They all say a picture speaks a thousand words, so let me cut to the chase:

I have labled the corners which I wish to line up.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r233/Flynn_bucket/Texturealignment.jpg

The problem is I cannot get them to line up all together. If I line one up the other goes out of synch. I remember why I used to choose textures without patterns now back in my early days of mapping.

EXAMPLE PICTURE

(You've been here way to long. Don't post a screen that big again.)

Try clipping the brush (trim) at a 45* angle or whatever your steps are at.

You are attempting to align a texture by clipping it 90* and mushing it against the other by tilting it.

Take A and A2- B and B2 and clipping them at a 45.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Excuse me dude, I changed the picture. Do you mean clipping the brushes? There is a problem with that because the brush I want the wall to line up with at the bottom of the steps is a door way brush so it is significantly thinner. Or do you mean trim them on a vertical axis like. And how do I find out what angle my steps are at?

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

Laughs

You didn't change the pic, just the location. :razz:

65k Example image again.

OK, the only thing that appears out of alignment is the trim portions. Break up the wall and make it so that the trim is the only portion that you are working with.

Then clip the edges, along the line I posted in my screen.

It will make your wall made out of more parts, but that should pose no problem.

Anywho, I know it will work, you need but clip it correctly to allow you to align it.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I really appreciate your persistance with this utter crap :smile: For me, this is the kind of problem which takes the fun out of mapping. It is the kind of problem that I forget about and then come back to mapping only to rediscover it. I have tried what you said with mixed results. There is a fair chance that I miss interpreted it. I have made a new picture and uploaded an example map. If I don't solve this problem I will have to avoid textures on sloped surfaces altogether which will be a disaster.

Picture:

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r233/Flynn_bucket/texturealignment3.jpg

Test map:



<DIV id=downloadurl style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 11px; COLOR: #ff7c0b; TEXT-DECORATION: none">http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3CCQQE7A</DIV>

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

growls deeply because I lost my post

I will post something later, after I cool down.

It was a long post too. :sad:

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Did you rotate the texture or did you use the sloped version of the texture (which, if I'm not mistaken) should exist.

If you did rotate the texture, I think what you are trying to do is a geometric impossibility. Diagonals are always broader than straight textures.

I'd search for a sloped texture, though ( plaster/plasterwall005e , I had Hammer open :wink: ). It is probably made for the standard (12x8 / 3x2) ratio of stairs in HL2 (you're using 2x1 stairs (or 8x16) from what I see in the screen). But if you piece bits of the sloped texture together it should work. It's quite a hassle, though.

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Why snark works.

Put something on the wall, like a lightswitch, sign, photo, broken plaster decal, conduit etc. It doesn't quite answer your question, but it would be a simple way to solve the problem.

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i eat paint

Here's my attempt:



That is the closest I was able to get it, and I think it looks quite alright. The texture lines up almost seamlessly but not without some tweaking.

Fist I made sure that each wall on either end of the slope were exactly the same height, and lined up on the grid (they were a bit off in the example). After that, I created a block (to be used as the sloping wall) and fitted it into place using the vertex manipulation tool. This makes sure that each axis of the sloping wall meets a vertex from the non-sloping walls, and if each non sloping wall is exactly the same height, and line up from the front view, then the slopes from each edge of the sloping wall should all be parallel allowing a texture to be rotated perfectly at some angle within them.

Having said and done that, I rotated the texture until It looked about lined up. But as you know, simply clicking the "up" and "down" arrows for the rotation box only gives so many increments, and in this case the increments were too large, so I began to type in the number in decimal places. It turns out the magic number for me was: 176.5



This allowed the texture to be seemingly perfectly perpendicular to the sloping edges.

In order to line it up with the other wall textures, I needed to resize the y value scale. This is a little more difficult because the texture scale boxes don't do decimal places in the thousandths, but yet you may still enter them and get a result. I put in the Y scale value: 0.238 (this was after attempting other values of course) and hit "Apply." Sure enough, the texture lined up with both ends almost perfectly, but the y scale value read: 0.24 When I tested it by punching in 0.24, the texture was at a different scale than it was when I applied the 0.238 Point: The texture scale box will round the numbers to the nearest hundredth after hitting apply, but you can increment your texture up by the thousandths. Also of note: after applying a new scale value, just simply select the "Bottom" justify button in order to see if it lines up or not.

That's how I got my results, if that was what you were looking for.

-Here's my edited version of your map in .vmf format: test_02.vmf

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

The only problem with tilting any texture is, you will always have a seem. If you don't put in some sort of a transition, it will always look wrong.

On the plus side, with the transition you can hide the fact that the tilt didn't exactly match up so it works out.

The example that Riven gives looks bestest, but it still falls short in the end.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I'm not sure if it's worth the effort, but Riven's solution is quite convincing. Nicely done!

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Why snark works.

Really dude people aren't going to notice it at all. In reality your not going to get it perfect unless you make your own texture.

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Posting And You

You can use Alt+Right click to align the textures as a shortcut around the rotation part, and it's a perfect match every time.

Then go straight to scaling the Y aspect (0.21 in this case, for a 2/3 rise/run)

And the people who have said that it'll never be perfect and most players don't run around scrutinizing the walls so it's of little consequence are absolutely right. Sometimes there are particular areas that need something extra or else they're extra ugly, and in those cases you can use a func_detail or func_illusionary as trim to hide the seam.

Obsessing over small details like this gets in the way of getting more important things done in the map, I know I'm guilty of it all too often. But really you don't need things to look absolutely perfect until you've already basically completed the map and you're polishing it toward a final build.

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o

Yeah, thats a really handy method, particularly for curves. I really recommend people give it a try if they don't already use it :smile:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

<DIV class=quote style="WIDTH: 90%; HEIGHT: 112px">
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quote:</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>growls deeply because I lost my post

I will post something later, after I cool down.

It was a long post too. :sad:

</DIV></DIV>
That is one of the worst internet related things ever I have a few extra techniques that I can use now, thanks to your fellow SnarkPit collegues

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quote:</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Did you rotate the texture or did you use the sloped version of the texture (which, if I'm not mistaken) should exist.

If you did rotate the texture, I think what you are trying to do is a geometric impossibility. Diagonals are always broader than straight textures.

I'd search for a sloped texture, though ( plaster/plasterwall005e , I had Hammer open :wink: ). It is probably made for the standard (12x8 / 3x2) ratio of stairs in HL2 (you're using 2x1 stairs (or 8x16) from what I see in the screen). But if you piece bits of the sloped texture together it should work. It's quite a hassle, though. </DIV></DIV>

Thanks for your suggestion. I have tried these textures in the past but they never seem to line up. They are for a certain degree of slope as you said, rather than being able to be applied to any slope.

As a result of this it seems that it would be necessary to have to build the geometry around the texture rather than applying the texture to geometry. I would not want my maps limited by what texture I could apply to them.

I couldn't piece bits of the sloped texture together because the slope the texture was designed for was steeper than my slope. What I have done so far with problems like this is make a transition (like a door way for instance) and then use a different texture afterwards. I am gonna try a work around this time.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quote:</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>

Fist I made sure that each wall on either end of the slope were exactly the same height, and lined up on the grid (they were a bit off in the example). After that, I created a block (to be used as the sloping wall) and fitted it into place using the vertex manipulation tool. This makes sure that each axis of the sloping wall meets a vertex from the non-sloping walls, and if each non sloping wall is exactly the same height, and line up from the front view, then the slopes from each edge of the sloping wall should all be parallel allowing a texture to be rotated perfectly at some angle within them.

Having said and done that, I rotated the texture until It looked about lined up. But as you know, simply clicking the "up" and "down" arrows for the rotation box only gives so many increments, and in this case the increments were too large, so I began to type in the number in decimal places. It turns out the magic number for me was: 176.5

</DIV></DIV>

I forgot I could use decimal places completely actually :shocked: The results are stunning Riven. Although it is questionable whether all that effort is worth it with a large scale map. Thank you very much for taking the time to help me out with this. I appreciate it alot that someone can put so much work into something for someone who they don't even know.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quote:</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Then go straight to scaling the Y aspect (0.21 in this case, for a 2/3 rise/run)

And the people who have said that it'll never be perfect and most players don't run around scrutinizing the walls so it's of little consequence are absolutely right. Sometimes there are particular areas that need something extra or else they're extra ugly, and in those cases you can use a func_detail or func_illusionary as trim to hide the seam.

Obsessing over small details like this gets in the way of getting more important things done in the map, I know I'm guilty of it all too often. But really you don't need things to look absolutely perfect until you've already basically completed the map and you're polishing it toward a final build.</DIV></DIV>

I think I performed a tiny bit of Riven's method using all of Baron Von Snicker's advice in a round abound way. Here is an illustration:

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r233/Flynn_bucket/texturealignment4.jpg

It is not a touch on Riven's method, but is however good enough for me as well as being fairly quick. It will most probably not, however, work on all sloped walls. Sorry about the dodgy font by the way, I don't know how to get rid of that.

Here is the .vmf for anyone who finds my illustration confusing:



<DIV id=downloadurl style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 11px; COLOR: #ff7c0b; TEXT-DECORATION: none">http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U44EXU8O</DIV>
Lastly I would like to thank all the lads who offered their advice and suggestions. I had to leave this topic untouched for a couple days due to problems with my internet connection which seem to have sorted itself out oddly enough; but I had a nice surprise when I revisited the topic in the form of very nice and in depth replies :smile:

Mapping is very often a lonely world and when one encounters a problem such as this it is enough to destroy a person mentally without the help and support of fellow mappers. I have probably forgotten a load of things which I will no doubt annoyingly come back and add later if I remember :wink:

P.S., I hope the post you lost wasn't as big as this Orpheus, for yours and my sakes both :eek:

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

it's good that you found the answers you needed.

and it's also funny, but not so good, that you marked your own post as the correct answer, taking the succulent snarkmarks with it. :biggrin:

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i eat paint

Its not wrong to mark your own answer correct, if you did in fact solve your problem, but this looks like a direct copy/paste of candymans reply.

I know my answer would work too, but expect no correct blue with it since it wasn't the one he chose to use. However, the other guys all need marked correct whom he copy/pasted.

/2 cents

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Well, as long as the next person looking for a solution can discover this thread and find the answer that works for them, I'm happy. Isn't that what matters?

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202