to make round brushes get lit all smooth-like: -smooth 80 ... this means any corner 80 degrees or under will have its lightmap smoothed, making it look nice and smooth and round. This also works wonders on pipes... make's 'em look all ROUND and stuff!
would -smooth 89 be alot better? that way you can have an almost right angled corner smoothed out to the max and a straight edged right angled corner on a wall?
i found a few mistakes i had made - you cannot make a texture lower than 16 - what was i thinking?
a few more textures:
<b>NULL</b> - as some one mentioned, it is great. If you get Merle's compile tools, there is a special texture called NULL that works with them. This texture removes the faces it is on when it is compiled. Since that face is now gone, r_speeds and lag are lower because the game engine no longer has to render that face. But that also means you cannot use NULL any place a player can see, because you do not want a 'hall of mirrors' error. So you are limited to using NULL on the backside of those brushes of which the player cannot see the other side. Null is of limited use, therefore, and must be used carefully; yet it still has some valuable use, and does lower r_speeds and patches a little in a map. Repeating: NULL only works with the newer versions of Merle's (& Cagey's) compile tools, and with no other compiler, not zoner's or the old Q tools.
<b>NOBUILD</b> - hey this is a special NS texture, stops folks from building structures where you don't want them. doesn't really affect looks....
<b>seethru</b> - this is a special NS texture, for some reason not mentioned in the FAQ. for me it works just like making an <i>entity seethru</i>, but all you do is add the texture to that one face. maybe is isn't suposed to work? what ever, try it out.
<b>BEVEL</b> - a new texture Cagey is working on. i don't quite understand it - i recommend you read <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=4&t=21248' target='_blank'>Cagey's thread on his tool</a> to understand it better than i can explain. but i am clear that it works only with his CSG version tool.
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and here are some other neat texture posts worth chekcing out: <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=4&t=25769&hl=animated,and,infestation,and,texture' target='_blank'>infestation texture</a>
env_gamma modifies the gamma ramp, so if you don't put any on your map, nothing will make the gamma change, it'll use the last map's env_gamma. so Just put an env_gamma, and set it to 1 (if you like it that way) . that way no one elses gamma setting for their map will mess yours up.
Very nice and informative thread. Should really be webbed!
I think I found a small mistake anyway... I'm using ZHTL 2.5.3 and rad does not have a -full option.. i guess that's what -extra is for, but I'm not sure.
However very informative, every mapper should read it. I for one found a way to get rid of the maxpatches error this way.
Comments
Well here it goes: An inch of slimy water does wonders for the hive textures.
when building your map, be sure to build to scale, try to keep things in a standard, if you use one type of door button in a space ship, use it for most doors, accept those that are obviously diffrent (such as security doors "may" have a diffrent keypad...)..
<b>brushwork</b>
When building your map, its always best to start by building a basic shape of the area your working on (for some this may be the entire layout, or just one room) then you start making the brush into smaller peices for more detial. Alot of detials can be done with just the texture, but it is NEVER alright to just make a flat wall no matter how nice the texture, you need to have something breaking it up. Also don't be afraid of useing the smallest sized brushes possible, this is often a good way to do some detials. I personaly Like to keep a process in my head, Is this area seen alot, is it hive traffic, if yes then make it look good and run smoothly meaning I let the textures do more work. If the area is less traffic but may have alot of people working in it (such as a defendible position) alot of nifty things should be added just to keep it interesting to the poor souls stuck building there.
<b>texturing</b>
You ALWAYS have people telling you to scale your textures up to keep the speeds down and such, this is sorta good advice, there is a point though were you begin to loose quality, floor textures should not be textured over 2x there original size, and never smaller then .5x their size. Wall textures should have some sort of working along the top and bottom if they go full wall, if they don't you should consider another brush on top and/or bottom to give it a trim. Ceilings are often neglected and are very important for NS maps, they should have a not to busy texture usualy darker giving the illusion of less light going up there, and can often be several textures and layers of brushes to give depth.
Also one MAJOR pet peeve i have over textures is these stupid "photo realistic" textures that have a bright white colouring from a camera flash, its okay to take a picture to make a texture, but PLEASE for the love of our children touch it up and paint the colours stronger!
<b>layout</b>
Every Room needs some sort of purpose, dont' just make it a room, give it some reason, a control station, a power generator, a bunch of pipes along a hall? give it a valve station! Do something to give a sence that the room was used for something, heck as much as a small table with some papers on it could be enough! (at times, but not usualy).
- 3-pixel patterns (mentioned by Fam) and other patterns that don't fit but need to look consistent in a 64, 128, 256 sized texture CAN sometimes be made to work with a little trickery. This little trickery is to make the pattern 4 px (or 2 px) in places until it tiles properly. This might not work on some patterns without showing up like a skulk on the South Pole, but this idea worked wonders for some of my textures... made them fit nicely and look a little more natural too!
- The NULL texture is GOD. I'd like to repeat that it can be used on the unseen sides of entity brushes to kick down wpolys because its a darn good idea... when it comes to wpoly reduction, every little bit counts (to the point where I make my brush-based railings triangular instead of square, to cut down how many faces it has... and the railings don't look half bad that way!)
- Highly detailed textures do NOT look good plastered onto long flat walls or floors without grates over them... people seem to like the detailed ones from the NOS and R25 texture sets (r25_silowall seems to very popular for this). Please don't do it. It hurts my poor little eyes.
- Texture lighting is NOT the ONLY way to fly. Light and Light_spot entities can be used to great effect, if you know how... I myself actually use them more than texture lights! Although this is mostly a matter of preference, you'll find, if you know what you're doing, you can achieve really nice lighting with both methods.
- Oh yeah, one more thing. When I designed my maps with mostly custom textures in mind, I used a flat white texture with a grey grid for the brushwork before I made the textures for it, and I found this to be very helpful even when I already had textures ready for the face. Only the face you're supposed to be using is then textured, and everything else is white. This makes it easier to find leaks and position and size your brushes with ease!
- One more thing came to mind: Corners. Quite often a 45-degree bevel will look WAY better than a 90-degree corner. It only adds one extra face. Also, some architecture looks pretty nice rounded off, too (just 2 or 3 extra faces, in this case).
- Speaking of rounded off, there's a RAD parameter I ALWAYS use to make round brushes get lit all smooth-like: -smooth 80 ... this means any corner 80 degrees or under will have its lightmap smoothed, making it look nice and smooth and round. This also works wonders on pipes... make's 'em look all ROUND and stuff!
That is all.
Peace.
i found a few mistakes i had made - you cannot make a texture lower than 16 - what was i thinking?
a few more textures:
<b>NULL</b> - as some one mentioned, it is great.
If you get Merle's compile tools, there is a special texture called NULL that works with them. This texture removes the faces it is on when it is compiled. Since that face is now gone, r_speeds and lag are lower because the game engine no longer has to render that face. But that also means you cannot use NULL any place a player can see, because you do not want a 'hall of mirrors' error.
So you are limited to using NULL on the backside of those brushes of which the player cannot see the other side. Null is of limited use, therefore, and must be used carefully; yet it still has some valuable use, and does lower r_speeds and patches a little in a map.
Repeating: NULL only works with the newer versions of Merle's (& Cagey's) compile tools, and with no other compiler, not zoner's or the old Q tools.
<b>NOBUILD</b> - hey this is a special NS texture, stops folks from building structures where you don't want them. doesn't really affect looks....
<b>seethru</b> - this is a special NS texture, for some reason not mentioned in the FAQ. for me it works just like making an <i>entity seethru</i>, but all you do is add the texture to that one face. maybe is isn't suposed to work? what ever, try it out.
<b>BEVEL</b> - a new texture Cagey is working on. i don't quite understand it - i recommend you read
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=4&t=21248' target='_blank'>Cagey's thread on his tool</a> to understand it better than i can explain.
but i am clear that it works only with his CSG version tool.
-------------------------------------------------
and here are some other neat texture posts worth chekcing out:
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=4&t=25769&hl=animated,and,infestation,and,texture' target='_blank'>infestation texture</a>
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=4&t=25845&hl=infestation,and,texture' target='_blank'>more infestation</a>
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=4&t=25757&hl=infestation,and,texture' target='_blank'>animated infestations</a>
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env_gamma modifies the gamma ramp, so if you don't put any on your map, nothing will make the gamma change, it'll use the last map's env_gamma. so Just put an env_gamma, and set it to 1 (if you like it that way) . that way no one elses gamma setting for their map will mess yours up.
Should really be webbed!
I think I found a small mistake anyway... I'm using ZHTL 2.5.3 and rad does not have a -full option.. i guess that's what -extra is for, but I'm not sure.
However very informative, every mapper should read it.
I for one found a way to get rid of the maxpatches error this way.
Hyper