Map Editing

by Goetzenzar on 01/05/2002 19:30, 4767 messages, last message: 05/05/2023 08:39, 3527187 views, last view: 04/30/2024 06:07

Welcome to the map editing saloon:
here u can post ur screens, maps, comments, questions and answers about mapediting, and meet other ppl for coop-sessions online :)

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#2783: Douze

by makkE on 05/13/2007 23:04

Here it is for Sauer:

http://makke.snieb.com/douze_beta_1.zip

Have fun !!

http://www.quadropolis.us/node/615

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#2784: Re: Douze

by Passa on 05/14/2007 11:40, refers to #2783

Yay makkE is back! Douze looks awesome :)

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#2785: Re: Douze

by rock.n.rol_w/o_cookie on 05/14/2007 12:20, refers to #2783

just perfect. ;)

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#2786: Re: Douze

by Drakas on 05/14/2007 20:07, refers to #2785

What I said ^^ ;-]

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#2787: Converting terrain from Terragen or World Machine

by terrain_mapper on 06/02/2007 22:43

Is there a way to either import or convert an existing grayscale Height map or normal map picture like is used with Terragen and Wilber, so it can be used to generate the terrain elevation map data for use in either Cube or Cube 2?

I want to import the height data, sort of like is done in this tutorial for Unreal
http://www.silveribex.com/mt/archives/000046.html

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#2788: Re: Converting terrain from Terragen or World Machine

by Acord on 06/03/2007 05:04, refers to #2787

Nope. Not right now.

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#2789: new here...and have questions

by Mr. Fusion on 06/06/2007 16:37

Hi.
Nice Engine. Funny to use this ingame Editing feature. I'm not that big skilled mapper but I always had much fun to play with the old BUILD Engine Editor for Duke 3D. The only Editor I could handle XD. Good to see, that such kind of "in level editing" still exists. :)
I just explore the editor and tried some things here and there. Its a nice invention this "Octree" stuff. It has its own limitations but Limitations make me creative. ;)

While editing there are some questions came up in me, maybe the pro's here can light up my mind a little bit:

-The first big missing in the edit mode (maybe mentioned 1000x here before me so excuse) was a simple Rotating/scaling/align function for textures. Do I really have to use a config for such things? Because I usualy like work with existing stuff, searching, seeing, trying... I usualy have no clue, which texture I like to use next so I would need to rotate EVERY texture in ALL directions via config...and you can imagine how much Textures this would produce. ;)
Its just taken ages yet to load all 10 Texture pages of the default Texture sets (1.1 GHz Athlon XP + GeForce3 -don't laugh XD) I could reduce the pre loaded textures I think but with the rotated versions even a small ammount of textures would multiply.

-Is there a function to build "right" looking circles, round corners etc.? I have seen some impressive maps with a big ammount of looking rounded edges, args etc. Is this all done by hand - cube for cube via eye-mesurement?
Or is there a short way to build such structures?

-I have trouble to edit cubes hidden particly under other cubes (texturing, deforming etc.). I know I can hide cubes with shift but they tend to appear on the wrong place when releasing the key after editing the other cube. How can I select every cube even when he is not standing full "free" ?

-Elevators. I miss them. Yes, jumppads are a great invention but a non-scifi map with jumppads looks some kind of wrong. There could be a cool function for "movers" like in the (not that bad) Unreal Editor(s) This function also could be used for every moving object like doors, platforms etc.
Maybe building some cubes and group them (group-feature needed) or use a pre build map object and define them as movers in the same easy way like we deffine water, glass, clip etc. Then tagging the new mover with a simple start- and end-entity - done. :)

-waterfalls: they look a little bit ugly at the moment. Maybe it's because of my Geforce 3 but my buddy could confirm, with his 8800GT, it's looking ugly to. I'm not htat big GFX fetishist but at least the correct connection between waterfall(side) texture and moving water(top) should be possible.

-oh, and do Cube2 support decals? Shoot-marks, banners, "Texture over texture" etc? Every 2D stuff I mean. Wired fences to (alpha 2D sheet) I think some things are better not designed with a full 3D cube as base.

So, thats it for now. More questions to come maybe, please don't shoot me for this ^^""""

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#2790: Re: new here...and have questions

by shadow,516 on 06/06/2007 22:33, refers to #2789

1: Different rotations for textures do NOT require them to load more than once. Yes, it is a pain to define them all in your .cfg, but that is the price we pay for simplicity, eh?

2: Trial and error, and a load of patience are needed here.

3: Shift does NOT hide the cube, it does a cut and paste on the selection, effectively moving it.

4: This has been talked about ad-infinitum. We're still waiting for a good system ;)

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#2791: ..

by Mr. Fusion on 06/06/2007 23:14

Hi,
Thanx for the awnsers. Yes, simplicity is one big feature of the engine. I think rotating a texture ingame wouldn't break this principe. Just one another "Button+Mousewheel" function for the editor. Rotating a texture in 90° steps would be enough. ( I wanted to make a smooth ground path like in the RPG maps until I found out, that standard texture Sets don't include the rotated versions of the grass/path textures ^^" )
I could live without ingame scaling feature I think . :)

So, there is no Arc Function. Much morte impressive when I study some great maps in Sauerbraten. (For a German like me, the Name of the game sounds familar by the way...XD)
Here, my first Map, just a little Bridge, contains my own special free-hand archs... I think I can live with it. And I think this will be my last bridge. ;) I needed some time to find a solution for the round rain-sewers (yes, they should be round...and smaller but it was the smallest, roundest hole-Thing I could do with this kind of Engine. Smallest Cubes used of course... maybe my whole bridge could be a little bit bigger. ->
http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/1286/bridge1kg1.jpg

Shift is cut? Ok this makes sense XD. I always copied+deleted. I was sure there was an cut function to. :)

Waiting for a Good system? ^^" Movers, decals or Waterfalls? Ok, I'm sure, this has talked ad-infinitum. I vote for movers first. ;)

Question: can I give a ent (jumppad for example) a negative value with the sliders in the ent-properties menus? (tabulator) The Sliders there start with 0 and only going positive. So I need to torture the commandline for negative values. (looks funny when the negative value then is outside of the properties window XD

And last question. One Map Object looks like a sentry Gun. Is this thing able to fire somehow? Remembers me on the Half-Life Sentries or the cool variable shooter Sprites from Duke3D :) With this Gadgets you can have much fun in a Map. :)

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#2792: Re: ..

by Aardappel_ on 06/07/2007 02:28, refers to #2791

I did a lot of quake level design before I created Cube, and my thinking behind not having texture alignment functions (besides it making the UI and texture application process so much easier), is that in quake, you can easily spend double the time texturing that you spend building geometry, often thanks to the clumsyness of alignment.

This made me design newer maps where I would create geometry grid aligned in such a way that textures would automatically be aligned. My time to create a map halved, and they looked much neater too, thanks to more thought being put into where geometry is placed. Being into simplification and leaving out superfluous features, I made this method the standard in Cube.

Alignment is like a cancer, once you allow yourself to build some unaligned geometry, it will spread thruout the map.

Nowadays, I certainly do not want to go back to adding alignment features, because additionally it has resulted in great efficiencies for the engine, for example the fact that we can set tangent space globally, rather than per vertex. We use WAY less memory for geometry than comparable engines.

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#2793: Movers

by Conor K Peterson Reversed on 06/07/2007 07:01

My thoughts on movers:

The mover could be considered a material (not completely though)


You would make a platform floating in mid air

then, you would type /mover # (# is the movers tag like a teleport)

below the mover, we would do /newent moverstart # (# is tag)

and above, /newent moverend # (tag)




I think this would be very easy to do. and it wouldn\'t matter to much if there was no shadow.


Heck, if some cubes were tagged with mover, then they would be ignored during lightmap creation.

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#2794: Re: new here...and have questions

by Acord on 06/07/2007 15:20, refers to #2789

"-I have trouble to edit cubes hidden particly under other cubes (texturing, deforming etc.). I know I can hide cubes with shift but they tend to appear on the wrong place when releasing the key after editing the other cube. How can I select every cube even when he is not standing full "free" ?"

Hold down the alt key when selecting cubes, and it will always select the one you are pointing at.

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#2795: ..

by Mr. Fusion on 06/07/2007 17:03

alt key -checked! :)
Ok, I think now I have thr most common keys in Mind. Easier than the BUILD Editor with his zillions of key-combinations. :)

@Aardappel: Hi, so you are the big cheese behind everything here, nice to meet you. :)
Yes I know what you mean. Complete Texture alignment can kill whole days. I don't meant this by the way (my english is not that good, sorry ^^) I thought more on just a simple rotating routine in edit mode so I can adjust a Texture 90°, 180°... rotated if it is needed. And maybe a simple option just to fit one Texture to the Size of one cube if needed. So everything still would be without manual alligment. :)

I don't know much about the Quake Engine, never mapped with it. Some years ago I tried the Half Life 1 Editor. Nice but the whole rendering system can kill nerves without end. I tried Unreal ED to, nice editor and interesting edit system with this "cutting Holes from one big solid map substance" But I scared to death when I found out, the most Map Components in Games with the 3.0 version of Unreal ED are not build with the Editor. (And I spended hours to try to build a round tube with unrealed like I have seen in UT2003 maps XD )
So without 3DS MAX /Blender Skills you are lost there.
Cube Engine needs Mapobjects to but they are not that importent for simple maps I think.

Really a good Engine this CUBE/Cube 2 thing. Sadly, the Yeti3D Engine (cube based, runs even on a GBA) seems to be death, so a Port for my beloved GP2X Handheld is more unlikeley.

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#2796: Re: ..

by theW4, finally can post again on 06/08/2007 00:07, refers to #2791

I like the bridge and everything, just try using the hightmap tool on the bank. Also, is that just your screen shot or does your water look like shit.

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#2797: Re: ..

by slider on 06/08/2007 00:30, refers to #2778

what command do you use in the cfg to allow md3's penetration of bullets

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#2798: ..

by Mr. Fusion on 06/08/2007 17:28

@ theW4
I have to practise with this heightmap tool. Don't look at the crappy area around the bridge. ;) Sadly, CUBE2 has no function for smooth inter-blending of 2 different textures like the newer Unreal Engines for ground, so bottom/ground, hills don't look that good, if you want to use 2 different textures.

Uh, I think my water looks OK for my taste. I just have a Geforce3 and I have to be lucky, that this thing can do a little bit of reflection/Shader-effects. ;) (waterlod=2 ) Sadly CUBE2 needs a DirectX 9 Card for effects, other Engines can sow me with just DX8, but I can live with this. Yes, I really need a new PC. When I have 20-50 FPS in some Maps, my buddy has 100-170 FPS with this Engine (and his 8800GT). we compared the Map "thor" for example

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#2799: Textaaaraarar problems..

by Passa on 06/08/2007 18:07

I was screwing around with parallax normal mapped textures and used some of the lunaran ones as an example to make my own. However.. once in-game:

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/2650/weirddk8.jpg

Here is a link to the original texture (with normal map etc):

http://www.willhostforfood.com/files/118683/texture.zip

Any idea how it ends up looking so.. uh.. strange? :P

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#2800: Re: Textaaaraarar problems..

by Acord on 06/08/2007 22:08, refers to #2799

Try reducing the contrast on your parallax(Z) map and smoothing it a little. Noise on maps bad.

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#2801: Re: Textaaaraarar problems..

by Passa on 06/09/2007 01:00, refers to #2800

Hmm, I created a very subtle normal map for it and while it improved, it still looks very rippled and distorted.

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#2802: Re: Textaaaraarar problems..

by kurtis84 on 06/09/2007 01:44, refers to #2801

It's not the normalmap doing that, it's the heightmap. Parallax shader will just multiply any noise in the heightmap to the point of distortion.( as Acord mentioned )

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