Well I wonder a lot about source textures...
Anyone know something about that?

Basicaly Should a wall be made in the same way as today but
just in bigger size, like a 256 wall with windows and doors would just be scaled up to 512, obviously a better resolution but
made in the same way, with doors and windows on it?

Any info would be apriciated.
Thanx

AFAIK basic "requirements" are 24-bit TGA with alpha channel, no larger than 2048x2048.

i think with the capabilities of the source engine, i would be disapointed if i saw a 'building texture' with flat windows and a door painted on it. Looking at cs:s i reckon all the doors and windows will have their own textures and brushes.

Originally posted by Darkwing
i think with the capabilities of the source engine, i would be disapointed if i saw a 'building texture' with flat windows and a door painted on it. Looking at cs:s i reckon all the doors and windows will have their own textures and brushes.

I saw some screenshots where the building's windows were just flat textures, but the scene was pretty high poly.

You can also do a lot of good stuff with normal maps. No need to model every little detail.

Ok, so I recon there will be a bit of the old style of texturing
in the new game then.

Originally posted by Craftos
AFAIK basic "requirements" are 24-bit TGA with alpha channel, no larger than 2048x2048.

Craftos, do you know of any tuts on using alpha channels,
I havent tried that before and it sounds a bit "french" to me...
(French is a nice language, I just don't understand it..)
;)

I think that mask layer (256 gray color representing transparency) can act as alpha channel for image. Then you can export it to desired TGA.

Ok thanx,
will play around with things and see if I understand it.

in my experiences with hl2 ive seen things like flat textures of buildings but the windows reflect light and things like that ;) remembering rspeeds still have to be looked after in HL2, there are too many mappers that think wow HL2 we can go nuts with our mapping now - from what ive seen not true. Yes you can go beyond what we have known with HL1 thats a given and yes you can make larger areas and more complex brushwork, yes you can have a higher poly count but the basics still apply and personally i feel for the people with not so great pc's who have to deal with 20FPS because i was once one of them. The textures in HL2 are more enhanced to minimise the use of extra brushes imho darkwing, being so realistic and giving a more 3d feel - we will see what people think when they go nuts and create a map that renders like poo *cough*doom3*cough*

AFAIK every texture is material (VMT) and every material can be made from combination of:
- texture (of course)
- normal map, displacement map
- texture shaders (that's how reflections are made)

On older hardware last two things can be emulated using closest available effects like bump mapping, environmental mapping, cube mapping, etc. Probably engine decides how to show closest possible effect.

Interesting stuff...
Is it somewhere on this forum you've got the information?
Or is it more like something you pick up from different HL2
webbies?
I would like to see if I can pick up something to somewhere...:D

I play CSS every now and then, just to get the feel and dreaming
of Dod S, and have seen as you say that some windows are
like seperat models and some are just textures with windows
on them, guess thats because of what you wrote Random, rspeed's.

But the alpha channels stuff is interresting,
someone with the nowledge should make a tut somewhere....
:carrot:

I'm hoping HL2 will use shaders - similar to Quake 3 maybe?

You would create a shader texture by mixing and matching various textures and alpha channel effects, then just apply it like a normal texture on a brush.

I dabbled with this on Q3 when it first came out and managed to knock up a pretty convincing Stargate ring using an animated shader texture for the water on the event horizon doo-dah. I also used an animated shader on the walls of the room to simulate the blue caustic effect coming from the gate illumination.

Water in HL2 looks really good, so I reckon its done this way.

I did have a piccy of it (still wading through masses of garbage looking for it). If I find it I'll post it up.

Pix

yes eric :/ HL2 does use shaders look up the e3 2003 video and you will see them show you what can now be done.

in my experience bump mapping just unwanted lagg, when it comes down to it i personally dont care how a map looks - just how it plays, anyone who actually plays in clans ever seen a roof while warring? ive spent years looking at what counts and one day i thought id look at some roofs and to my surprize they were very basic and i didnt care. Now i can prettymuch dismiss that people play dod for its stunning looks because quite simply it doesnt have any, when it comes down to it - will you really care if something reflects light or is more 3d looking?

i wont, ill care about the task at hand and my FPS.

Originally posted by spine
Interesting stuff...
Is it somewhere on this forum you've got the information?
Or is it more like something you pick up from different HL2
webbies?

Something like that. SDK will be out soon after release so, everything should be clear in a month.

Eric:
HL2 will be able to use even more powerful 2.0 shaders, but I don't think mapper will be able to add new ones to DoD:S. We'll see.

I disagree with you Random,
I think it will imerse people more in the experience when playing.
It helps to give you a feel of ww2.
If attention to details and correct textures where not
as high as it is in dod you would not really get the
feel of the game as it is today.
You could just as well play any other game then, but since you
choose to play dod it's a lot because of the way it looks
and the arena it is in.

Even though you might not think it affects you, it does.
And with the new possibilities I think that it's going to
become a much more important factor for you to.
;)

Spine is 100% correct.

Over the years, DoD has been steadily improving the subtle elements that give a good map that immersive atmosphere.

Why would the mod people go to all the bother of introducing fog, transparent models, realistic textures, interactive entities (like exploding walls) and a shed-load of other goodies if THEY didn't consider them really important to the gameplay.

DoD plays like a real-world army exercise and the map must provide a wealth of hiding places, firing positions and routes from place to place. No decent map can work without these elements and the more realistic the map, the better the gaming experience. If roofs and other out of the way areas are less detailed than other bits of the map, its probably because they wouldn't be seen up-close during normal play.

That said, there will be no more textures from me in DOD:S :carrot: At least no new ones.. (and I doubt they'll keep the old ones)

What? Why not?
(Hmm, and I thought you where deep into things at Dod HQ!)

Heh, well I was.

But I work full time in games now and my contract prevents me from working for a competitor. So yeah.

That and I doubt I can work on two games at once... one during the day, the other at night :P

Originally posted by kleinluka
Heh, well I was.

But I work full time in games now and my contract prevents me from working for a competitor. So yeah.

That and I doubt I can work on two games at once... one during the day, the other at night :P

That's too bad. You can't even if the game itself isn't a direct competitor? Or, are you working on a WWII-based or FPS game?

Can't go into detail on that.

An other restriction is my work permit cause i can only work for one employer while in canada.

Now i don't know if this includes working for companies out of country and freelancing for them, but better to be careful with these things.

Anyways,
maybe I'll be back sometime later.

Well, I think its great you got such a wonderful job! :)

But, DoD will miss your talents!

is it oPeRaTiOn gReEnLiGhT?

share us some secrets. and good luck with that... or whatever game you're working on. Your name will live on in dod folklore and map credits for a long time.

How's Ubisoft luka? ^_^

Originally posted by Darkwing
is it oPeRaTiOn gReEnLiGhT?



HAHHAHAhhaha
No.



Silverghost's right on the money. It's going well, but I'd like to do some WWII stuff sometimes.... even though I got sick of that many months ago lol... it's starting to itch in my fingers again =)

awww i got owned :(

Well Luka, maybe you could do some in your spare time
(If you've got any that is), I mean as long as it's hobby based
and free, it would be ok I guess, just to satisfy your urge...:D

From Verc:

Does Half-Life 2 use WAD files for textures, like Half-Life 1?

No. You now apply materials to surfaces instead of textures. Materials (VMT files) can refer to a number of textures (bump maps, base textures, environment maps, etc) which start out as TGA files and are converted to textures (VTF files) via a custom tool before you can use them in the game. Textures and materials are not compiled into WAD files anymore. They are stored as individual files in a materials folder. Optionally, they can be stored in a file system inside a ZIP file. You can embed these ZIP files directly into BSPS if you want.


I'm getting old...now I have to carve out a place in my brain for all this new stuff...I can see many sleepless nights ahead...

Originally posted by kleinluka
...I'd like to do some WWII stuff sometimes... it's starting to itch in my fingers again =)

Well, if your contract won't allow working on DoD, you can still play DoD, right? ....and COJ is open late now, every night of the week!

Originally posted by FuzzDad
...I can see many sleepless nights ahead...

Does Mrs. Fuzzdad know about the coming storm????

THat sounds very complicated Mr. Fuzz, maybe I should
throw in the towel, me to old for this to...:D