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Texture creation
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 Re: Texture creation
Posted by Bruce on Tue Sep 23rd at 5:09am 2003

English isn't my primary and it's kind off early in the morning so read carefully. hehe

Lets get to the point shall we.

I'm currently working on a map which needs custom textures, so I borrowed a digital camera and shot some pictures of walls and floors with it.

The only problem is that I don't know how to create the texture so that it perfectly aligns.

Here is an example of a floor a fotographed:


Now how would I make this texture align up? I've tried searching snarkpit tutorials for "texture", I thought I saw one there but I think it got removed. I also searched the collective, nothing there neither.

Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks.





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 Re: Texture creation
Posted by GrimlocK on Tue Sep 23rd at 6:17am 2003

Well, that is actually a complicated question, it really depends on what software you have for editing images.   Do you have photoshop?   If so what version do you have?   If not, what software DO you have?



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 Re: Texture creation
Posted by Mor7y on Tue Sep 23rd at 6:26am 2003

ok, you go into Wally, and open your picture. go press Image (the menu bar at top (Think it's how to explain it))

and press Adjust Canavas Size. Then press auto16 in the little window that appears. Now you mark the whole picture, and press ctrl+c (copy) and you press Wizard in the menu-bar, and then WAD Merge.

In the new window you choose Create new WAD.
Then press go.

In the next window, you right-click, and you press Paste as new.
THEN you save the wad in half-lifevalve , and WOOPS You got a wad file with one texture  You can also open an existing wad, and add more, or just add more the same way you do with the first one

Then I'll wait for some answer, and hope i get it correct



If this is wrong, i misunderstood your question

[addsig]



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 Re: Texture creation
Posted by GrimlocK on Tue Sep 23rd at 6:39am 2003

I think he is actually asking how to make the edges wrap/tile correctly when placed in the editor Mor7y.  

I use photoshops filter>other>offset filter to move the image slightly while wrapping the pixels, this exposes the edges that would have created the ugly seam when tiled in game.   The best way to do this is to offset 1/4th of the over all dimension of the image, then press crtl-f to repeat the filter, further offseting the image and drawing more of the seam away from the edges.

You can use a number of tools and techniques to create a seamless texture and to remove the "seam", thats why it can be complicated to explain when you don't know what the other persons experience is.   For example Bruce, if you have photoshop do you know how to use the stamp tool, healing brush tools, selection tools, copying, pasting, layers, masks yadda yadda yadda.   A person could easily write an entire chapter of a book in how to create a seamless texture.

(kind of an answer, if you know photoshops basics, use the offset filter)





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 Re: Texture creation
Posted by Bruce on Tue Sep 23rd at 4:13pm 2003

I should have added that I do use photoshop for it. And I was using the offset filter (and then I removed the seams with the clone brush), but I just couldn't seem to keep the texture like the original photo.

I do know the photoshop basics but if you got just explain your technique a little bit more I think I'll be able to make seamless textures.

Thanks.





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 Re: Texture creation
Posted by ReNo on Tue Sep 23rd at 4:16pm 2003

Ah the joys of Uni - I just rented a book that covered the process in quite a lot of detail a few weeks back...pity the rest of the book (in particular the chapters on level design) was laughable.

But I'm afraid I didn't commit it to memory nor learn it properly, so I can't be of much help here. Good luck with it

[addsig]



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 Re: Texture creation
Posted by Bruce on Tue Sep 23rd at 5:39pm 2003

Well I kinda used my own technique and created this:





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 Re: Texture creation
Posted by GrimlocK on Wed Sep 24th at 3:31am 2003

It seems that the pattern repeats itself in a very noticeable way, there is no seam but it is pretty clear that it IS repeating.

You have a lot of variation between crisp and blurry, I'm betting you used one of the blur/smear functions to get rid of part of the seam, you should almost always avoid blur and smear functions when creating textures.   There are rare times you will need them but I stress RARE.

I think you have the right idea, you just need to practice and play around with the tools.





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 Re: Texture creation
Posted by half-dude on Fri Nov 14th at 7:36pm 2003

Hey how do I make pictures from a digital camera a texture in wally?

I know your probibly going to say "the import button"

the problem is that I dont have one, I only have a export.

Plus, how do I change the format of the picture so its a HL texture format?

[addsig]



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 Re: Texture creation
Posted by fishy on Fri Nov 14th at 7:58pm 2003

? posted by half-dude

Hey how do I make pictures from a digital camera a texture in wally?

Plus, how do I change the format of the picture so its a HL texture format?

read what Mor7y posted. or go here

Bruce, wally also has tools to let you tile textures. i've never used them myself, so i dont know how good they are. but they are there.





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 Re: Texture creation
Posted by Cassius on Sat Nov 15th at 8:32am 2003

Tiling is not that great of a problem, depending on what place the texture has in the map.

The texture with the highest tiling priority is probably a cliff - applied over a large, nearly vertical area, if you have a poorly tiling texture on this, it's easy to see.

The kind of texture you need to worry about least in terms of tiling is a wall. If you have a flat, long, tall wall, so large that the repitition of a texture is noticable, it's a problem with the map, not the texture.

A ground texture, which I assume this is, does not have to tile well unless the map has a large vertical importance (ie players would be in a position to look down and see the ground).

The tiling nature of a texture is determined from what angle it is probably going to be seen. Take this, my young grasshopper, from the Zen Master of Texturing himself.

BTW, the texture itself is very low quality, not showing much in the way of real recognizable detail, bland colors, and you can see the jpeg compression.






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