Texture alignment (without surface inspector)

[kwenga]

Hello jkhub,

I was wondering if there is a good, reliable method for aligning textures on certain brushes. Basically, I'm trying to make a good looking terrain, but texturing brushes is very time consuming at this point. I'll show you an example.

 

As you can see, I've created a basic shape for my terrain, but textures are rotated by 90 degree or even mirrored. I was wondering if there is any other method to fix that, apart from doing it by surface inspector. You know, setting default alignment for all brushes or something like that? It would be really frustrating, tweaking with surface inspector all the time, when I have, lets say, 3k of those shapes.

[Langerd]

Hello jkhub,

I was wondering if there is a good, reliable method for aligning textures on certain brushes. Basically, I'm trying to make a good looking terrain, but texturing brushes is very time consuming at this point. I'll show you an example.

 

As you can see, I've created a basic shape for my terrain, but textures are rotated by 90 degree or even mirrored. I was wondering if there is any other method to fix that, apart from doing it by surface inspector. You know, setting default alignment for all brushes or something like that? It would be really frustrating, tweaking with surface inspector all the time, when I have, lets say, 3k of those shapes.

If You want to make the terrain there are some other methods to do it.

 

https://jkhub.org/tutorials/article/92-hand-shaped-terrain/

 

You can also make terrain using easy gen or .. You can use some 3D program and make terrain in it.

 

About the textures yeah.. it sucks and it also anoyed me as well :S even using axial doesnt fix this shit.

 

Try just selecting the face and then just rotated the texture. Even if its time consuming i think there are no other method to do it.

[Ramikad]

Agree with all Langerd said. I'd say one last alternative is to use patches to make the terrain, since texturing them is usually a far less daunting task than with brushes, moreover you can "cap" the patch textures so that they're all perfectly aligned on one axis, and then you can turn the patches to a model if you don't want to increase the polygon count too much.

[kwenga]

Guys, I know a little bit about creating terrain, because it's not first map I'm making. Thanks for your advices, but I'm interested in finding solution for this perticular problem.

Btw, making terrain with patches isn't the best idea, if you're aiming for huge maps, in terms of performance and general efficiency. Even converting them to .ASE won't beat good ol' brushes.

[Langerd]

I agree with Kwenga .. i tried patches for terrain and there were a lot of issuses and they didnt look very nice specially because of the stupid holes that they make many times..

Hmm what about shader options? Maybe there is way to make texture pointing only in one angle :/

But making terrain in the 3D program is not bad idea. In my opinion the best method would be :

1.create a very high poly model of the terrain
2.Scuplt in it to make some cool stuff!
3. Bake it and make texture and stuff.
4. Align the baked texture on the low poly model.
5. The last thing - export the model as the md3 and as the patches.

In gkt we will use the terrain that we made. The version that will be patches is for not only making it solid! The texture on these patches would be clip brush but with the shader that we will make depends WHAT is the terrain! If We made some snowy terrain we will use the snow material in the shader. This method would not only give us solid md3 but also will allow using material. Not only sure about amount of stuff and how the patches will work put in the game (they will be invisible ! The look of the terrain will be made with md3 model ) but we can make amount of the vertexes smaller for it.

 

[Asgarath83]

I agree with Kwenga .. i tried patches for terrain and there were a lot of issuses and they didnt look very nice specially because of the stupid holes that they make many times..

 

Hmm what about shader options? Maybe there is way to make texture pointing only in one angle :/

 

But making terrain in the 3D program is not bad idea. In my opinion the best method would be :

 

1.create a very high poly model of the terrain

2.Scuplt in it to make some cool stuff!

3. Bake it and make texture and stuff.

4. Align the baked texture on the low poly model.

5. The last thing - export the model as the md3 and as the patches.

 

In gkt we will use the terrain that we made. The version that will be patches is for not only making it solid! The texture on these patches would be clip brush but with the shader that we will make depends WHAT is the terrain! If We made some snowy terrain we will use the snow material in the shader. This method would not only give us solid md3 but also will allow using material. Not only sure about amount of stuff and how the patches will work put in the game (they will be invisible ! The look of the terrain will be made with md3 model ) but we can make amount of the vertexes smaller for it.

 

 

@@Langerd, i consider you one of the more expert mappers of the community.

 

I have the same problem: terrains for my maps. i think at least i use easy gen for making the basic soil and MD3 for making mountains cliff etc, there are a lot of Prefab cliff, mesas, rock and mountains and stalactites model into original assest on JKA that can be retextured on reexported on blender for making variant with different kind of terrains: ice, snow, lava, dust, gravel, dirts, muds, sands...

however, i HATE the texturing procedure of easygen >.<

there is not some faster and less painful way for texture it? for blending the texture i read is sufficient a phong shader, but apply texture on easygens really painful >.< . also, easygen is pretty bad for modelling the soils using heightmaps. >.< i have tryed nem's tool, but i get serious trouble with texturing and exporting in that program. thanks for any suggest you can give me. 

i need to make this world on JKA 3d:

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/legacyofkain/images/f/fd/Nosgoth-Location-Map-SommerdammMarked.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20131216193244

it's not easy, also making a terrain for every region of this map that respect his topografy

[Ramikad]

@@Langerd, i consider you one of the more expert mappers of the community.

 

I have the same problem: terrains for my maps. i think at least i use easy gen for making the basic soil and MD3 for making mountains cliff etc, there are a lot of Prefab cliff, mesas, rock and mountains and stalactites model into original assest on JKA that can be retextured on reexported on blender for making variant with different kind of terrains: ice, snow, lava, dust, gravel, dirts, muds, sands...

however, i HATE the texturing procedure of easygen >.<

there is not some faster and less painful way for texture it? for blending the texture i read is sufficient a phong shader, but apply texture on easygens really painful >.< . also, easygen is pretty bad for modelling the soils using heightmaps. >.< i have tryed nem's tool, but i get serious trouble with texturing and exporting in that program. thanks for any suggest you can give me. 

i need to make this world on JKA 3d:

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/legacyofkain/images/f/fd/Nosgoth-Location-Map-SommerdammMarked.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20131216193244

it's not easy, also making a terrain for every region of this map that respect his topografy

 

For what it's worth, I find Blender to be a good alternative here as well. If you don't mind terrain being an ASE rather than MD3, GLM, OBJ (but I suspect it can be done anyway, although I couldn't do it), you can happily shape your ground from a grid, turn it into tris, texture it however you want with a combination of a base texture and Texture Paint mode, and export the whole lot in-game. Works brilliantly.

 

Cool map, by the way! I only have played Blood Omen 2 out of the whole series, but I liked it.

[Asgarath83]

For what it's worth, I find Blender to be a good alternative here as well. If you don't mind terrain being an ASE rather than MD3, GLM, OBJ (but I suspect it can be done anyway, although I couldn't do it), you can happily shape your ground from a grid, turn it into tris, texture it however you want with a combination of a base texture and Texture Paint mode, and export the whole lot in-game. Works brilliantly.

 

Cool map, by the way! I only have played Blood Omen 2 out of the whole series, but I liked it.

 

Thanks . well, i can use blood omen first game air maps screenshot (it was on 2d and cover 75% of nosgoth lands) for making heightmaps of territories and convert it to 3d shaped terrain with easygen (it works fine as method, basiclaly i am converting into 3d map oldies 20 years ago 2D maps lol ... sure before i make it into greyscaled alphamap after i cleared screenshot by every house sprites, temples buiklding etc. )

for my luck avernus and willendorf city have pavement streets, so they not need terrains LOL. but for villages and wastelands... argh! D:

this works fine for place see in the first game, but it's bad for texturing it. also in easy gen i use the texture paint technique. it's a looong procedure .-. make that for 88 territories is bad.

i am really concern for territories of Nosgoth south lands, because they never apparead in games, 2d or 3d, so i have not much idea how to make and what kind of heightmap use for it. i need to go to deduction...

however, i have building prefab, and after i have terrains, making maps will be only a "place MD3" works... but i will not do in these months, too hot. for the moment, i am making the terrains files on easygen.

mmm, so blender can be an alternative to easygem... i never thinked about blender as a tool for modelling a terrain, but i think it should be works good, is sufficient make the terrain and exporting into MD3 with mrwonko plug in... the baddest problem are the textures. .-. 

well, i think i will make the blender technique for nosgoth south terrains, all other programs like terragen , nems' tool etc not works fine for this.