This Multibrush Tutorial assumes you know how to use the Texture Tools in the Toolset already and is not intended to be a guide on How to Use the Texture Tools.
What is the Multibrush:
This brush allows the user to paint down multiple textures, in any order, together with colour and grass in one click.
In more detail it allows you to:
[*]Paint up to 8 textures (with individual coverage and pressure). 6 of the textures can be unique.
[*]Paint Grass (up to 3 styles) with their own density, coverage, size and variance (all for one, one for all)
[*]Paint Colour with its own pressure and coverage
[*]Save your brush settings for a later time -- or share with others.
[*]Eye drop tool to determine which textures a tile uses.
I am currently in the process of making it possible to draw polygons, and have these filled with the texture/colour/grass selection. It seems to work ok, but there are still a few bugs that need to be ironed out.
The entire project is Open-Source, so if you feel you can contribute in any way (say, finding a better way to describe the tool, write code, create a logo, come up with constructive criticism), then you are more than welcome to do so.
The tool was originally thought up by Banshe (who frequents these boards), has been mainly written by me (I used the handle "Night Stalker" on the old forums and am “SilentStatic” on the Bioware social forums).
Links:
The original thread for the plug-in can be found here:
[*]Magical Paintbrush
[*]The plug-in's Nwvault page can be found here: NWN2 PLUG-INS: Multibrush
[*]The direct download link to the latest (bleeding edge) version of the plug-in can be found here: http://nwvault.ign.c...d.php?id=152408 , and http://tinyurl.com/yjf8g88 .
Installation:
1. Click on the following link to download the latest version of the Multibrush: http://tinyurl.com/yjf8g88
2. Place this file in the folder where you have Neverwinter Nights 2 installed in the following directory: Your Installation…\\NWN2\\NWN2Toolset\\Plugins
3. Start the toolset, click on View, then Options in the menu at the top of the toolset. In the General section, you will see Security and Allow Plugins. Click on the dropdown menu and select Load All Plugins.
4. Restart the toolset, click on the Plugins menu and select Multibrush. A new toolset bar will appear. Click on Brush Settings. Enter the settings you desire.
How to use the Multibrush:
Step 1: Choose the Textures you want to use.
Scroll down the through the various textures. When you find a texture you want to use, select it and press Add. It will appear in the list to the right in the above picture. If you want to remove a texture from the list, select it and press Remove. You can also change the list order by selecting the textures in the list and moving them up and down using the Up and Down buttons. IMPORTANT NOTE: The order of the textures is important! The textures are displayed in reverse lay down order. The texture at the top of the list will be the texture that is painted down last, and so appears on top of all the other textures. And so on down the list.
You can add a total of 8 textures to the list with a maximum of six unique textures. So you can add the same texture to the list twice or more with different settings for each repeated texture.
Step 2: Input the settings for each texture.
Select a texture in the list. This is the texture whose settings you will adjust. Set the pressure that this texture will use. In the boxes under where it says, “Input the range of the pressure variance,” you can enter numbers that will determine the range of pressure used for this texture. There are two boxes. These boxes define the range of pressures used for the texture from low to high.
In the above picture, you can see that the pressure is set at 40%. The From box shows -10 and the To box shows 10. This means that the brush will paint this texture down at a randomly chosen pressure value between 30% (40% pressure –10%) to 50% (40% pressure +10%).
Coverage is a value that defines how much of the painted area is covered by this brush. If the value is set to 50%, then 50% of the ground painted will include this texture. The Variance settings work the same way as the pressure variance described above. The variance range is 42% (76%-34%) to 76% (76%+0%).
IMPORTANT NOTE: In order to save the changes to this particular texture, you must click on the Save Texture Settings before selecting a new texture! Once you have adjusted the settings for a particular texture to your liking, remember to click on the Save Texture Settings button before moving on to other things! If you select another texture before saving the settings for the current texture, your settings will not be saved!
Step 3: Adjust the Global Settings.
The Number of Paints is a technical aspect of the Multibrush. This number determines how it paints the textures. It quantifies the number of times the brush paints a given texture. The higher the value, the more precise the texture painting is. For instance, if the value is set to 2, the texture is painted down 2x2=4 times within the painted area each time you click on the ground. If the value is set to 10, the texture is painted down 10x10=100 times within the painted area each time you click on the ground.
Note: the higher the value, the greater the strain on the performance of the Multibrush and the toolset is. The best performance-to-precision number seems to be close to 3.
You can also check the box Randomize the order the textures are painted in. This relates to the texture list that you created in Step 1. Instead of the top texture in the list appearing on top of the other textures and so on, the order that the textures are painted down is now randomized.
Step 4: Choose the Brush Size
This works in the same manner as the Brush sizes for standard toolset brushes. Choose the size that suits you best.
Step 5: Additional Important Commands.
Save and Use Brush – To start using the brush, click on this button. It will save all your settings and choices, close the settings window and activate the brush so you can start painting with it.
Import/Export Multibrush – These two buttons let you save the brush you created as a file on your computer (export) and load it again when you would like to use it (import) giving you a permanent copy of your brush settings for repeated use or for sharing with others.
Polygon Tool – This is still a work in progress. This allows you to draw textures in various shapes.
Eye-drop Tool – You can click on this button, then click on a square (metatile) in an area and this tool will add all the textures used in that square to your texture list for the Multibrush.
Stop Using Brush – This button allows you to close the Multibrush and resume your work in other areas of the toolset. Properly shutting down the Multibrush is quite important. There is another way to close the Multibrush (see below).
Brush is Active/Brush is Inactive – This toggles the Multibrush On/Off. It tells you the current state of the brush.
Brush Settings – This opens up the brush settings window, which you will use to make your Multibrush settings.
Optional Additions:
1. Color
Along with textures, you can also paint down a color. Check the Paint Colour box, click on the color to choose the color, adjust the pressure and coverage and you are done.
2. Grass
Along with textures, you can also paint down grasses. Check the Paint Grass box. You can use up to three grasses: choose them, adjust their coverage, density, blade size and blade size variation and you are done.
Keep in mind that the settings you choose will apply to all the grasses you select. In other words, all grasses use the same settings.
Tips and Troubleshooting:
1. If you are having technical issues, check to see if you have all the .NET framework programs installed on your computer. Some are automatically installed on your computer. Another one can be found in Optional Updates if you run Windows Update from your computer’s Start menu. I had this problem and it went away when I grabbed the optional update from the Microsoft Updates site.
2. It helps to close the Multibrush (via the toolbar or from the optional commands in the bottom left corner of the Brush Settings window) when you are finished using it. If you do not take this step, sometimes the toolset will crash when you close it.
3. A good way to pick the textures you want to use for your brush is to see what others have done. Visit the NWVault, check out the Modules and Area Prefabs. When you find one you like, load up the area and use the Multibrush eyedropper tool. It will tell you what textures they used to paint that square.
Modules (http://nwvault.ign.c...lesEnglish.List)
Area Prefabs (http://nwvault.ign.c...refabAreas.List)
4. When you are starting/stopping using the Multibrush, pay attention to the buttons in the Toolset toolbar. When using the Multibrush, the Paint Terrain button will be highlighted. If another button is highlighted you won’t be able to paint with the Multibrush.
This tutorial is also available on the vault as a doc file: http://nwvault.ign.c...s.Detail&id=133
[moderator's edit: damn nitpicky moderator just had to get in there and prettify things, don'tcha know? And believe me, it's a real PITA to revist the editing tools in this place!]
Modifié par Banshe, 07 octobre 2010 - 11:47 .
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