Terrain Alpha Blending

(sock) #21

The second texture has to have an alpha channel. Just copy the alpha channel on the snow texture to the grass texture and it should work ok.

Sock
:moo:

(MadMaximus) #22

you shure thar rgoer and sock are not the same person? they seem to come on the same time =P

aye… its the alpha channel… i bought psp7 off a friend who went onto photoshop for his ‘finals’ and have been trying to werk with it ever since.

i checked the alpha chan in psp, and compared it to the regular textures in et, turns out the et texs have no alpha. and with psp it’s hard to make alpha’s with a bright channel… my friend ( whom i pestered ) is doing the alpha’s in photshop for me.) but with a little tut from him, i’m learing the ways of psp… have to make alpha’s… but thanks to both sock and rgoer… the new style terrain is a little more effort but easier in the end… make terrain like u want it to look… and not goverened by the preset x,y values of old terrain. =)

(sock) #23

Yep, that is exactly why the new terrain system is worth having a look at. It allows for new and different terrain styles.

Sock
:moo:

(mcm151201) #24

Well, of course I’m a total noob compared to all this stuff you guys are talking about… but when I make terrain I pretty much just make a bunch of cubes and move each vertex to make it look like terrain… hehe- what’s wrong with just using that? And again because i’m a total noob I have pretty much no idea how to understand/write/use shaders… any1 got a good tut?

(Gringo Starr) #25

Sock, that does look mighty impressive. More power to ya if you have a clue how to do it.

(MadMaximus) #26

i’m more noob than most! but i’m learning, slowly

nothing at all, the old system of making terrain is still valid, but the additions to making terrain that ydnar has done open’s up a new approach on how things can be done. from rgoers last post, you can see that it can be applied to not just terrain. with some creativity and experimenting you can do some cool looking blend’s on different type of brushwork, for example from a different post in this forum someone mentioned a sphinx they needed… well you could brushwork one up, but now u could also blend in some windswept sand appearance on it also, across the feet and curves where you would want that effect… and so on.

if your looking for a good tut on shaders, i found that claudecs lair is an excellent place to find most things, and check this thread for a lot of other helpful sites to visit.
http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1710

http://www.claudec.com/lair_of_shaders/

(Gringo Starr) #27

Is this terrain beyond current capabilities? I’m not busting chops, I wonder if this would be too ambitious for anyone, let alone me :slight_smile: I would imagine it could be done, but you wouldn’t also be able to play the map.

(rgoer) #28

I don’t think that would be as difficult to create as you think it would be… just start drawing it out on paper, most of the work could be done by creating some really decent ruined-pueblo textures. Those structures are made of really simple shapes… just make some brushwork buildings and convert them to .ase models for good rotation. The terrain itself doesn’t look so bad, either–it’s just a canyon, right? This definitely looks like a job for Sock’s template method, though… heightmaps don’t do so well with generating undercuts. Although, I guess you could use the heightmap as a reliefmap and then just rotate your picoterrain up on its side… hmmm, gives me an idea… ;^)

In any case, after christmas Ydnar’s gonna have a new q3map2 that features a new spawnflag for misc_model entities: “spawnflags” “4” will be auto-lightmapping for models (huzzah!)–so “6” will be auto-clip and auto-lightmap. Start working on your buildings now, so you can have your pueblo .ase files ready and waiting!

Edit: if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you can grab a development build of q3map2 (that features the above-mentioned improvement) from http://akiba.shaderlab.com/GtkRadiant/install/ (you’ll need to grab some of the .dll files from that directory as well… just fire up q3map2.exe without any .dlls to see what it bitches about, then grab them one by one until it runs without complaint).

(hummer) #29

:banana: :banana: :banana:

(kat) #30

that’s the only way you can make undercuts using terrain generators, but you’re still faced with ‘boobies’; undulating surfaces that can only got up/down, in/out, quite boring imho…!! :smiley:

(sock) #31

There is really no tutorial on shaders just the manual.

http://www.qeradiant.com/manual/Q3AShader_Manual/index.htm

Also creating landscapes by vertex editing some cubes/triangles is fine too, but eventually you will want to do more than rolling hills and valleys.

Its not about more power, its about passing on the information so that other people can find out the cool features as well. Often these things are over looked and not generally known about.

Nope, it will certainly will be more realistic with some good textures thou! Vertical terrain is something I wrote a tutorial on. Link is at the top of this thread in my post. (Rock tutorial)

Sock
:moo:

(sock) #32

Some more variants with terrain decals this time …


Sock
:moo:

EDIT: Had moved the images, links updating

(MadMaximus) #33

sock, you should post a test.map with shader…
oh, and MERRY FISHMUS!!!
if we were on irc i’d slap u wit a fish =)

(Ifurita) #34

So the question that no one has asked yet is, “test map? Is this going to grow into a new map for ET?” If so, woo hoo. If not, why not? :clap:

(sock) #35

It was going to but xmas has got in the way, so I’m just experimenting with test maps again … more screenies …



Sock
:moo:

EDIT: Had moved the images, links updating

(MadMaximus) #36

TEST MAP!!!
you got it made…
post it
=P

aye…
that soldier looks sad there… nuthin to do… he stands on a piece of rock with nowhere to run to…

=P

(sock) #37

I’ll try and tidy up a test map for boxing day. Really want to use it in an idea, but dont really have the time.

Sock
:moo:

(MadMaximus) #38

er… ok, i get yur point…
sumpin that’s brewin and u want it to be special, i know that feeeling… as a lot of us do…

i got sumpin special also… hope it get’s off the ground…

actuallly, between what you have shown and what rgoer and ydnar posted, it should be self explanitory, i’ll give it more time when i can afford it. i pulled myself away from mapping to try it, and it’s been a pleasant diversion, as everyone needs a break =)
if your going to use it more, lets all hope its in some SD ET additional map, as i can’t see doom3 benefiting from it =)

(sock) #39

More images from my test map … the abbey is not mine, reworked and stolen from a RTCW map.




Sock
:moo:

(Shai) #40

DROOLS
As always, nice work Sock.