Darkmod: Inspiration thread

[Baddcog]

I think the one thing that really shows is the lack of dirty textures in TDM.

 

I think in the effort to remove ambient shadows from TDM we ended up with clean textures (which is fine for some stuff, especially indoor rich enviro stuff like polished wood floors and trim, and wallpapers).

 

But things like the red bricks and even plaster textures are really clean. Would be nice to be able to just slap dirty textures down and not coat the entire map in dirt decals. Decals cost performance and have z fighting, they also are hard to match to textures. We just need a lot more dirt.

 

As far as boards and stuff it's easy to make a brush/cut it and 'bend' it by moving verts around a bit, or make a patch and do the same. That building above could be done entirely in the editor, but we are lacking textures that look that good.

[Bikerdude]

Would be nice to be able to just slap dirty textures down and not coat the entire map in dirt decals. Decals cost performance and have z fighting, they also are hard to match to textures. We just need a lot more dirt.

 

Amen to that bro...it would significantly reduce map building time.. maybe we can get Serps to work some majik..?

[Melan]

I have been beating this particular drum for a while, and submitting darker, dirtier textures. Will do more, and there are stil a bunch of textureable source images on my HD, but it does take away time from building, so for the time being, I am not focusing on them.

[Springheel]

One option that should be relatively easy is to create new shaders that take one of our dirt decal textures and use a blend filter stage to apply it to existing textures. You get the benefit of the dirty decal look without having to do any actual decal work; there is also no mod bloat from adding 'dirty' versions of all our texture files.

 

You don't need photoshop or any art skills to do this either...at best you'd just need to be able to test the texture in DR and make sure the decal is positioned well for tiling.

[grayman]

One option that should be relatively easy is to create new shaders that take one of our dirt decal textures and use a blend filter stage to apply it to existing textures. You get the benefit of the dirty decal look without having to do any actual decal work; there is also no mod bloat from adding 'dirty' versions of all our texture files.

 

You don't need photoshop or any art skills to do this either...at best you'd just need to be able to test the texture in DR and make sure the decal is positioned well for tiling.

 

Could someone post the exact syntax for doing this, for those of us who don't normally muck around in shaders? Thanks.

[Springheel]

I'm at work so I can't look it up, but it's something like this:

 

textures/alphalabs/a_lfwall21b

{

qer_editorimage textures/alphalabs/a_lfwall21b

 

 

bumpmap textures/base_wall/lfwall21_local

diffusemap textures/alphalabs/a_lfwall21b

specularmap textures/alphalabs/a_lfwall21b_s

 

{

blend filter

map textures/glass/outdoor_glass1fx

}

}

 

That's a D3 shader, so ours have a lot more ambient stuff, but I don't think you'd have to change any of that. The bold part is the part you'd be adding. You'd replace the texture name after 'blend filter' with one of our dirt decals. You can also vary the opacity of the dirt, IIRC, by adding "rgb .9" (0-1, where 1 is full opacity) inside the brackets right after the texture name. Don't quote me on that last bit though.

[demagogue]

It's a good idea... Then it'd be good to find some more grime textures to blend in.

 

Another category of textures we could use are things like tearing wallpaper, cracking plaster, worn bricks, warping old wood... Not grime per se but shows a lot of wear & tear on the thing.

[Springheel]

Another category of textures we could use are things like tearing wallpaper, cracking plaster, worn bricks, warping old wood... Not grime per se but shows a lot of wear & tear on the thing.

 

Definitely, though those tend to be a lot harder to make.

[Melan]

There are several high-quality decal images up on CGTextures which feature cracking plaster, bricks showing through, rust, and all sorts of discolouration. I even have a bunch saved along with other base images. I just haven't had the time to make textures out of them (or learn how to implement a transparency in a material file in the first place.

[Baddcog]

Decals really are the way to go with damage like that. Just sticking on a 'hole' on the wallpaper leaves it really flexible. I guess the only issue is still having a bit of z fighting at large distances. But that could be controlled by just putting them at shorter distances.

I kind of did this in The Rift, the brick building at the end of the hole is cracked up the side. It's actually just some brushes shaped like a crack and painted black. Pretty rough but was convincing enough I thought.

 

 

And I like the idea of having dirt being a blend in. But I bet the texture sizes need to be equal. For example, a 512x512 tex with a 128x256 decal would have a lot of stretching on the decal to make it match the same size.

So we probably need full size blend decals. I don't know if I'll get around to it, but it seems to me like having green/brown palette in the decals would look much than actual black decals. Some of the black decals I've seen used were just too obviously black overlays.

[RPGista]

Someone posted this a while back, I thought this could help someone looking for more general info for missions, there's some good graphical info in this longish preview, enough to inspire some ideas and probably interest you into looking for more of this kind of material (a book on Castles and medieval life):

 

http://books.google....epage&q&f=false

 

Will try to find some more, hopefully complete, books online.

Edited January 20, 2012 by RPGista

[Springheel]

And I like the idea of having dirt being a blend in.

 

Just occured to me that this might be very useful for models, where decals typically aren't an option. You'd have to experiment a bit to see what looks good given the uv-map, but it could be a nice way of making dirtier-looking models without needing new diffusemaps.

 

Our crates, for example, have very clean-looking textures, and I occasionally slap decals on static ones. Can't do that for movables, but a skin with a blended dirt decal in it would solve the problem and be quite easy to make.

[RPGista]

A place that should be interesting for anyone even those not mapping is this blog of a photographer, that focuses on capturing some beautiful portuguese ruins, mostly traditional architecture, some of those structures are unbelievable and it's SUCH a waste they are not alive and functioning and creating stuff (specially some of those religious buildings. You can understand a family or a lone owner being unable to keep a building, but an institution like that? C'mon, just donate them to public use, make it a school or a museum or a community center, don't let those century old amazing structures go to waste out of greedness...), here is an example, just look on the blog for more:

 

Monastery in Monchique

 

http://ruinarte.blog...o-desterro.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 20, 2012 by RPGista

[Bikerdude]

Monastery in Monchique

 

Now if only we had textures like that! very cool looking place btw..

[Serpentine]

Heh, haven't read the rest of this thread... however I often plod through Opacity when I'm lost for things to do.

 

Takes a few minutes to work out how to navigate nicely, but it's a pretty cool collection, sadly not very high res... wish they'd offer a membership for that :/

[SiyahParsomen]

[Bikerdude]

Those images looks awesome, but its all about the textures as the same thing can be done in TDM reletively easily.

[Sotha]

Those images looks awesome, but its all about the textures as the same thing can be done in TDM reletively easily.

 

Yup.. In the end, the geometry doesn't seem to be very complex. It is the cool textures that make the looks, methinks. And that's the proper way in terms of performance!

[demagogue]

I thought those were photographs until I saw the blue gizmos. Yeah the power of good textures.

[Andrey]

[Sotha]

 

 

That was a few minutes well spent. The most fun thing is that that would be entirely doable with TDM too.

[Springheel]

We definitely need more junk models.

[Bikerdude]

And we need some rolling fog like there was in the forest, that thick but low laying list/fog and lastly the moving water texture (but I think Flanders & I used something like that in Dragons Claw.)

 

Yup.. In the end, the geometry doesn't seem to be very complex. It is the cool textures that make the looks, methinks. And that's the proper way in terms of performance!

Thats how the masters like DrK and Sliptip make T2 looks much better than most people think the engine is capable of.

[Baddcog]

I didn't really see anything there we don't have except for the cylindircial trap/cage.

 

The junk piles were just dirt mounds with a bunch of boards piled on. A ladder, a tipped over table.

[demagogue]

It's beautiful... Too bad it doesn't have any gameplay to go with it.

I want the bushes in the forest too.