Getting Caught Up

[Renzatic]

Just on a guess, how much has been done since I was last here? I need a good starting point here.

[oDDity]

In textures, very little. BT was gone most of that time as well.

[Renzatic]

I've been considering coming at this completely fresh. It's been a good 5 months since I last did anything productive, and I could somehow turn this to my advantage by looking at everything with a new perspective. And since no one else has done a terrible amount this could make my job a little easier....but I still gotta find a good starting point.

 

What I might do is go through another texture scouring. Also, since I have a nice digital camera now I can go and take photo sources myself...I can build entire themes myself now instead of having to hope other people's stuff goes well together.

 

I've also been considering making textures out of procedurals inside of Lightwave...or using programs like Werkkzeug1 or Texture Creator. I've got alot of ideas I want to experiment with to see what gives me the best results.

 

I'm also gonna let mapping take a backseat for the meantime. Other than texture tests I'm not gonna do any mapping til I have a complete enough set of textures to do a variety of different enviroments and have them look complicated, lived in, and realistic.

[sparhawk]

I hope you don't consider to restructure the textures again, though.

[Renzatic]

Probably not. I had already picked out the ones I thought the best during the last restructure...but I am planning on doing things a little differently this go round.

 

I've still gotta bang up the plan in my head, but when I get a good feel for exactly what I want to do I'll post it here.

[oDDity]

I'm making my own level now as well, so I'll be making a bunch of textures and a bunch of static models for it as I go along - including a huge galleon.

[Macsen]

Well, if we're going to have a lot of people doing their own thing texture-wise try to come up with a consistent style between you and share some textures so we don't have 300 different types of floorboard in the finished release.

[New Horizon]

I threw an email off to John P. today as well. He agreed to whip up a bunch of Thief 1 and 2 inspired doors for us. Everything from metal to wood. Hopefully those will come through this week. Depending on how many he is able to give us, I might ask if he would be willing to try making some stuff for nature sets.

[SneaksieDave]

Fantastic. He seemed lukewarm (okay, cold) on joining in the past, IIRC.

[Renzatic]

Well, if we're going to have a lot of people doing their own thing texture-wise try to come up with a consistent style between you and share some textures so we don't have 300 different types of floorboard in the finished release.

 

That's exactly what I want to avoid. I need to find a way to tie all our texture artists together and create assets that fit well together without having too many similar textures. Of course, having 5-10 floorboards isn't bad, gives someone a bit of a selection when making their maps, but I want to avoid having about 30 or 40 or so...that's just too much.

 

One thing I talked about awhile back, and one thing I'm gonna start doing myself, is try and make texture sets with a specific theme in mind. I'll think of something, like say a cave or dank ass basement, and I'll start making textures to fit the theme.

 

The only downside with this system is that we'll end up making textures slower and won't be following an overarching set like we were before. But on the plus side we'll have much more detailed textures that fit well together and we'll kill off the one problem I have with our current set....they won't be so generic.

 

We really need to start thinking about our enviroments more. Thinking of things like "oh, well that'll make a cool wall" won't get us anything cept a bunch of mishmashed textures that look funky when you slap em all together. Think of a theme, make your textures, make a small map and see how well they look together, then improve em from there. I think we'll get much better results.

[New Horizon]

Fantastic. He seemed lukewarm (okay, cold) on joining in the past, IIRC.

 

Well, it was several months ago that I had asked him to do those for us. I was just checking with him to see if any were ready. I think he was still lukewarm. He was feeling rather textured out.

[oDDity]

Well, people do ok with Dromed and the T3 editor, and they weren't built with huge libraies of textures included. They just included whatever textures they happened to use while building their levels.

If we all build a level each, we can tie tham altogeter in a plot, and we'll have a full game)

Obviosuly we won't be making a large variety of maps, so we'll have to create some sets for the specific purpose of making a libray for people.

You can never have too many brick sets and ground sets and flor sets etc.

As long as there's enogh of a basic selecton for people to make the most common t?hief type maps, that's all they can ask. They can always make their own level specific textures, it's not as if it's difficult.

I'm making a varient of te shipping and reciving map, so you can guess the general type of textures I'll be knockng up. I already have my main texture for the level, a gorgeous red brick with a detail texture. I took that one from the texture packs we recived, and I'll be using quite a lot of those for my level.

[New Horizon]

Well, people do ok with Dromed and the T3 editor, and they weren't built with huge libraies of textures included. They just included whatever textures they happened to use while building their levels.

If we all build a level each, we can tie tham altogeter in a plot, and we'll have a full game)

Obviosuly we won't be making a large variety of maps, so we'll have to create some sets for the specific purpose of making a libray for people.

You can never have too many brick sets and ground sets and flor sets etc.

As long as there's enogh of a basic selecton for people to make the most common t?hief type maps, that's all they can ask. They can always make their own level specific textures, it's not as if it's difficult.

I'm making a varient of te shipping and reciving map, so you can guess the general type of textures I'll be knockng up. I already have my main texture for the level, a gorgeous red brick with a detail texture. I took that one from the texture packs we recived, and I'll be using quite a lot of those for my level.

 

Sounds delicious. Post some screens when the time is right.

[Renzatic]

I just whipped up my first texture in many a month. This one is one of Redface's better textures, I just made a quick and dirty normalmap using PS thresholds and went to see how it turned out...

 

 

I think it came out pretty okay. Unfortunately halfing the resolution will kill alot of the sharpness and clarity, but that's the price we pay for performance I guess...at least for now.

 

Come Wednesday I'm gonna head out and take a ton of pictures to photosource from. Hopefully by this weekend I'll have at least 4 or 5 good textures with more on the way. Plus I gotta go back through my half completed catalog and see what might be worth salvaging.

[SneaksieDave]

I'm making my own level now as well

Sounds delicious. Post some screens when the time is right.

Yeah, really. At the risk of sounding like a drooling fanboy, I quiver at the prospect.

[sparhawk]

If the maps are anywhere near your models, that will be quite cool. Only question is, what does that mean for model progress?

[Renzatic]

I say go ahead and let him do it. I and probably a few others could probably pick up a couple of good habits from him in the meantime.

[sparhawk]

Well, I guess I could also start on a map instead of coding... I always wanted to do this anyway.

[Renzatic]

Go for it. I could probably pick up some bad habits from you in the meantime.

[Dram]

well, at least we'll have a thousand maps to play and test on

[sparhawk]

Go for it. I could probably pick up some bad habits from you in the meantime.

 

LOL

 

well, at least we'll have a thousand maps to play and test on

 

You see? That's the problem. We may have a thousand maps by then, but we wont have any playable maps.

[sparhawk]

That was just a joke. Nobody, in here, really thinks I have some bad habits, don't you?

 

In fact, I guess I'm the most easily to get along with member in this team. Apart from NH maybe.

[Dram]

In fact, I guess I'm the most easily to get along with member in this team. Apart from NH maybe.

 

[BlackThief]

well the point is, as oddity said, that if you want to create a good looking, detailed map with d3 or t3 you'll always need quite a lot specific textures and static meshes! I know that you can go crazy with patches and stuff in d3, but it will never look as good as models done in a proper 3d modelling software - you'll never have as much control over your tris and texture in a level editor as you have for example in lightwave.

 

I would suggest to start a 'texture request' thread in the level editing forum, so that the (beta)-mappers can request a specific texture for their level.

[sparhawk]

Well, go ahead with it and start that thread.