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A Few UVing Questions


Renzatic

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I've been hitting the modeling thing pretty hard these last few months. I'd say I'm finally starting to become competent, but not as good as I wanna be yet. To get some more practice in, I've gone past the high poly do whatever you want stage, and started doing some disciplined low poly/res gamework.

 

My big UVing question involves texturing a complete room as one model. One thing I've noticed is that if I want to UV something of that size, I'll have to make the corresponding texture huge to get the same amount of detail I'd get if I just threw a texture on a brush in Radiant. For a working example, I made this sloppy ass room with a sloppy ass UV map to show what I'm talking about

 

Here

 

Be gentle. I made the model, texture, and all in about half an hour. Didn't worry about no damn seams.

 

Even at 2048x2048, which is the res I've got that particular map set at, I can see the hit in resolution in comparison to the base textures I used to make the whole scene. Now I've seen tons of complete rooms and whatnot in other games that still maintain clarity and sharpness when UVing a room like that, so obviously I'm doing something funky wrong here. I'd hit up a tutorial, but 99% of the ones you find are for mapping small objects or heads that look great even with a 512x512 map, and none of them are game specific.

 

Is there some interesting technique I'm missing here? Am I approaching this wrong? I could go and texture individual wall models and slap them together in Radiant, but if I'm gonna do that, I'd just do all my level geometry there and save myself the headache. I'm open for suggestions here.

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You might want to use multiple textures for your model, one for the wall, one for the floor, etc. Unless you manage to use something like the Megatexture technique in Quake 4, you're pretty lost with just one big texture for a large room - it will always be a pixel show.

 

You could also try to split down your model into pieces, which increases the chances that you can re-use your stuff, saving valuable game resources. You could make the rough geometry in DarkRadiant and do the fancy stuff by modeling, to spice up the ends and corners.

 

And one more thing regarding the use of such large models: you'll need to do a fair amount of monsterclipping if you ever want to have some AI in that room. The AI can't pathfind in areas just consisting of a large model. Also, the collision surface count is higher than when using brushes, which increases the load on collision physics.

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What I wanted to do was make a map room by room, hallway by hallway. Each a separate model (cept for the very large rooms, which I'd split apart). That way I could add cracks, edges, small details or whatever else in areas as a contiguous whole, instead of relying on smaller meshes to add details to brushwork. From the sounds of it, it might be better abandon that idea and do things the old fashioned way.

 

I guess there are alot of downsides to attempting to map like that. Not being able to reuse the larger assets would be a huge knock against it, for one. But still, if it could be done efficiently, you'd have some amazing maps to look forward to.

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But still, if it could be done efficiently, you'd have some amazing maps to look forward to.

Yes, I agree that models leave you the most artistic freedom for your geometry, but it needs considerable effort (UV mapping plus collision/clipping).

 

Realistically, it's probably not worth the effort and I personally have my doubts if one could stand through creating a whole level on that level of detail without getting seriously burnt out. You have my entire respect if you pull this off, that's for sure, I'd love to see that. Anyway, you might be better off investing that amount of work into good textures and normalmaps.

 

Also, we all know that good thievish maps are not based on geometrical beauty alone - eye candy is surely great, but you can't create a mission just out of fancy looks. Or maybe you can, who knows?

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Realistically, it's probably not worth the effort and I personally have my doubts if one could stand through creating a whole level on that level of detail without getting seriously burnt out.

 

It wouldn't be feasible if you were doing something city-sized. But it'd work for smaller missions. Something about the size Lord Bafford's would probably be best.

 

Ultimately, I think I'm gonna try for the happy medium instead of going whole hog. And I'm gonna be using this thread to more than likely ask a ton of questions here in the near future.

 

Thanks for the advice. :)

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Ultimately, I think I'm gonna try for the happy medium instead of going whole hog. And I'm gonna be using this thread to more than likely ask a ton of questions here in the near future.

Go ahead, I'm curious to see the results your efforts.

 

Thanks for the advice. :)

You're welcome. :)

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Is there some interesting technique I'm missing here? Am I approaching this wrong? I could go and texture individual wall models and slap them together in Radiant, but if I'm gonna do that, I'd just do all my level geometry there and save myself the headache. I'm open for suggestions here.

 

Be aware that in addition to the suggestions Greebo made, you can also use tiling textures on a model -- there doesn't have to be a 1:1 mapping between a point on the model and a unique pixel in the UV map (unless you are doing a normal-map bake/renderbump operation).

 

This is achieved by increasing the size of your UV-map layout so that it is larger than the texture square, whereupon the texture will start to repeat. Depending on your 3D app you may have to activate a "texture repeat mode" in order to see this, but Doom 3 will always render the texture as repeating if the UV map extends past the image boundary.

 

I too would like to see what could be achieved by building a map entirely from models, but with the effort involved my own attempts never got past the first room. I think in reality it is better to use the best tool for the job in each situation; i.e. brushwork for basic geometry, models for detail.

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Sorry to interrupt...

 

I always thought that in Doom 3 engine models can only block AIs path, but AIs can't walk on models. In short, if you want to have some room (playable area) as model, you would also have to put some brushes (floor, walls) around this room. Was I wrong? If not, building walls and floors as model makes no sense?

Edited by Bukary

Cartographer's Note FM: in production.

Download Old Comrades, Old Debts FM or Mistrz Effects demo and see my old projects!

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Hey Ren, good to see you. Where ya been? :)

 

You don't happen to have the old pictures from your circular stairway tutorial around, do you? Someone was asking about them just the other day.

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I always thought that in Doom 3 engine models can only block AIs path, but AIs can't walk on models.

AI can walk on models, their feet are still colliding with the world correctly. They will walk upwards and downwards and bend their knees, etc.

 

However, they cannot pathfind or navigate on model surfaces. Only brushes get considered for the AAS (Area Awareness System) id software introduced for AI navigation.

 

In short, if you want to have some room (playable area) as model, you would also have to put some brushes (floor, walls) around this room. Was I wrong? If not, building walls and floors as model makes no sense?

No, you are right. You can model a room just fine, but you need to outline it with brushes (textured with monsterclip) for the AI. They can only "see" the brushes in the map, when trying to get from point A to point B.

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AI can walk on models, their feet are still colliding with the world correctly. They will walk upwards and downwards and bend their knees, etc.

 

However, they cannot pathfind or navigate on model surfaces. Only brushes get considered for the AAS (Area Awareness System) id software introduced for AI navigation.

I don't know if I understand correctly.

 

Let's say I have a room X and AI (Benny) that walks from point A to point B (patrols along the path). If Benny has to walk throught room X (or A, B are inside this room), X can not be just model (floor has to be made form brush). Correct?

 

But let's say I have a room Y that has nothing to do with Benny (there are no path points inside Y). Can it be made entirely as model? If I make Benny chase me inside room Y, will he stop in front of this room?

 

The reason I ask is because it's nice to have some complex structures (bent towers, curved bridges) made from models (and sometimes it's almost impossible to build brushes around them). It would be great if AI chasing the player could navigate these structures.

Edited by Bukary

Cartographer's Note FM: in production.

Download Old Comrades, Old Debts FM or Mistrz Effects demo and see my old projects!

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Let's say I have a room X and AI (Benny) that walks from point A to point B (patrols along the path). If Benny has to walk throught room X (or A, B are inside this room), X can not be just model (floor has to be made form brush). Correct?

X can of course be a model, but the room needs to have at least a floor brush. Otherwise the AI won't even know they can reach this room.

 

But let's say I have a room Y that has nothing to do with Benny (there are no path points inside Y). Can it be made entirely as model? If I make Benny chase me inside room Y, will he stop in front of this room?

It depends on how you make him follow you in this room, but basically he will consider you as unreachable target when you're inside Y. He has no pathing information about this room and will think you're floating in the "void".

 

The reason I ask is because it's nice to have some complex structures (bent towers, curved bridges) made from models (and sometimes it's almost impossible to build brushes around them). It would be great if AI chasing the player could navigate these structures.

Sorry, but they won't be able to navigate on these structures. You need to create those brushes, everything else will not be used for navigation.

 

Say you create a nice staircase model: you'll still need to create a secondary staircase out of brushes for the AI to pathfind upwards, as models are ignored during AAS compilation.

 

Look at the two screenshots at the top of this site here: http://www.iddevnet.com/quake4/LevelEditor_Clipping

The left one roughly represents what you see as a player, the right shot shows how AI are perceiving the level.

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The reason I ask is because it's nice to have some complex structures (bent towers, curved bridges) made from models (and sometimes it's almost impossible to build brushes around them). It would be great if AI chasing the player could navigate these structures.

 

It can be done, but not without the brushes. The brushes are invisible to the player, however, so there should be no problem fitting them where necessary.

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Thank you for the answers! One last question:

 

If I have, say, the whole model of a tower with two floors, would it be enough to outline floors and stairs with (monsterclip) brushes? There's no need to build brushes around walls in order to make this tower possible to navigate for the AIs? And what about sound? Would it propagate properly if there were no wall brushes?

Cartographer's Note FM: in production.

Download Old Comrades, Old Debts FM or Mistrz Effects demo and see my old projects!

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If I have, say, the whole model of a tower with two floors, would it be enough to outline floors and stairs with (monsterclip) brushes? There's no need to build brushes around walls in order to make this tower possible to navigate for the AIs? And what about sound? Would it propagate properly if there were no wall brushes?

Just for navigation the floors, stairs and elevators would be enough, but realistically this is not a good idea. You'll need to visportal your tower for performance reasons as well as sound propagation (which is also using the portals to flood the areas).

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No, making floors is not enough. Take my spiral staircase object for example. I had to make a prefab of the stairs AND walls for them to pathfind correctly, otherwise they started walking into the object wall and not pathfind up the stairs correctly. Of course the monster clip walls a much simpler than the object walls.

 

For things like hard to make staircases I think objects make sense, for a whole level there's a lot of work to redo (adding monster clip to the whole level. Basically you build it once in 3d, then once in the engine for monster clip).

If you did do this it would be best to build the basic monster clip geometry, then export and an obj, then you have the basic layout in 3d to work around.

 

To me it would make more sense to do all the basic terrain (walls, floors, ceilings) in Radiant. Then just make trim models in 3d to add to each area as needed. No need for the whole monster clip then because that's all done.

-------------------

As far as the UV layout there is TONS of waster there. Other than the door opening all those walls are the same. So their uvs could all be on top of each other. Now you tex can be alot higher res 'cause you can stretch those uvs to fill the space, or you can use a much smaller texture.

 

But really the best way to do it would be just like you would in Radiant. Put one texture on the trim and tile it. Put the wall texture only on the polys that use wall texture. You could easily use a 1024x1024 map with wall tex tiled, and something like a 64x256 trim tex tiled.

 

Then another 1024 for the floor tiled.

 

Better yet you can add those textures to the repository so they can also be used on terrain, or you can use existing Darkmod texture to tile on your objects.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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No, making floors is not enough. Take my spiral staircase object for example. I had to make a prefab of the stairs AND walls for them to pathfind correctly, otherwise they started walking into the object wall and not pathfind up the stairs correctly. Of course the monster clip walls a much simpler than the object walls.

I've lost my acess to TDM resources and team forums, so I can not check these spiral stairs... But... what's the best method to build monster clip walls that would outline round surfaces (e.g. walls around spiral stairs or tower walls)? The one described in spiral staircase tutorial? (Unfortunately, there's no screenshots there now.)

Cartographer's Note FM: in production.

Download Old Comrades, Old Debts FM or Mistrz Effects demo and see my old projects!

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Hey Ren, good to see you. Where ya been? :)

 

You don't happen to have the old pictures from your circular stairway tutorial around, do you? Someone was asking about them just the other day.

 

Springheel! I've been spending my time goofing off and procrastinating, when I could've been doing something useful. How bout you? ;)

 

Oh, damn man. That was tossed a long, long time ago. I thought you had the pictures backed up and uploaded elsewhere, otherwise I would've kept it on my server for you.

 

It wasn't that difficult a thing to do. I could easily slap another set of pictures together if you need them badly enough.

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It wasn't that difficult a thing to do. I could easily slap another set of pictures together if you need them badly enough.

Well, it would be great. Especially for some rookie mappers. Like me. :)

Cartographer's Note FM: in production.

Download Old Comrades, Old Debts FM or Mistrz Effects demo and see my old projects!

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I've lost my acess to TDM resources and team forums, so I can not check these spiral stairs... But... what's the best method to build monster clip walls that would outline round surfaces (e.g. walls around spiral stairs or tower walls)? The one described in spiral staircase tutorial? (Unfortunately, there's no screenshots there now.)

 

I just made a cylinder, maybe 10-12 sides (My model probably has over 20 so it's nice and smooth),

and used the 'hollow' key I believe. Fine since no tex alignment is needed.

 

The bonus on modelling round stairwells is that you can wrap a tex around them really clean with no seams. If you make the stairwell in Radiant you have to align the 12 sides. If you hollow it then the sides overlap and it's almost impossbile to align them. You'd probably need to edit all the verts so they all match up and there is no poly overlap.

 

Of course models don't resize well.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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I hate being the bearer of bad news here, but I'm gonna be the bearer of bad news. I can't for the life of me remember how I did the floor you eventually transform into the steps.

 

So...can someone link me to my own damn tutorial?

 

In an attempt to save face and not look like a complete jackass, I'm gonna show off a window I did. NH has already seen it, along with some of the T3 guys. But I'm proud of it and want to show it off as much as I can. Now I just need to do more.

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Wow, that's very cool. Are you sharing? :)

 

Here's the wiki article: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php/Spiral_Staircases

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Wow, that's very cool. Are you sharing? :)

 

I will. But as-is, it ain't game ready. I used edge loops and subpatched the whole thing to soften edges, the shutters are a mess of unnecessary polys, and I have the texture map spread across multiple 2048x UVs, since I textured as I was building. I made this to look cool, not to be functional (though, ironically, I originally intended it to be the first mesh I imported into a game engine).

 

It'd be good for a working example, but nothing else.

 

 

Cool. When I get back later tonight, I'll start doing my thing and get some more pics up.

Edited by Renzatic
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The spiral staircase entry is missing images no longer!

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php/Spiral_Staircases

 

I'd prefer it if someone found a place to store the images. I've only got so much FTP space to play with, and this eats up a good little chunk of it.

 

You can upload them to the wiki directly, there is a link on the left side.

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php/...to_your_Article

 

Oh, and thanx for digging them out! :)

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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