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ANybody making any level geometry with TS?
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ANybody making any level geometry with TS? // Game Development
Post by KeithC // Mar 19, 2009, 9:27am
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KeithC
Total Posts: 467
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Just occurred to me the other day that making your levels in TrueSpace would be a time-saver, as you could flip into "FPS" mode and actually walk around in it, tweak it, walk around some more. An excellent advantage, rather than importing it into a game engine, then trying to tweak things, then repeat...
Especially with Workspace's near game-like environment. :)
-Keith |
Post by TomG // Mar 19, 2009, 9:33am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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I agree this would be very useful - and with a shared space, a distributed team could meet together, inside the very level they are designing, and make adjustments in real-time, modeling and editing together.
This should cut down the cycle time involved in editing the level, compiling so you can see how it would look in game, editing the level, compiling, etc. Now you just edit edit edit, and when ready export to the engine to compile, and hopefully no unpleasant surprises. Add in the collaborative aspect and that's a plus.
I also see this could be handy for modeling objects for a level, maybe a vehicle or creature that is specific to a level. You can actually model it inside the level it is destined for. Level designer and character modeler could meet in shared space, so that the modifications could be two way, the character could be changed to fit the level while the level was changed to fit the character.
I think a lot of time could be saved there :)
Thanks!
Tom |
Post by KeithC // Mar 19, 2009, 1:24pm
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KeithC
Total Posts: 467
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Absolutely; especially with FPS games where you want to create choke points or ambushes...but can only see if that particular "sniper nest" has a good field of fire or not....while in 1st person perspective, versus looking at it from the top down. |
Post by nigec // Mar 20, 2009, 2:28am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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Even simple thing like gaps, steps, inclines could be tested first.
the game I'm doing isn't first person but I can walk around the room to see the scaling is right, if It was possible in TS it would make a lot less work switching and re editing |
Post by tatts // Mar 20, 2009, 8:11am
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tatts
Total Posts: 145
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I've thought about using GS for level editing before. Never did though for a couple reasons.
first is the texturing, direct x only supports one texture per object, so like deled everything would need to be created from simple primatives.
If I have a texture made up of multiple tilable textures, And i created a house from a single object. Is there a way to tile the texture in TS to make up a brickwall based on a 512 squared area of a 1024 texture that has 4 tilable textures to it? not sure i explained that right. if so that would take care of my first problem.
second is how the editing in gamespace was. I've tried using the snapping tool, but was a little confused with it. However this was when i first started with caligari products though, I just havent tried it sinse. I've always used simple world editors like Deled for this.
Lately though I have been thinking more about it, Main reason....Unlike Deled / 3d world studio and cartography shop, with truespace you can model according to real world measurements..such as working with inches / feet and so on. Sad thing is I just recently learned you can model using measurement rather than units,, I never did click on that little red arrow in the model side object info box before. :rolleyes: well as they say better late than never lol.
If i can tile textures as mentioned than it would be a great source for level creation i think. I also did not know you can go into an FPS mode to examine your level with TS that is nice to know and will have to look into it. :) |
Post by Jack Edwards // Mar 21, 2009, 2:42am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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UV mapping is what you are looking for tatts. ;) |
Post by tatts // Mar 21, 2009, 8:29am
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tatts
Total Posts: 145
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"UV mapping is what you are looking for tatts."
Well yeah and no, to actually UV map a complex house structure as a whole would not be very feasible. your not going to get the same LOD as you would if you were to tile the texture as in a csg editor. I do have an idea of how I could do it, but either way I think about it, my texture would need to be pretty big to make it work through uv mapping. though you could do it by breaking the house up into several parts and just have several uv maps. But then it's really no different then using a CSG editor. Which is probably easier for this sorta thing.
Using a CSG editor such as Deled I can tile a texture that has 4 bricks high by 4 bricks across leaving me with a nice high res looking wall. This sparks an idea, I never did try texturing a TS model in Deled, will have to try it.
Im thinking that if i uv map a wall in TS, and I have multiple tilable textures in one. the wall texture would need to contain the proper amout of bricks from top to bottom for it to work right. I don't know enough about TS UV mapper to know if i can tile a texture just by using a portion of a large texture. I usually use ultimate unwrap for uv mapping. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Mar 22, 2009, 7:04am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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You can scale the UV mapping for the wall to tile the texture. The only limitation you might have to watch out for is if the exporter tries to fit the UVs into the 0.0-1.0 texture space instead of leaving them as they are. |
Post by tatts // Mar 25, 2009, 10:33am
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tatts
Total Posts: 145
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Quote "Using a CSG editor such as Deled I can tile a texture that has 4 bricks high by 4 bricks across leaving me with a nice high res looking wall. This sparks an idea, I never did try texturing a TS model in Deled, will have to try it."
I've just got done testing this out. I can say this, for me TS is well worthy of a world editor. :)
The direct X exports on both the Workspace and model side, both work very well with Deled. A very interesting find though,,,is Deled LOVES the Workspace Direct X exporter. After importing the directx models into deled,
the model from the model side was trianglulated, But guess what! not the import from workspace....that model remained in quads :)
Anyway both imports automatically needed the UV's reset. which is no big deal, only takes a second. after doing this I added 3 seperate textures to both models / scaled them. then exported from deled as a DBO object for darkbasic pro (The dbo format for DBPro supports multitexturing).
Anyway I loaded them into dbpro and used Darklights (an addon) to light the scene. All turned out great. the object was fine, all textures were in place, and the light working well with them too.
Sooo,,, Yes I guess you can say there is a user that is going to be using TS 7.6 for world building as well :)
I have to say this, I have only been using the workspace side now for just over a week. I still don't know all there is to know about it and have a lot to learn yet. But the more I use this side, The more im falling in love with it.. :p
The point is, I never thought i'd ever see the day where I could use a single modeller all my modelling needs world and items/characters. Already I have a couple programs that are not going to be used quite as often because of it.
Infact this program already saved my from spending more money other programs/upgrades, and in my opinion it is perfect for game artists.
So far I am definately happy with it. :D |
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