Beginner Mapping Stuff
Supernorn
Best. Picture. Ever. Made. Ever. Join Date: 2002-11-07 Member: 7608Members, Constellation
Best. Picture. Ever. Made. Ever. Join Date: 2002-11-07 Member: 7608Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">mmm..time for me to get started again</div> well, ive been inspired by all the *quality* maps, lately.
and so ive decided to get my tools out again, and begin the nightmare that is.. NS Mapping.
ok...these are some pretty important questions that i would like to hear the answers to:
fill me in on the light entitys, when you place them, they are textures, but from what i know you have to give them the colour and intensity in the .txt document. Am i correct in saying this?
How long does it take on average to compile a map? i estimate at least a few hours..maybe five or six?
When mapping, i was confused as to how big the textures were meant to be. (you can alter the size and so on)
what would be a recommended lengh and width of a texture?
Would i be right in saying that an info_player_start entity is the same height and width as a player model?
and so ive decided to get my tools out again, and begin the nightmare that is.. NS Mapping.
ok...these are some pretty important questions that i would like to hear the answers to:
fill me in on the light entitys, when you place them, they are textures, but from what i know you have to give them the colour and intensity in the .txt document. Am i correct in saying this?
How long does it take on average to compile a map? i estimate at least a few hours..maybe five or six?
When mapping, i was confused as to how big the textures were meant to be. (you can alter the size and so on)
what would be a recommended lengh and width of a texture?
Would i be right in saying that an info_player_start entity is the same height and width as a player model?
Comments
2)How long does it take on average to compile a map? i estimate at least a few hours..maybe five or six?
3)When mapping, i was confused as to how big the textures were meant to be. (you can alter the size and so on)
what would be a recommended lengh and width of a texture?
4)Would i be right in saying that an info_player_start entity is the same height and width as a player model? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
1) THere are actually two light emitting entities. There's the textures (begining with a + sign) and then there's the actual placeable entities (light, light_spot, and light_environment). I have no idea how you edit the texture's properties. The latter three entities, however, can be edited through the properties screen of each respective entity. For instance, to change a light_spot's colour/brightness, right click on the light_spot in any 2D view, select properties. A window will popup, scroll down until you find Brightness, then click on it. there are 4 sets of numbers seperated by spaces. Clicking select colour brings up a colour selection window much like Paint's. Select what colour you want, or mix your own using the sliders. WHen you have the desired colour, hit ok. The FOURTH number set is your entities' brightness. That you simply overwrite with whatever value you want. 25 being almost impossible to see, 200 being quite bright. Play around with it until you get the desired effect.
2) Depends on the size of the map, how many brushes there are, number of entities, etc, etc. There is no real standard time. Some can take a few minutes, others a few hourse, in very VERY slim circumstances, some can even take a day. (NS maps wont. The ones that take a day usually take up every inch of editable space.)
3) Textures can be any size. Just make sure they are multiples of 16. Lemmie see if I can do a chart here for you.
Width is along the top, height is down the side.
==16|32|64|80|96|112|128
16
32
64
80
96
112
128
Uh, yeah, so this doesnt seem all that useful now that I look at it, but you can use it to determine some possible texture sizes. Keep in mind, you can higher than this, although I don't think the HL engine will recognize anything larger than 256, could be wrong.
4) Yes. Crouching height is about half that.
16*3...16*4
16*6
16*12 and higher
Thoose are just perfect for Jumping Marines, evolving in vents, crounching and walking onos...
If compiling time is above 6hours you have some big problems (map errors, to less ram).
Normally 1-6 hours is the abolute Max for a full compile with average detail.
try to keep the texture scales on 1x to 3x (most times ~2x).
Larger texture scales decreases lightdata, max Texture memory (limit is 4mb , make textures smaller and scale them) and R_Speeds (less polygons). Too large texture scales (and texture scale changings of neighbour textures) make the flasklight look ugly (when no texture scale is disabled).
Scalings below 0,2x and above 10x cause RANDOM MAYOR erros and waste lightdata!
<a href='http://countermap.counter-strike.net/Tutorials/tutorial.php?id=48' target='_blank'>Counter map tutorial on lights.rad</a>
#2 answered well.
#3 texture usage:
several matters to consider: texture memory used, clairity of texture, Wpolys and r_speeds, patches.
<a href='http://www.slackiller.com/tommy14/tex-dimensions.htm' target='_blank'>this is a summary in this tutorial</a>:
1. smaller textures use less memory. you can get 4 textures of 128x128 for the price of one of 256x256.
2. NS limits you to 4M of mem for textures for OFFICIAL maps. custom maps are more up to you.
3. clarity - stick to "powers of 2" edge dimensions for textures made/used. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256. other multiples of 16 can be used, like 48 or 96 - but they will look poorer.
4. wpolys/r_speeds - you usually get less wpolys if you stretch UP a texture 2x to 4x. above 4x you have to mess with things like maxnodesize, and the textures look bad anyway. <i>the orginal texture size does not affect wpolys, only the amount of stretch does!</i>
5. patches - stretch also makes patches bigger=less. <i>but the -sparse flag for RAD usually solves that the max patch problem anyway.</i>