questions about map making

[Smapla]

okay first of all, i am reading tutorials, and searching these forums for similar topics. i'm watching the video tutorials by kirk that show the creation of an entire map, but i'm using gmax instead of 3ds, and trying to use GIMP because i can't download paint shop pro.

I'm trying to follow the first bit with 3ds max, using gmax. i'm stuck on the part with the material editor because the user interface is different from the 3ds interface in the video.

i'm sorry if i missed a similar thread whilst searching, but if i have, please refrain from simply posting "use search" and atleast give me some useful keywords to try.

[Btcc22]

In Gmax just hit the red ball on the right, select 'New' then 'Multi-material', and from then on the interface is basically the same for the rest of the material steps.

Good luck!

[Smapla]

thank you very much, i got through that step in the tutorial now

however, now i'm stuck on step four, the further refining of the map geometry. i don't have enough faces in certain areas to make the cliffs, some of them are supposed to be fairly narrow, or jutting straight out of the ground. how do i sub divide faces? i tried to use the tesellate tool but couldn't figure out how because every time i moved from vertex selection mode to face selection mode, the effects of the unwrap map disapeared, so the ground bitmap was all over the place

[CDK908]

or press m if u using default.

[L0d3x]

After having uvw-mapped some surface, right click somewhere on your geometry and select convert to editable mesh (yes again .

This should save your UVW map. And now you can proceed to use the tesselate tool!

[Smapla]

a couple more questions, sorry...

about how many units is a map like bloodgulch across? in the tutorial the final map he made was fairly small

i'm not sure how to do the first step correctly... the alpha layer for showing the ground textures through, specifically. how do you use multiple ground textures? (cliffs, dirt, grass)

the best way of altering the topology of an area, like when making a tunnel or bridge is by making simple shapes and connecting them, in the same way the bases are attached to the map?

thanks again for the help

edit:

okay i think i understand better now... unless you want the final map to have the hand drawn textures and such from the picture of the ground that you draw, you have to change certain faces of the map in gmax to different materials, and the different materials have the different textures. so the hand drawn map of the ground of the level is mainly for reference or if you're not worried about textures on the ground... right?

secondary edit:

i also seem to be missing this magical folder in the halo custom edition directory which this tutorial references. i don't have any sample bitmaps of textures, or a model of master chief or anything. this is making it fairly difficult to gauge sizes or be motivated when i realize the end product will be an incorrectly sized map which looks to be colored in with crayons... with blur effect

tertiary edit:

okay, i realized installing HEK puts all of these files in your CE directory, so i've got that now. the only problem is that all the models are for 3ds max, unopenable by gmax. i've tried to install 3ds max but i receive errors when attempting to even open the application.

[Smapla]

i double post for two reasons:

I have a new problem,
I believe people think that all the questions in the thread were answered, and for that reason are not opening it to check.

my new problem is that i can't use soft selection. i enable it, but it still only selects one vertex. here is a picture of what it looks like when i click a vertex after enabling soft selection:



i set all the settings to be the same as what i saw in a video tutorial which used soft selection

[goyanks135]

a couple more questions, sorry...

about how many units is a map like bloodgulch across? in the tutorial the final map he made was fairly small

blood gultch is about 200 world units at its longest. 1 world unit is about 100 3ds max units. 3ds max units are 1.2 inches. So blood gultch is about 20,000 3ds max units in length. I believe the standard unit for gmax is 1 unit = 1 inch. not that far off from the 3ds max units.

edit: I just checked and yes the standard gmax unit is 1 inch. This can be changed to match the 3ds max unit by going to customize on the top and clicking on preferences. Then under the general tab which should automaticly be selected, the first thing in the top left is scale. Just change it to 1.2 inches if you want to make it identical to 3ds max.

i'm not sure how to do the first step correctly... the alpha layer for showing the ground textures through, specifically. how do you use multiple ground textures? (cliffs, dirt, grass)

you make a multi-material and apply it to your map. Then when you select different faces you change their material ID to the material that you want them to have.

the best way of altering the topology of an area, like when making a tunnel or bridge is by making simple shapes and connecting them, in the same way the bases are attached to the map?

yes if you want to attatch a bridge or tunnel you would connect it just like the base in the tut.

i also seem to be missing this magical folder in the halo custom edition directory which this tutorial references. i don't have any sample bitmaps of textures, or a model of master chief or anything. this is making it fairly difficult to gauge sizes or be motivated when i realize the end product will be an incorrectly sized map which looks to be colored in with crayons... with blur effect

im sure all of that might be on http://www.halomaps.org and if you cant find it there try searching these forums or use google.

edit: most of those resources are found in the halo ce folder under
data\levels\test\tutorial. i think you were not looking in the right place.

okay, i realized installing HEK puts all of these files in your CE directory, so i've got that now. the only problem is that all the models are for 3ds max, unopenable by gmax. i've tried to install 3ds max but i receive errors when attempting to even open the application.

if you are trying to use the reference models go to http://www.halomaps.org and go to the halo ce section. Then scroll down and on the left hand side click on 3d models. Then keep searching until you find the reference models for gmax. Or you can do the search for reference models. They will specifically say if they are for 3ds max or for gmax. get the gmax ones.

edit: don't look at halomaps. I already checked and the only gmax reference model there is was a master chief, no vehicles. Heres the link if you want it http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=1958.
An alternitive would be to get TheGhost's GBXModel importer script and import the models into gmax through that. Here is a link:
http://ghost.halomaps.org/bluestreak/gbxmodel/. You must know how to use scripts because you are using gmax and the only way to export your map is through scripts. If you dont just reply and ill see if i can help.


and for your soft selection problem:
you must turn up the falloff. basically what the falloff is how far away your soft selection will affect your verticies. Right now it is at a low number, 20. you have no other verticies within 20 units of the currently selected one so there will be no effect. just turn it up to 100 or 1000 or what ever you want, i dont know how big your map is and how far apart your verticies are.

just ask if anything gets confusing about this post

[Smapla]

thanks very much, that answers all those questions perfectly except for one

my question about different terrains and textures was phrased a bit off, sorry

i realize how to make certain triangles cliffs, such as how they did it in bloodgulch, with the cliffs all rising sharply out of the ground, etc,

but my problem is i don't understand how to do the bits where the sand and grass textures meet up so nicely and fade into eachother. i think the solution is with the TIF image, not the material editor or assigning different material IDs

[goyanks135]

thanks very much, that answers all those questions perfectly except for one

but my problem is i don't understand how to do the bits where the sand and grass textures meet up so nicely and fade into eachother. i think the solution is with the TIF image, not the material editor or assigning different material IDs

as in bloodgultch, yes where the sand paths with the grass is done with the TIF image. You create a multi-layered shader (or whatever its right term is) with a primary bitmap (in the bloodgultch case, dirt) with a secondary bitmap over it (the grass).

Not sure about here sinse I have never created a shader like this:
You then create a black and white bitmap like with displace for the base map? black means secondary bitmap and white means primary bitmap?
this may be confusing, try opening the bloodgultch ground.shader_environment in Guerilla to get a better look how it works.

[Smapla]

sorry for not replying quicker,

thanks, i have a very vague understanding of how that is done now... not sure if i can replicate it though.

i have a new question though, about making models

in a lot of the tutorials i've been watching, such as making a human turret (tutorial by theghost) he created shapes that he didn't really attach... i mean, he attached them so they all moved as one, but they just intersected, like he put a cylinder through the three gun barrels

is this a good practice, or was he just speeding it up for the tutorial? does it not really matter that much in models? i assume it would be a bad idea to do this when making the base terrain

edit:
when making stairs... is it done such that the model looks like stairs, but the actual collision model is a ramp? or do you simply have to make stairs have a very small rise?

[goyanks135]

in a lot of the tutorials i've been watching, such as making a human turret (tutorial by theghost) he created shapes that he didn't really attach... i mean, he attached them so they all moved as one, but they just intersected, like he put a cylinder through the three gun barrels

is this a good practice, or was he just speeding it up for the tutorial? does it not really matter that much in models? i assume it would be a bad idea to do this when making the base terrain

you can do if for weapon/vehicle models. I think you can do it for scenery if you create a collision model. Otherwise it uses the gbxmodel you created by default for collision geometry. However, you cannot do it for terrain as it will give you an error. The level bsp and collision models must follow the "sealed world rules".

when making stairs... is it done such that the model looks like stairs, but the actual collision model is a ramp? or do you simply have to make stairs have a very small rise?

you can do either, but it is better to model the stairs and then put the collision ramp over it. It makes going up the stairs more smoother.

[Smapla]

now i've got a new problem... when watching these tutorials, people link everything to the frame, and the things appear in a hierachy... when i try to link things they just all turn into one thing. is this something i'm doing wrong or a gmax thing, or what?

the HEK tutorial explains how to make detached planes that will become ladders, lights, teleport shield bits, etc, but for things like lights, i don't understand how they emit light. does the ! suffix make it emit light similar to the material ID's color it has?

i'm using bluestreak to export the file as a jms... but when trying to copy all the code from the listener, it will only select a small portion. this means i have to select hundreds of pieces of the whole thing and paste them individually into notepad to get the whole file. this is very annoying, is there a way to increase the string length the clipboard copies?

thanks for being so helpful, i hope i'm not being too annoying

edit: okay, through searching i guess i need a program called grablistener. i guess chimp and other programs come with it, but bluestreak doesn't, so i have to search around a bit


secondary edit:

okay, first of all, it is not done, i'm just trying to do a half completed compile to see if the scales look correct in game, etc.

i exported as a jms, and keep getting open edges. i use the wrl file to find them, but when i look there, there aren't any odd faces or anything. i've checked from every angle, and hidden all the faces around it. when i try to select where the edges should be, nothing selects, not in any mode (yes ignore backfacing is off). the edges the wrl marked off are really odd too:


(many faces are hidden, sorry if it is hard to interpret
-also, the stretched looking face is just because i didn't re-UVW map it, sorry

the last time i tried to fix it i deleted the vertices it appeared to be attached to, but now it seems to have... moved to these new vertexes


how does one delete what one can not select?

[Smapla]

i've continued to expand my map, and yet every time i export it using chimp, i get random errors. after importing the wrl file, none of the errors seem to actually be there. it draws about four lines to random vertices. i deleted 3 of the four vertices (which should have removed all of the edges...) and it moved to the closest vertices remaining.

- no faces are visible between these 'edges' at any angle
- the select open edges button selects no edges
- turning off ignore backfacing and selecting the lines selects nothing

it takes like 30-40 minutes to export, which is why i'm sort of desperate for help, and not to just keep trying to delete vertices if i'm not sure it'll even help.

EDIT: okay, after making a box and trying to export that using chimp, and getting the same weird errors, i tried using bluestreak and that seems to work (on the box atleast, haven't tried my map). now however, i can't run radiosity (on the box map) in sapien. i think all my bitmap and shader tags are correct, and when i open the map in sapien i can see the sky, yet after putting in the commands radiosity_quality 0 and then radiosity_start, it displays "0.000000 0.000000 0.000000" immediately, without rendering the rest of the map.

[goyanks135]

EDIT: okay, after making a box and trying to export that using chimp, and getting the same weird errors, i tried using bluestreak and that seems to work (on the box atleast, haven't tried my map). now however, i can't run radiosity (on the box map) in sapien. i think all my bitmap and shader tags are correct, and when i open the map in sapien i can see the sky, yet after putting in the commands radiosity_quality 0 and then radiosity_start, it displays "0.000000 0.000000 0.000000" immediately, without rendering the rest of the map.

you also have to type radiosity_save

If your map still doesn't work but the box does, then there must be geometry errors or whatever tool says. Check for any open edges and last I checked, stand-alone verticies will give an error. And they can sometimes be hard to find. One tip is to select every vertex on the map and use the weld tool with a realy low number (.1 or lower). That will remove any verticies on top of each other and make it just one vertex.

[Smapla]

this box seriously is just a box, i made a box a couple thousand units wide and long, and like three hundred high. then i flipped all the sides, the top and side rectangles are +sky, the ground is just a plain green tif file (still can't make gimp apply an alpha mask to the image, so just colored it green).

it has eight vertices, 12 faces, it is linked to the frame.

i named all sky material +sky, and the whole multi-material skybox

the ground material is named after the bitmap TIF file, minus the extension (is this necesary? wasn't sure if it was just for organizational purposes)

i wasn't sure if i needed a shader or not since there i did not even care if a texture showed through on the ground, but i made one anyways with the grass texture as my primary detail bitmap.

in the video tutorial he didn't have to type radiosity_save to make the map show up, it showed up and then he typed to save


edit: okay, this is really stupid, but the problem was that the camera was below the ground level of my flat box level, so it just appeared that there was nothing.

but that annoying problem is random error edges being drawn around my map has come back, though only with this specific map, not with the test map. it seems to pick the three last vertices i've made or worked with and draw edges between those and some other random vertice. every time it is 4 vertices, and usually it spans from three which are relatively close together to a fourth which is far away

i have no idea what to do about that.

but yay, my box shows up now

[Smapla]

okay after just continuing to fix the weird error and having it come back, it eventually went away.

now i'm trying to run radiosity on the map in sapien. the numbers finally go to zero, and i type radiosity_save, and it freezes. does it just take a long time to write the .bitmap files or what? my map has extensive cave networks so i suppose the lightmaps may just be very complex, though it is only a quality of zero