Niborius on 3/3/2020 at 10:14
Hi,
So even though I've made 4 fan missions already so far, I still always struggle making exterior areas, mainly because of how air brushes work, but maybe I'm doing it wrong?
I make air brushes for different sections that make the layout of the city. But perhaps it is fine to use huge airbrushes instead and build the houses completely with solid brushes instead? I always feel like big airbrushes can result in too many cells or other problems.
What I face now is that I have one exterior area with a higher (taller) airbrush than other connected (touching) airbrushes, but it is a real pain to do the texturing correct then, because for example if there is a structure that uses the side of the airbrush as a texture, I can't give that side the Sky texture, so it will result in a giant wall instead (I feel like it's impossible to explain this so here are 2 screenshots)
(
https://ibb.co/K9Jwb9N) Wall texture
(
https://ibb.co/4T31qwj) Sky texture
Also looking through the Sky texture when there is a higher airbrush beyond it results in visual glitches.
Any tips?
john9818a on 3/3/2020 at 11:31
One simple way is to put a shorter air brush under the larger brush but with diminsions equal to the depth of the wall you want to make. The lower brush will be your wall.
Schlock on 4/3/2020 at 03:55
Building solid structures inside a big air brush is actually the method that tends to use fewer cells. That's one way that some of the larger TDP contest missions were able to achieve massive scale with tons of detail. Of course, unless you're making a gigantic and hugely detailed level the cell limit isn't a major concern and it's more important to build with whatever style feels best. So, don't be afraid to try that method out.
Niborius on 4/3/2020 at 13:06
Thanks both,
John's method worked in this example (it was simple enough but I guess I needed some sleep lol)
And Schlock that's also information I was looking for. Dromed and the engine has so many unwritten rules that I'm quickly afraid I do something wrong. I'm not making an extremely huge area but it does require some large brushes so I'm glad you told me this, saves me a lot of time.
nicked on 4/3/2020 at 13:26
It used to be a good idea to carve out streets and have the buildings formed from the negative space, because you could more carefully limit poly counts. With new dark that's no longer an issue.
Important to note that time plays an important role in cell counts - you want your large air brushes to be earliest in time with fine detail coming as late as possible.
