Community mapping tutorial
by FruitBatInShades · in Artist Corner · 09/15/2004 (4:11 am) · 5 replies
I have been looking into mapping with quark and found a lot of problems encountered by newbies. I have solved many of them, thanks everyone, and am now compiling a decent tutorial on quark and torque.
Can people please post and info they think is relevant and any tips they have discovered, no matter how obvious or irrelevant they seem.
Can somebody answer any of these questions?
1. When is the new map2dif coming out and does it fix any of the common problems?
2. Has anyone got TGERad with instructions available for download as the site has gone.
3. How do most people work to avoid small leaks? Grids, tag and glue etc?
4. In what circumstances would you consider using 512x512 textures?
5. What is the minimum texture size that works correctly in torque (32x32 or smaller)
6. What circumstances would you use a detail brush? Interior walls, carpets or just for objects?
Can people please post and info they think is relevant and any tips they have discovered, no matter how obvious or irrelevant they seem.
Can somebody answer any of these questions?
1. When is the new map2dif coming out and does it fix any of the common problems?
2. Has anyone got TGERad with instructions available for download as the site has gone.
3. How do most people work to avoid small leaks? Grids, tag and glue etc?
4. In what circumstances would you consider using 512x512 textures?
5. What is the minimum texture size that works correctly in torque (32x32 or smaller)
6. What circumstances would you use a detail brush? Interior walls, carpets or just for objects?
#2
09/21/2004 (10:16 am)
By detail brush, do you mean static object? 
#4
3. angled connections work well. That is, where the wall and floor meet, you create 45 degree angles, rather than just setting your walls on top of a floor.
4. Once I figure out my dds loader troubles, many of my textures will be larger.
5. works well, or looks well? Unless Im trying to paint a wall a solid color, I wouldnt consider anything less than 64x64. My null texture is 32x32 though.
6. Anytime you know better than the compiler, how something should be split. Heh. A VERY basic rule of thumb; Anything that touches the middle of a face, should be a detail. Walls touch the edge of a floor, thus they don't qualify. A column in the middle of a room would, as you don't want the floor chopped up around the column. A support against the wall is a maybe. QuArK does have a pretty good built in test for details though. Turn your questionable brush into a negative, and let it carve the brush its touching. If it looks like a horrid mess, it probably should be a detail. If it looks reasonably well cut, it's probably better to leave it as a regular brush.
09/21/2004 (1:16 pm)
2. I have the original zipped archive. Where would you like it?3. angled connections work well. That is, where the wall and floor meet, you create 45 degree angles, rather than just setting your walls on top of a floor.
4. Once I figure out my dds loader troubles, many of my textures will be larger.
5. works well, or looks well? Unless Im trying to paint a wall a solid color, I wouldnt consider anything less than 64x64. My null texture is 32x32 though.
6. Anytime you know better than the compiler, how something should be split. Heh. A VERY basic rule of thumb; Anything that touches the middle of a face, should be a detail. Walls touch the edge of a floor, thus they don't qualify. A column in the middle of a room would, as you don't want the floor chopped up around the column. A support against the wall is a maybe. QuArK does have a pretty good built in test for details though. Turn your questionable brush into a negative, and let it carve the brush its touching. If it looks like a horrid mess, it probably should be a detail. If it looks reasonably well cut, it's probably better to leave it as a regular brush.
#5
Thats a leading question! My emails on my profile I think :)
Thanks for the tips guys, I am still looking for more ;)
09/21/2004 (3:45 pm)
2. I have the original zipped archive. Where would you like it?Thats a leading question! My emails on my profile I think :)
Thanks for the tips guys, I am still looking for more ;)
Associate Matt Fairfax
PopCap
3) Keep your "enclosing" geometry simple, use portal brushes correctly, avoid tiny brushes, and use detail brushes wisely to avoid creating a lot of small brushes, enable floating point output, and use a current copy of map2dif.
4) The more and bigger the textures, the slower things go...you will have to tune your textures to your needs, hardware, min specs, level, etc.
5) Torque doesn't have a minimum but some drivers/cards do. I generally stick with 16x16 as my min and have rarely run into problems.
6) Detail brushes should be used when overlapping brushes or touching brushes will fragment each other in the CSG pass. There is an excellent tutorial that shows images of this but I don't remember the url off the top of my head. You can also use the debug render modes for the interiors to check out the polys created by the CSG operations and look for problem areas (tiny or badly jumbled polys). Another general rule of thumb is that if map2dif barfs on you or if you are seeing odd light leaks you might want to consider converting one of your brushes to a detail brush.