I'm frustrated
by Mario N. Bonassin · in Artist Corner · 08/26/2005 (8:36 pm) · 7 replies
Is there anything on the net that will explain how either CShop or quark is supposed to work. I was having problems with quark so I bought Cshop+pipeline and I'm still having the same problems. I thought it would be easier to figure out but it seems to be harder. anyway all I want to do is make a simple room and export it and put it in torque but I'm alway getting these errors:
Light map too large: 258 x 4 (where max is 256 x 256). You have a brush that is too large, or your light map scale value may be too small.
and I can't figure out what the hell they are talking about. First off brush seems to have a completely different meaning then it does in most other art programs like photoshop.
are brushes the object itself ie a box? or is it each face or triangle or whatever?
Are the learning curves for these programs supposed to be this high? I learned how to do complicated things in many other programs, like photoshop and 3ds max quite quickly on my own.
So I'm a bit frustrated right now wondering if I just wasted 80 some dollars.
Any help would be appreciated.
Light map too large: 258 x 4 (where max is 256 x 256). You have a brush that is too large, or your light map scale value may be too small.
and I can't figure out what the hell they are talking about. First off brush seems to have a completely different meaning then it does in most other art programs like photoshop.
are brushes the object itself ie a box? or is it each face or triangle or whatever?
Are the learning curves for these programs supposed to be this high? I learned how to do complicated things in many other programs, like photoshop and 3ds max quite quickly on my own.
So I'm a bit frustrated right now wondering if I just wasted 80 some dollars.
Any help would be appreciated.
About the author
#2
32x32
64x64
128x128
256x256
the above being the most common.
08/26/2005 (10:51 pm)
I don't know too much about DIF to be honest, but typicaly your supposed to use power of 2 square textures. Particularly common in CSG type editors.Try making your texture square and power of 232x32
64x64
128x128
256x256
the above being the most common.
#3
In these cases brushes are indeed the objects, i.e. the boxes and other convex geometry elements that CShop and Quark offer. Your problem might arise from very large geometry, i.e. a combination of several brushes that result in a lightmap that is too big. Try scaling down your geometry, maybe even try it with a simple and small box at first and iterate from there. Another thing to try is actually what the error messages says: enlarge the light map scale value. This value is contained in the worldspawn entity (in Quark it's the root node of the tree on the left border of the window, select it and change to the property window at the same spot, it's just another tab). Just double the value to see if it works (the value needs to be a power of 2 I believe).
Lightmaps acutally contain the static lighting information of yout geometry, it's calculated by the converter (map2dif) and saved in the .dif file. To do that, it uses your geometry, light entities and the light map scale value (the smaller the more details in the lighting). So large geometry results in large light maps, which eventually get too large.
I hope that helps a least a little.
08/26/2005 (11:30 pm)
Hi Mario,In these cases brushes are indeed the objects, i.e. the boxes and other convex geometry elements that CShop and Quark offer. Your problem might arise from very large geometry, i.e. a combination of several brushes that result in a lightmap that is too big. Try scaling down your geometry, maybe even try it with a simple and small box at first and iterate from there. Another thing to try is actually what the error messages says: enlarge the light map scale value. This value is contained in the worldspawn entity (in Quark it's the root node of the tree on the left border of the window, select it and change to the property window at the same spot, it's just another tab). Just double the value to see if it works (the value needs to be a power of 2 I believe).
Lightmaps acutally contain the static lighting information of yout geometry, it's calculated by the converter (map2dif) and saved in the .dif file. To do that, it uses your geometry, light entities and the light map scale value (the smaller the more details in the lighting). So large geometry results in large light maps, which eventually get too large.
I hope that helps a least a little.
#4
The term Brush is a bad description of what they really are (you can blame John Carmack for that one). A brush is a convex 3d shape... the most basic one being a box, but it extends to shapes like cylinders, cones, wedges in cartshop. Your maps are built from placing these brush shapes together into larger structures.
Your error message is probably occuring because you're building a crazy huge brush in your map. Keep in mind that a doorway would be 40 x 74 cartshop units for the default Torque Orc character to fit thru it. I suspect your building things way too large. Look in the bottom part of the cartshop window for the size of the brush your creating.
08/27/2005 (4:13 pm)
@Mario - Yea some of the terminology could be better explained. I'll look to add some more into the help file about some mapping basics, but frankly it seem that almost no one reads the help file for Pipeline.The term Brush is a bad description of what they really are (you can blame John Carmack for that one). A brush is a convex 3d shape... the most basic one being a box, but it extends to shapes like cylinders, cones, wedges in cartshop. Your maps are built from placing these brush shapes together into larger structures.
Your error message is probably occuring because you're building a crazy huge brush in your map. Keep in mind that a doorway would be 40 x 74 cartshop units for the default Torque Orc character to fit thru it. I suspect your building things way too large. Look in the bottom part of the cartshop window for the size of the brush your creating.
#5
Hope this helps as cartshop is a great program.
08/27/2005 (5:53 pm)
I keep a box as a prefab that allows me to see the actual scale of a player, I have received that error before when I made a bohemith parthenon. In order to solve it I broke each superhuge block up into 4 smaller blocks and then I didn't get the lightmap error.Hope this helps as cartshop is a great program.
#6
I hope to see the 256x256 limit for lightmap pages be lifted soon.
08/27/2005 (5:56 pm)
David makes a good point. The lightmapper only complains with the "Light map too large" message when a single face of a brush is too big. If you break that brush into 2 or 4 smaller brushes that take up the same space that will usually fix the problem.I hope to see the 256x256 limit for lightmap pages be lifted soon.
#7
08/27/2005 (8:13 pm)
Thanks for all your comments, today I went back and played around a bit more and I think I'm starting to get the hang of things. Knowing that the size of a door is about 40x74 will help a lot. as well as the idea of breaking up large walls in to multiple sections, I think that will make a big difference. 
Torque Owner Benjamin Bradley