The Texture Reorganisation

[Fingernail]

Does anyone object to me starting this as discussed elsewhere?

 

I'm going to create a fresh copy of the darkmod folder, rearrange it and write totally new mtr files, until it all works. Then I'll copy the result over and commit to CVS.

[BlackThief]

what's specifically wrong with our current texture-structure? it's exactly what our beta-mappers want....

 

 

(BTW why's the forum background grey now? looks somehow weird )

[Springheel]

People were complaining (rightly so) that the other background is difficult to read. This isn't the best solution either, but it will work for now.

[Renzatic]

what's specifically wrong with our current texture-structure? it's exactly what our beta-mappers want....

 

 

(BTW why's the forum background grey now? looks somehow weird )

I'm going for the happy medium here...I think you'll like how I'll set it up.

[Renzatic]

Cept for writing new material files, I'm done with the reorg. I've deleted a good chunk of the older textures I didn't think stood up to scrutiny, and have made a list of textures I think could do with some touching up (concentrated on the mansion textures for now).

 

Crypt has been made castle, and it and mansions have been herded under the interiors folder. Underneath that you have the basic type of textures, like interior/mansion/floor for all the floors instead of the old mansion/floors/wood/woodwithcraponit/yellowwood/ subcatagories we had before. If you want to load up the entire theme you just click on interiors/mansion to get them all to display at once in the editor.

 

All of the textures I based on the blade set are gone, they didn't fit in well with the rest, as are alot my old textures (crypt surfaces is totally gone). I left BT's alone for the most part, but put in suggestions on how to improve the ones I thought needed it...

 

the frob effect has been moved from misc to game as well, anything that's more gameplay specific should go in there.

 

And lastly, all the paintings and rugs have been moved from misc and mansions to set. If it can be used in multiple places, or isn't designed to be used by itself, it'll go there.

 

I'm currently uploading the pack now, I'll see what everyone thinks of it before I commit to the material files and replace the old ones altogether.

 

The reason why I still have the pagan folder floating around is because I intend for interiors to be a more generic set of textures for basic building. Anything more specific will go in their own faction folder.

 

Grab it under /textures/reorgtest.rar in about half an hour.

 

Edit: Oh yeah, in a nod to Sneaksie Dave, I threw em all in under darkmod again.

[SneaksieDave]

 

 

...now I just need to think how the heck to get them from the CVS (once they're there)... still don't hink the CVS notifies of/acts on "remotely removed" files, but I could be wrong.

[Renzatic]

Alright..gonna wait a couple more days for comments. If I don't get any I'm gonna make it official and start writing material files.

[pakmannen]

GO. AHEAD.

that clear enough for ya?

[Renzatic]

It shall be done!

[Renzatic]

The texture reorganization is now complete, everything is sorted into it's own folder and the material files have been written. The new setup is as such:

 

All textures are now under /darkmod so people will be able to sort ours out from Id's without much searching.

 

A main hierarchy that someone can click to load all the texture themes all at once (pagan), with sub folders underneath (pagan/doors). Not much different than the previous layout, but now they're not sorted into material types such as wood, metal, blah.

 

Crypt has been removed, all the textures there have been moved to interiors/castle. The interior folder is for generic sets of textures, like mansion_clean or mansion_dirty, castle, cathedral, and the like.

 

More specific textures will be moved into their own folder. If you have something builder or pagan oriented it'll go into /pagan or /builder.

 

Texture names have been shortened considerably. Instead of mansion_wall_brick03 or pagan_floor_wood1, it's now manwall03 or pagfloor01.

 

Each set and subset has it's own material file, so pagan walls and pagan floors will be seperated. This way it's easy to add a texture type and keep everything organized. You have a pagan floor you wanna add? Throw it in the pagan floor material file.

 

All _ed files have been removed totally, as have _d textures. Now both use the same texture, for a mansion wall diffuse it'll just be labeled manwall01.tga without any _ tags afterwords. Bumpmap and speculars still use _s and _local.

 

For now I want the new structure sitting alongside the old until I get the maps ported over. Since they're all under /darkmod they won't conflict, and you'll still be able to look at the old stuff.

[sparhawk]

Are they somehow sorted together or are they now intermingled? It wouldn't make it easier if a wooden floor texture is right next to a rich wallpaper and the next wooden floor is 20 textures down in the list.

[Renzatic]

Considering that they're all labeled as "Pagwall01, Pagwall02, Pagwall03, Pagfloor01, Pagfloor02, Pagceiling01, Pagceiling02...they'll stick together in the editor when if you load them all up at once instead of hitting the subcatagories.

[Springheel]

I took a look, Ren, and I don't totally understand how this is supposed to work.

 

The only Mansion folder is under Interior, so where would an outdoor mansion wall go? My understanding was that each 'theme' would have its own main folder, like Pagan does, and then everything would be organized in subfolders under that, like walls, ceilings, etc. Exterior Walls could be a different sub-folder if we needed to keep them separate.

 

Right now I'm confused about where some textures should go, since pagan walls go under Pagan/Walls, but mansion walls go under Interior/Mansion/Walls?

[Renzatic]

Eh, I'll go ahead and throw mansion and castle out of the interior subfolder. Now that I think about it more it's not a good idea, and it'll only take me a few to fix.

 

If you're confused about where a texture should go, just place it where you think it best fits and design new textures with an enviroment in mind. Beforehand I used to just make textures just to see how cool they'd look ingame, since I started the pagan map everything I've done has been based around that one specific them and has thus be easier to catagorize.

 

Don't think "I wanna make a cool texture", think "I wanna make a cool looking enviroment" and then build your textures. You end up with a more consistant look and a higher quality product in the end.

 

Er..and ignore the fact that I sound like a self help guru right now.

[Springheel]

Eh, I'll go ahead and throw mansion and castle out of the interior subfolder. Now that I think about it more it's not a good idea, and it'll only take me a few to fix.

 

Ok, I think that would be better. Also, could we move the 'nature' folder out of the Pagan one and make it a main folder as well (should be easy as I don't think we have any nature textures yet), since it will also include caves and lava and other things not typically associated with pagan maps.

 

I think our main folders should be:

 

City

 

Mansion

 

Castle

 

Builder/Cathedral

 

Pagan

 

Natural

 

Steampunk

 

 

I think just about any texture someone could come up with would fit reasonably well into one of those seven cateogries.

[Renzatic]

I'll gidder done.

[sparhawk]

I think Cathedral should be enough as a name. Builder is to specific. Might also be named Church or similar.

[Renzatic]

Here's the new layout.

 

Builder - Builder faction specific textures.

 

Castle - Generic castle textures, you know the drill.

 

Castle_ruin - Old mossy crap and all the stuff you'd expect to see in an abandoned or ruined castle. Could also include regular castle textures reworked to make them look nice and neglected.

 

Cathedral - Generic cathedral textures, unfactionized.

 

Cathedral_ruin - Dunno if this is necessary, but I've thrown in in for the time being.

 

City - Streets, facades, yellow windows, all the stuff you'll see from outside. Steampunk textures should also go in here.

 

Mansion - Generic mansion textures.

 

Mansion_Ruin - Same as castle_ruin, but with mansions.

 

Nature - Natural textures. Leaves, roots, bark, and any other outdoorsy crap you can think of will go in here.

 

Founder - Founder faction specific textures.

 

Pagan - Pagan faction specific textures. Might eventually move some of the current set to mansion_ruin or castle_ruin.

 

Set - Any texture that could be considered set pieces. Rugs, paintings, generic decals, and other miscellaneous textures will go in here.

[sparhawk]

OK. If we are settling for this, then your posting should also be copied over to the design section. So that everybody knows what purpose each set hast.

[Springheel]

Sounds good, although I think we will also need a separate steampunk folder for boilers, metal plating, grills, and other stuff you'd expect to find in a mechanite or builder factory. We wouldn't want that stuff under 'city'.

 

I'll start reorganizing my textures under this layout. Will you replace the old file on ftp?

[Renzatic]

Ahh, didn't think of that. I'll add a steampunk catagory in there then.

 

I'll go ahead and redo some of the material files and upload it. Gimme about an hour or so.

 

Oh yeah, for modding purposes I have a test folder in there for textures I haven't placed yet but wanted to see ingame. Everything that'll go in there from here on out will be labelled test01, test02, ect, so I don't have to do too much if I wanna check em out ingame. If they look good I'll go ahead and throw them in one of the other folders. This folder probably won't exist once the mod is finished up.

[Renzatic]

That went alot quicker than I thought it would, it's uploading now.

 

Check it out and offer your criticisms and complaints once you get it.

[sparhawk]

When you are finished and we have really the final version, then upload everything to the FTP and send me a PM. I can upload it to CVS via shell, which is faster and will not create hundreds of mails.

 

But only when this is really done, because I don't want to upload textures into CVS for nothing.

[Renzatic]

That's why I haven't asked you to do it yet...I wanna make sure it's all nice and tight before I commit it to the mod.

 

Also for the time being keep the old texture set in there as well. I've said this before, but it keeps our old maps from breaking so I wanna reiterate just to make sure you know.

[New Horizon]

Looking good Renz. Great work.