I'm Starting On The Reorg Now

[Gildoran]

I'm starting on the texture reorg now. I'd like to request that nobody upload/change files of the following forms:

 

materials/tdm_*.mtr

textures/darkmod/*

dds/textures/darkmod/*

 

Also, I'd like to request that nobody create/change materials whos names start with textures/darkmod/.

 

For the first phase, I'll create a second set of material files that reference the same images as the original ones. After that's completed, I'll go back and start moving the source images to matching locations.

[Gildoran]

There are some places where I'd like to solicit some second oppinions...

 

Does textures/darkmod/city/wall/ctywall02 seem more like it should a wall or trim?

 

Does textures/darkmod/mansion/wall/manwpanel03 seem more like it should be a wall or ceiling?

 

Does textures/darkmod/mansion/wall/manwpillar01 seem more like it should be a wall or trim?

 

In all 3 cases above, I'm leaning towards the latter.

[Gildoran]

Could somebody take a look at the materials in textures/darkmod/wall/wood/ and see if those naming schemes seem reasonable to them? If not, I'd rather find out now than when I've renamed half of everything.

 

For a list of name changes, see materials/replacements.txt.

[Domarius]

Man, I would just go with whatever you reckon.

 

Textures are like sounds. They get a classification, but when it comes to finding a specific use for them, a creative author will be exploring folders of similar types, knowing that while they want a ceiling texture, that wall texture in the walls folder could be just the right ceiling texture for this particular room.

 

I know I did this a lot, and I know most everyone else does the same, judging from the different ways the old T2 textures are used in FMs.

 

Textures are somewhat arbitrary in a lot of cases, just like sounds. In the end, the classification is more or less just a way of grouping them together so they aren't all in one big list.

[Gildoran]

Regarding stone/brick textures, I'm planning on putting them in floor/stone/ if they wrap both horizontally and vertically, unless there's an obvious reason why they shouldn't be put there. (such as a ledge that's built into the texture)

 

As such, many city/wall/ textures will be moved to floor/stone/.

[Gildoran]

They get a classification, but when it comes to finding a specific use for them, a creative author will be exploring folders of similar types, knowing that while they want a ceiling texture, that wall texture in the walls folder could be just the right ceiling texture for this particular room.

This is making me think that I should go with the structure of surfacetype/usage/ rather than usage/surfacetype/...

[sparhawk]

surfacetype/... would also be ok for me.

[Gildoran]

I just wanted to give everybody a heads up that I'll likely be very busy with schoolwork this weekend, so I won't have much time to devote to TDM until next week.

[Dram]

OK, no problem. Good luck with school

[sparhawk]

What does this mean for the reorg? If you start on this, you should push it through in one go, otherwise everybody will be blocked.

[Dram]

Well it means we'll have to wait a week. Not the most convenient, but we can afterwards just do a search and replace textures in the maps.

[sparhawk]

As long as we are not stuck in the middle, it's ok.

[Gildoran]

The way I'm doing everything is that I'm working on creating a second set of material files that reference the same images so you can continue to use the original structure until I'm done with the new version. Then once the reorg is done, I can remove the old files from CVS, leaving only the new material structure. After that I can rename the image files to have a matching structure at my leisure without further disturbing mappers.

[sparhawk]

And what happens to the new files that may be submitted in the meantime? Are you tracking these?

[Gildoran]

When I copy and rename a material into another mtr file, I annotate the original to mention what it's called in the new file, so I know it's already been copied. I also keep a complete list of what materials have been copied where in materials/replacements.txt.

 

I should be able to check my e-mail (or the CVS history of a file) for a list of who's edited what.

 

This may not be a perfect way of keeping track of everything, but hopefully it'll work for the duration of the reorg.

[sparhawk]

If you keep the CVS notifications you should be pretty safe. You will see everything that is changed or added.

[Gildoran]

Ok, I've copied many of the wooden mansion textures, and I was wondering if anybody could check out the names and see if they look ok to them. I'm worried that the names may not be descriptive enough; I've mostly tend to categorize the materials with names like "panel", "boards" etc.

[Dram]

Just checked it out. I think that layout is fine

 

We'll see in long term if anyone complains though I guess.