Boothand

I think I'm gonna start trying to get 3ds max into my workflow, granted I can get it to properly snap to my current map geometry and export to scale. A possible downside is that I don't know how to texture it with the same evenness and consistency that GtkRadiant does. UV mapping can be a bit frustrating compared to radiant's simple wrap + surface inspector.

Is there any way to take advantage of rend2's real time shadows (aka the debug feature r_forcesun)? I feel it's kind of painful to have it so close and then be stuck with static lightmaps after all. What I mean is, obviously a map compiled without -light doesn't look good, but forcesun can calculate shadows when brushes move around or when light moves around. For example, some doors I have in a map are dark, but when they swing open they would logically receive light. But, the lightmap is a map.

Ooo! .ase exports to 1.5 + clip brushes in GtkRadiant? Otherwise, how do you deal with organic shapes etc - vertex tool vs clipping tool?

I guess the thing that holds back the candiness of JKA the most is the lack of real-time lighting (although I can see that rend2 has some debug-version of it). You could look a bit at Szico's stuff, perhaps that's close to what you want.

I'm asking because I frequently have to switch between GtkRadiant 1.5 and 1.6.x because of its different functions and benefits. And I'm reaching the point where it really gets frustrating because of bugs. The 1.6 GtkRadiant compared to 1.5 is a must when using the vertex tool. However, every single time I use the vertex tool, it has a 60-70% chance of breaking my brush, making it invalid, detaching the vertex, adding an extra vertex where it shouldn't exist, and ultimately deleting my brush possibly when using the brush cleanup tool, and duplicating itself when I ctrl Z my way back, and sometimes there is no way back. On top of all of this, when I finally get it to work, it's only a matter of time before I can come back to the same area and find that it's been broken and bugged again and I have to re-do so many brushes. And on top of that again, when it even seems fine in the editor, finally I compile it and find that it's completely broken in-game, with holes and gaps all over the seams. And there's quite a lot of mappers here, and it makes me curious - what do you use? What advantages, disadvantages compared to any of these? Some benefits and disadvantages that I see: 1.5 Great navigation in 3D view, possible to move camera in all directions smoothly using ctrl, shift and mouse. 1.6 is missing some features here making it harder to navigate.In-built texture folder menu + easy to reach texture/shader reloading buttons. Much easier than 1.6.Generally stable software that has intact functions. You must split brushes manually before using the vertex tool (for terrain and other bent brushes).Only has box select, not the 'rolling' over visible brushes with the mouse.Buggy artifacts in the 3D view (at least on Win 7) if you don't use Windows Basic theme (or so) 1.6 Has a way to shift the face of a brush around, used by alt + left click.Superior vertex editing toolShows alpha channel-shaders in the 3D view, makes a nice preview besides some bugginess.More features (I haven't tried most though), also available in the menus and UI Generally crashy software, many functions do not work and it may crash when using certain tools.Doesn't have box select, only 'rolling over' visible brushes with the mouse.Surface inspector doesn't stay in front, makes it hard to use. Otherwise a bit buggy.Vertex tool can be more handy, but will often destroy your brushes (Brush Cleanup)No translation tool/gizmo (W in 1.5) and no rotation gizmo.Can't undo texturing done by ctrl shift middle mouse (which you can in 1.5)Often displays buggy gaps in split brushes. Don't know if this is caused by 1.6, or only revealed by 1.6Bad navigation (and seemingly low FPS when moving camera)Bugged rotation tool.Clumsy axis rotation tool (offsets from original position when used).

@@Xycaleth, I still have the issue with the black dots appearing, using that shader. As in this post: http://jkhub.org/topic/2804-rd-rend2/?p=53470 Here's the specular map - using a TGA with the same image in the alpha channel, for now: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/58757568/asphalt_spec.jpg

If it's your first run-through of JA, I wouldn't use any mods at all!

Seems like I can't install the chrome extension from this website!

Weird, I don't have Szico's issue at all. I removed all .mtr files and apart from some console errors, everything shows up as it should when not using nmaps etc. The tables have turned!

Actually, through experimentation I found that my rend2 wanted a .shader equivalent of the name of the .mtr that kept my rend2 shaders. But what I put in the .shader didn't matter, it seemed, it just needed to exist. So all that exists in my bootland_nmaps.shader is "//placeholder file for rend2". The same file with .mtr contains all my normal maps, and they work in game, but without the placeholder file all my textures lack normal/-parallax maps and load up like a regular texture.

Put rend2 shaders in .mtr so you don't get errors from q3map2. I was pretty sure they'd show up if running rend2 anyway though, but I might be wrong. I experienced lots of crashing and trouble with various versions of openJK/rend2. On this computer it worked for *some* reason after reinstalling the game, but not after trying it on a clean steam-install. I sometimes deleted Documents/My games/OpenJK when things weren't working. OpenJK will generate a new one next time you run it, so it's safe, although you'll lose configs setup in openJK. But that worked as a way to clean up to make sure openJK was up to date and working alright. Did it crash after you put it in .mtr or have you done that yet?

I think it was caused by compiling in GtkRadiant 1.6, which I normally leave to 1.5. Fixed now.

Rend2 decided to start working after a reinstall! Parallax mapping causes the sky to be inverted, textures to be black and crazy stretched, but it works

Have you followed this guide? http://jkhub.org/tutorials/article/145-compiling-openjk-win32-must-read-for-new-coders/

Yeah, I was able to access shadow copies, but they were made only once a day on this computer, so the last one was before I started working. I'll redo everything.

It can't have been saved properly. I can't seem to reproduce it either. It saves fine now. I saved loads of times while working earlier. It's not showing up in any versions. A theory I have is that I must have edited in 1.6 while I had it open in 1.5. And after I exited 1.6, I may have mindlessly clicked *ctrl S* before I quit 1.5, although it would surprise me... I'm not asking anyone to summon the answer from thin air, but rather if someone knows how to recover overwritten files on Vista Home premium. I'm currently trying some stuff that might work... I just panicked a little bit. Edit: Yeah, it's lost Ah well. Sorry for my panic attack!

I was mapping today for about 3 hours, much more effective than usual. I was even streaming it. I did most of the work in GtkRadiant 1.6 because it has a better vertex tool. I think the GtkRadiant 1.6 gods were angered when I made some remarks about its imperfectness, and thus now when I opened my map in 1.5 again, all the progress I had done after switching to 1.6 is gone. Nonexistant. Also gone from the automatic backup file GtkRadiant makes. That's kind of a boot in the face, so I was wondering if there's anything that could be done to recover the earlier version. There's probably tools to recover lost files, but this one has just... I don't know what happened to it even. Any advice? I haven't had this happen using 1.6 before, and switching between the versions has been fine. (This may be => appropriate in the tech support section)

I would actually rather see this formatted nicely and clearly divided into the different sections with headers, and maybe some hotlinks on top of the page to the different sections. Would make it a lot easier to read! All that aside, I did get some useful info from it

The same happened to me with a regular misc_model. It didn't seem to accept any influence from mtr files. When I tried using a specular map on a road, it did apply *something*. What it seemed to do, in a way, was very inverted. It put the darkest spots of my specular map and displayed it all over the texture, except where the sun would reflect, which was close to where I would walk. So it took the black parts of my alpha channel and made that visible, it seemed, which then displayed the black areas of my specular texture which were supposed to be keyed out. That's the way I interpreted it at least, but I couldn't make quite sense out of it either, when inverting the alpha channel and troubleshooting etc. I can't recall exactly what happened. Screenshot:

Then it's probably not the texture file itself. Try running your map with sv_pure 0. Or else it won't find any files that aren't packed into a pk3.

It sounds like an image dimensions problem. What size is your texture? It must be sized by the power of 2 - that is 2 - 4 - 8 - 16 - 32 - 64 - 128 - 256 - 512 - 1024 etc.

Yeah, tried with several versions, including the latest build.

Afraid so Could I try someone else's rend2? I'm sure it shouldn't matter though, this one worked just fine on my laptop.