New Wiki Article

[BEAR]

I decided to redo the terrible tower I had with a nicer one using patches, and since there was no article on it already I decided I would make one. Its pretty rough, and mostly information that most people know, but for someone just coming into TDM it might be nice (might save them from doing what I did). I figure if we can have an article on everything, all the better.

 

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

 

I hacked it together this morning and didn't plan out my screenshots very well, I thought there might be some way to do thumbnails in the page but I didn't see a way immediately, and since the images are kind of big (1024x800 or something) I just put links rather than making the page impossible to read.

 

As always, feel free to add or edit anything. I redid what I had already done once while writing it to make sure I was doing it right, but its a first draft and could probably use some editing.

[greebo]

As for the wiki images, this is the markup for displaying images smaller than the uploaded original:

 

[[Image:Creating_Tower_step1.jpg|400px]]

You can also create floating images (to let the text flow around the image), by adding this:

[[Image:Creating_Tower_step1.jpg|400px|right]]

although you need to place the [image:] stuff before the text paragraph which should flow around the image.

 

Also, by putting this at the end of your article you can put it into the categories "Editing" and "Tutorial":

{{tutorial-editing}}

It's a macro which basically includes the standard category tags:

[[Category:Editing]] [[Category:Tutorial]]

[BEAR]

Thanks Greebo

 

I was intending to look into that after I got home from lunch, I assumed it was possible but the help page didn't talk like it was. It's example for having smaller thumbnails was to use imageshack to host the bigger file or something odd (which I was fairly sure I didn't need to do).

 

As I work on the tower I'll maybe keep updating it so it doesn't look so bland.

[Ishtvan]

That looks really good. I would also be interested in what the best way is to set up a sky portal when inside the tower, so that you can have transparent windows, but they look out on this sky portal surface that is a low-poly representation of the whole map around the tower, rather than actually looking out on the whole map around the tower.

 

I'm imagining a cylinder going up outside the tower that is textured with the sky portal texture, and then once the player gets inside the tower, teleport the skyportal camera to a low poly model of the map, then you could move the camera up as they move up in the tower.

[BEAR]

Holy crap, that's a great idea. I never even thought of doing it like that. I'm going to try and clean the tower up and actually use it in my other map to replace my dismally bad one, and when I do I think I'll play around with that.

 

I've already got a portalsky in the map, so I'll have to play with moving it around or something using a trigger, but that is an awesome idea.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a portalsky be more efficient in general even if you placed it directly in your map? Since the perspective can't change, does it not make rendering the image a lot easier than if you actually had a hole to look out? I'll have to play with that, if I do manage to do that it will be added to the wiki because that's too freaking cool.

 

edit: re-reading your post, I'm not sure it would be easy to have transparent windows since I can't make holes in the tower because its made of patches (unless someone knows a good trick). Could I not have windows that instead of glass have a portalsky texture themselves? I could possibly put a piece of distorting clear glass over it to make it look more realistic?

[SneaksieDave]

BEAR, see the Other References section at the bottom of our wiki article on patches. The first link is a tutorial which is excellent to show advanced manipulation and building with patches, simulating the ability to split them.

[BEAR]

Ah, that was helpful. Thanks Dave.

 

I remembered seeing stuff like that around and was wondering to myself "How did they do that again?". I like to think I've gotten fairly proficient with patches at this point, but there are a lot of things I have to think about before I can do them. I think I should just be able to split an area just wide enough for a door, but I don't think I'll bother making that many window holes.

 

I've kind of abandoned see-through windows for the most part anyways. I might create 1 window that the player can see out overlooking the church and leave it at that and not worry about making a bunch of them.

[Ishtvan]

edit: re-reading your post, I'm not sure it would be easy to have transparent windows since I can't make holes in the tower because its made of patches (unless someone knows a good trick). Could I not have windows that instead of glass have a portalsky texture themselves? I could possibly put a piece of distorting clear glass over it to make it look more realistic?

Yeah, I think the windows could have the portal sky texture, so they wouldn't actually have to be holes in the tower patch. Although it might be a little weird having windows with no thickness to them. I'm not exactly sure how sky portals work, but I thought you could slap the texture on anything.

[BEAR]

Problem is (assuming I can make it look non-weird having a sky projected right into the windowframe), if I had multiple windows, it would be hard to make them not all show the exact same thing. If I wanted the camera to be right outside the window pointing at something so that you could see it from the inside, all the windows would show the same shot.

 

If it were just a skybox shot, I don't see that would be too much of a problem. It would give the illusion of being able to see through the window without the performance hit, but it would be a tricky endevour to be sure. It might be a nice thing to use once here and there for effect, but probably not all the time.

 

Your other idea of making a portalsky cylinder outside the tower would probably be more effective at having a fully windowed tower, but that would make the initial tower construction tough, but not impossible. With proper planning I believe it could be done. Probably build the tower in sections, breaking for gaps the size of the windows at regular intervals. I kind of like the idea of having the windows follow the stairs in a spiral, but that would be a right pain (if they are to be see through).

 

Regardless of whether I do any of this, you've given me a good bit to think about. The deeper you go in mapping the deeper you realize you can go (like many things it seems), you have expanded my mapping universe, I hope you are happy!

[killhour]

I'm at school, so I had to draw this up with the GIMP. Hope it's understandable.

 

 

If I needed to make a tower with windows, I'd definately go with brushes. I can think of two easy designs off the top of my head, depending on whether you want windows on 4 sides, or 8. If you need to put a skybox over the window, put it in a shallow dome facing the window, and add nodraw to the outside, so you can still see inside the tower from the ground.

[BEAR]

I imagine it is quite possible to make a good tower out of brushes. My first attempt was pretty miserable, but it was about the first thing I really tried in DR.

 

The problem is, even if you make a really good tower, it is a lot of work placing windows and making holes for them that don't cut the tower up into a trillion pieces. I also think that windows are probably over-rated. After going through visportal hell and coming out the other side, I'm a little less fond of transparant windows than I was at the beginning. They make visportaling a fucking bastard, and generally reduce performance.

 

As stated here, I've found a window trick that I rather like that I would use in the tower, but its not nearly important enough to warrent the work it will take. Someone might take 1 look at it and move on and I might spend days trying to get the windows working. I can see that real windows are a luxury to be used sparingly when it benefits gameplay. I kind of always wanted to build real things, something the player can explore with all the properties of a real place, but that's just not always possible.

 

Plus, I wanted to make a lighthouse, I just didn't know how to do it before

[Komag]

...real windows are a luxury to be used sparingly when it benefits gameplay. I kind of always wanted to build real things, something the player can explore with all the properties of a real place, but that's just not always possible.

 

 

Exactly, this is main crux of the matter. Building a whole city with long straight streets and zillions of real windows and hundreds of people milling about and rats and cats and horses and carts moving about around one another is all something that we'll just have to keep on dreaming about for quite a few more years.

 

Right now we just have to work with what is doable and possible today, and we artistically "represent" a sort of reality that hearkens to actual reality but doesn't try to brute force replicate it. Fake windows, well done, can be an important part of that artistry.