Saucer on 9/1/2017 at 19:27
Hi all,
I'm new to DromEd, so please bear with me. I started blocking out my first FM (another mansion mission, would you believe it) and have thus far created a "utilitarian shell." What I mean is that I blocked out the shape of the mansion, then hollowed out the interior halls and rooms, but there is absolutely nothing else. No lights, room brushes, AI, fancy texturing, objects/models, etc.
My question is this: Is it supposed to take me FAR longer to decorate the interior than it took me to build it or am I doing it wrong? The interior is all either marble or wood floors, a single purple wallpaper texture for the walls, wood doorframes and those wood squares for the ceilings. If I'm not mistaken, the only way to add those decorative gold/wood panels on the bottoms of walls is with a new brush, correct? The same with carpet?
Also, how do you all rescale textures so perfectly? When I try to do it, it always seems as if they're way to big or way to small, with no in between. And no matter how much I manipulate U and V coordinates, things like those ceiling squares or marble tiles NEVER line up.
Am I missing something? If I release an otherwise fun mission with some glaring cosmetic defects like these, will it detract from the fun?
Cardia on 9/1/2017 at 20:05
Hi Saucer, its good to have New mappers. To be honest doing interiors and decorating can take as much work or more as working the outside the building. If you want convincing results you have to be patient and place as much devotion as possible to every feature of the mission, or at least bet more on some features, since its hard to be good in everything do more efforts to your preferences. Personally i prefer to explore and play through well constructed and detailed areas than through maps done by rush , one results in a satisfying experience while the other results in a empty experience . Being your first mission i presume you can't wait to reach the phase to release it, but take it slowly and when you realize you are already releasing it.
Yandros on 9/1/2017 at 21:36
Welcome! Great to see new folks here, especially fellow southerners (unless you're a displaced Yankee living in Alabama).
Quote Posted by Saucer
Also, how do you all rescale textures so perfectly? When I try to do it, it always seems as if they're way to big or way to small, with no in between. And no matter how much I manipulate U and V coordinates, things like those ceiling squares or marble tiles NEVER line up.
One big key here is to realize that, depending on the scale of your texture, your surfaces need to be multiples of 2, 4 or 8 to make the textures "fit" nicely so you can align them exactly to either end of the wall/floor/ceiling. If your room is 15x17.5 then it will be very difficult to make the textures align well, but 12x16 will be much easier.
Daraan on 9/1/2017 at 22:36
Well just like it is in real life building a house can be done fast and after 2 years there is still stuff undone inside^^ So pretty normal I assume.
At least it seams that you - unlike me - even with a detailed hand drawn plan - didn't run into a space problem when I stared to go inside. To much space here and not enough elsewhere. After 1 Year I finally found some motivation do work on it again but yah I'm not sure about the solution I will use at the end.
Just keep going mate
john9818a on 10/1/2017 at 04:24
Quote Posted by Saucer
My question is this: Is it supposed to take me FAR longer to decorate the interior than it took me to build it or am I doing it wrong? The interior is all either marble or wood floors, a single purple wallpaper texture for the walls, wood doorframes and those wood squares for the ceilings. If I'm not mistaken, the only way to add those decorative gold/wood panels on the bottoms of walls is with a new brush, correct? The same with carpet?
That is typically how it is done. One brush is used for the wood panels and another is used for the texture above the wood panels. This way each texture can be aligned independently of each other. It is very obvious if a wood panel texture repeats, so in a total floor to ceiling height of 10 dromed units I make the wood panel brush 4 dromed units and 6 for the brush above the wood panel brush. With some textures like the plain marble or stone it is trivial if the texture repeats because there is no apparent pattern like you would find in the wood panel texture. Since the wood panel brush is 4 units high it would be advisable to make the width and depth of that brush a multiple of 4 so that it can be aligned neatly on all walls.
Saucer on 11/1/2017 at 03:13
Thank you all for your help and encouragement.
Quote Posted by Cardia
Being your first mission i presume you can't wait to reach the phase to release it, but take it slowly and when you realize you are already releasing it.
Haha you're right I really can't wait. But I'm going to try to make this a 3-mission series and release it all at the same time, so there's unfortunately going to be plenty of waiting! :tsktsk:
Quote Posted by Yandros
Welcome! Great to see new folks here, especially fellow southerners (unless you're a displaced Yankee living in Alabama).
I am actually a displaced Yankee. :eek: But after eight years I hope I'm tolerable!
And I see about the textures. I wish I would have taken that into account. Oh well, I'll do the best with what I have (I guess I'll make liberal use of crown molding! lol)
Quote Posted by Daraan
Well just like it is in real life building a house can be done fast and after 2 years there is still stuff undone inside^^ So pretty normal I assume.
At least it seams that you - unlike me - even with a detailed hand drawn plan - didn't run into a space problem when I stared to go inside. To much space here and not enough elsewhere. After 1 Year I finally found some motivation do work on it again but yah I'm not sure about the solution I will use at the end.
Just keep going mate
Thanks. I actually drew up the building in SketchUp first to get the exterior proportions right, then went into DromEd armed with a calculator and a notepad :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Quote Posted by john9818a
That is typically how it is done. One brush is used for the wood panels and another is used for the texture above the wood panels. This way each texture can be aligned independently of each other. It is very obvious if a wood panel texture repeats, so in a total floor to ceiling height of 10 dromed units I make the wood panel brush 4 dromed units and 6 for the brush above the wood panel brush. With some textures like the plain marble or stone it is trivial if the texture repeats because there is no apparent pattern like you would find in the wood panel texture. Since the wood panel brush is 4 units high it would be advisable to make the width and depth of that brush a multiple of 4 so that it can be aligned neatly on all walls.
Thanks for the tip! I'll be sure to "reform" my modeling methods lol
PS: In a few months, maybe a year or more, you all may just be playing a certain fan mission series that may or may not be about "supernatural involvement" with a new player in The City's criminal underworld :eek::eek:
Yandros on 11/1/2017 at 04:00
Sounds great, I look forward to playing it someday! And I'm a southerner living more in the Midwest (Ohio valley), so I hope I'm tolerable up here now too. I've been here 20 years though.
Another thing that can help you with the texture alignment stuff, especially on walls. If the context warrants them, put square columns in the corners as architectural details, which also hides the seams in those corners and you don't have to worry about aligning the textures. Large objects like armoires can also reduce the noticeability of seams by blocking much of them. Columns also along the walls of a larger room help to break up the run (and can also hide changes in texture), as well as provide dimension and depth, and placing light sources in such recesses does wonders for the lighting and mood, not to mention providing invaluable pockets of shadow for the player and improving gameplay.
Honestly players aren't typically all that hung up on this stuff though (compared to us), so don't kill yourself over making everything look perfect. Most will generally either ignore or forgive stuff like that if the story and gameplay are solid.
One more $0.02 of advice to a new builder: Set a radius on every light source. Many archetypes in the base gamesys have an infinite radius by default, and you need to set it manually as you place them. Not only does this create the distinct areas of light and shadow which are critical to good gameplay, it also keeps your lightmap calculation time from ballooning quickly.
Independent Thief on 11/1/2017 at 15:29
Colored lighting can really help affect the atmosphere of an FM as well once you start setting up light sources.:thumb:
Saucer on 12/1/2017 at 04:36
Quote Posted by Yandros
Sounds great, I look forward to playing it someday! And I'm a southerner living more in the Midwest (Ohio valley), so I hope I'm tolerable up here now too. I've been here 20 years though.
Another thing that can help you with the texture alignment stuff, especially on walls. If the context warrants them, put square columns in the corners as architectural details, which also hides the seams in those corners and you don't have to worry about aligning the textures. Large objects like armoires can also reduce the noticeability of seams by blocking much of them. Columns also along the walls of a larger room help to break up the run (and can also hide changes in texture), as well as provide dimension and depth, and placing light sources in such recesses does wonders for the lighting and mood, not to mention providing invaluable pockets of shadow for the player and improving gameplay.
Honestly players aren't typically all that hung up on this stuff though (compared to us), so don't kill yourself over making everything look perfect. Most will generally either ignore or forgive stuff like that if the story and gameplay are solid.
One more $0.02 of advice to a new builder: Set a radius on every light source. Many archetypes in the base gamesys have an infinite radius by default, and you need to set it manually as you place them. Not only does this create the distinct areas of light and shadow which are critical to good gameplay, it also keeps your lightmap calculation time from ballooning quickly.
Quote Posted by Independent Thief
Colored lighting can really help affect the atmosphere of an FM as well once you start setting up light sources.:thumb:
I'll be sure to pay close attention to the light.:thumb: And in the final part of the FM there's ample opportunity for funky colors :cool:
Zontik on 12/1/2017 at 13:19
Quote:
If I'm not mistaken, the only way to add those decorative gold/wood panels on the bottoms of walls is with a new brush, correct? The same with carpet?
You can use objects for carpets. They are quite good to be scaled or rotated.
Quote:
Also, how do you all rescale textures so perfectly? When I try to do it, it always seems as if they're way to big or way to small
If you use New Dark (there is not any reason not to use it), you can use decimals in scaling textures: not 13, 14, 15 only, but 13.05, 14.36 or 16.22 - as you wish. Plus vertical and horizontal scale can be different.
It's a powerful tool, use it!
