Hello everybody! I am learning the toolset and trying to create some outside areas. I would like some suggestions about texturing the ground. The basic green grass is a fist in the eye of realism... my idea was to find a good texture to suggest a really used path in a rural town, and some other textures to give 3-dimensionality to small hills.
Can you help me, please?
Need suggestions for texturing outside areas
Débuté par
Vaalyah
, nov. 18 2010 05:56
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#2
Posté 18 novembre 2010 - 06:23
Shallina
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you need to work with the different texture in order to do that.
The Best way is to open area that does close of wha tyou want in the toolset and see wich texture combinaison they used.
You should Also check for texturing tutorials.
The Best way is to open area that does close of wha tyou want in the toolset and see wich texture combinaison they used.
You should Also check for texturing tutorials.
#3
Posté 18 novembre 2010 - 06:26
dunniteowl
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I don't have toolset ability at the moment. However, the best thing to do is to take a 4x4 or 8x8 area and just do what you gotta do.
What I mean by this is open the toolset, make the area and then go into the texturing tools and make your hill or something similar. Then find a texture in the texturing tool and just swap out entirely the grass texture. Don't like that? Okay, add another texture or try a completely new one until you start getting close to what you think you're looking for.
It's important at first (IMO) to play with the textures at 100% to see what changes they make when completely replaced. Then you can start experimenting with adding textures starting at say, 30% to about 70 percent. This helps you determine what sort of overlap between textures gives you what you're looking for.
As to textures that look like a well worn path, I would go with Dirt_01, possibly, Dirt_15 and add in Mud_02 or Mud_01 where you need a better looking sort of dirt path. Then you can take whatever texture you're using around the path and add maybe a 40% overlap just along the edges of the path.
After all this, most likely, you still won't be completely happy with the path. Don't worry, that's normal.
Now, use the Color Tool in the texturing tools and darken the areas you want to make look more in shadow, or more walked on dirty. My experience is that with dirt paths, for the most part, the more worn parts are also a slight amount darker (depending on the materials, environment and overall moisture content of the area/air.) Also, if you want a path that has 'ruts' in it, you're going to have to settle for a pretty wide path. The resolution of the texture and coloring tools is 1, which means it's going to be about half a meter wide at it's thinnest and doesn't follow the terrain as well as it does the polygons that make up the terrain.
If you don't like the color you used, go to an all white color and paint back over it -- that works like an eraser for the color tool and I don't think anything else really works beyond CTRL-Z, but that doesn't remove color that has been laid down three or four mouse clicks after the fact.
Lastly, I highly recommend the MultiBrush tool made by NightStalker (aka SilentStatic on these forums.) It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you get familiar with it, you can do some pretty amazing things.
I do wish to caution you (and others as well) that the MultiBrush can do large areas, but don't use a large brush setting to do it. I have discovered that a smaller brush size setting works better to get the stippling effect most people are hoping to get out of the MultiBrush. Brush settings over 24 on the inner ring and 10 on the outer ring to give unexpected and, while not bad, not desired, results with the mixtures of settings available.
When I get the toolset going again (when I fix my Desktop) I will be happy to provide more advice, though there are definitely some first class exterior texturing folks already here in the Community who make my efforts pale in comparison (and up until I saw them, I thought I was pretty good at this.)
regards, dunniteowl
What I mean by this is open the toolset, make the area and then go into the texturing tools and make your hill or something similar. Then find a texture in the texturing tool and just swap out entirely the grass texture. Don't like that? Okay, add another texture or try a completely new one until you start getting close to what you think you're looking for.
It's important at first (IMO) to play with the textures at 100% to see what changes they make when completely replaced. Then you can start experimenting with adding textures starting at say, 30% to about 70 percent. This helps you determine what sort of overlap between textures gives you what you're looking for.
As to textures that look like a well worn path, I would go with Dirt_01, possibly, Dirt_15 and add in Mud_02 or Mud_01 where you need a better looking sort of dirt path. Then you can take whatever texture you're using around the path and add maybe a 40% overlap just along the edges of the path.
After all this, most likely, you still won't be completely happy with the path. Don't worry, that's normal.
Now, use the Color Tool in the texturing tools and darken the areas you want to make look more in shadow, or more walked on dirty. My experience is that with dirt paths, for the most part, the more worn parts are also a slight amount darker (depending on the materials, environment and overall moisture content of the area/air.) Also, if you want a path that has 'ruts' in it, you're going to have to settle for a pretty wide path. The resolution of the texture and coloring tools is 1, which means it's going to be about half a meter wide at it's thinnest and doesn't follow the terrain as well as it does the polygons that make up the terrain.
If you don't like the color you used, go to an all white color and paint back over it -- that works like an eraser for the color tool and I don't think anything else really works beyond CTRL-Z, but that doesn't remove color that has been laid down three or four mouse clicks after the fact.
Lastly, I highly recommend the MultiBrush tool made by NightStalker (aka SilentStatic on these forums.) It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you get familiar with it, you can do some pretty amazing things.
I do wish to caution you (and others as well) that the MultiBrush can do large areas, but don't use a large brush setting to do it. I have discovered that a smaller brush size setting works better to get the stippling effect most people are hoping to get out of the MultiBrush. Brush settings over 24 on the inner ring and 10 on the outer ring to give unexpected and, while not bad, not desired, results with the mixtures of settings available.
When I get the toolset going again (when I fix my Desktop) I will be happy to provide more advice, though there are definitely some first class exterior texturing folks already here in the Community who make my efforts pale in comparison (and up until I saw them, I thought I was pretty good at this.)
regards, dunniteowl
#4
Posté 18 novembre 2010 - 09:30
Vaalyah
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Thank you for the suggestions. I am entering many areas just to have a loot at the texturing of terrain.
Since I usually got lost searching through the vault, can you please provide a link to this MultiBrush? I feel I am loosing a lot of interesting features at the vault, but I am unable to find anything with the search engine, for my life safe!
Since I usually got lost searching through the vault, can you please provide a link to this MultiBrush? I feel I am loosing a lot of interesting features at the vault, but I am unable to find anything with the search engine, for my life safe!
#5
Posté 19 novembre 2010 - 12:21
kamalpoe
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http://nwvault.ign.c...ls.Detail&id=90
http://nwvault.ign.c...s.Detail&id=105
or
http://nwvault.ign.c...ls.Detail&id=73
These are tutorials by very high quality area makers.
http://nwvault.ign.c...s.Detail&id=105
or
http://nwvault.ign.c...ls.Detail&id=73
These are tutorials by very high quality area makers.
Modifié par kamalpoe, 19 novembre 2010 - 12:22 .
#6
Posté 19 novembre 2010 - 01:31
dunniteowl
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Here You Go:
Multibrush
and other plugins that you might find useful:
Ladydesire's Plugin pack
The Grinning Fool's Usability Tools Plugin
Tree Cutter plugin
There are others, but it's such a subjective experience. The ones I listed there below the Multi-Brush are the ones that I find add the most power and flexibility when it comes to exterior area building. There are a few others that make the icons and tools easier to recognize (like I said, it was very subjective, because a couple of them I couldn't make heads or tails of them for a while) or that add other things like camera controls (and there are, like, four of them) and you'll have to test them out on your own to find the ones that make it work best for you.
dunniteowl
Multibrush
and other plugins that you might find useful:
Ladydesire's Plugin pack
The Grinning Fool's Usability Tools Plugin
Tree Cutter plugin
There are others, but it's such a subjective experience. The ones I listed there below the Multi-Brush are the ones that I find add the most power and flexibility when it comes to exterior area building. There are a few others that make the icons and tools easier to recognize (like I said, it was very subjective, because a couple of them I couldn't make heads or tails of them for a while) or that add other things like camera controls (and there are, like, four of them) and you'll have to test them out on your own to find the ones that make it work best for you.
dunniteowl
#7
Posté 19 novembre 2010 - 02:17
Alupinu
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Hey Vaalyah, Practice, Practice, Practice! That’s the real secret. I think I spent about a 100hrs in the TS before I was able to produce a satisfactory area for MinD. So just open the toolset, open a 4x4 area, name it Practice 1 and just start making mistakes because that’s the best way to learn. At least in this modders opinion. LOL!
#8
Posté 19 novembre 2010 - 02:24
Lugaid of the Red Stripes
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Just to add to DNO's mini tutorial above:
Create a new area to test out the different textures, as swapping textures in and out a lot can cause some weird bugs to pop up, like the texture turning black.
Each megatile (outlined in black with the grid turned on) can have only 6 textures. If you plan carefully, you can seamlessly integrate more textures into a single area, but I've found that it's best just to pick out a palette of 6 textures that work well together and stick to them. You'll need a grass texture, a dirt, a mud, rock/escarpment, forest floor, and maybe a paving stone.
You already seem to be a bit frustrated with the grass textures. So was I, they all seemed to be too yellow, not lush enough. But the trick is to use the color tool to deepen the color of the grass, using a dark green color to paint in splotches of thicker, lusher grass. The grass tool, used sparingly, also helps give the grass a bit more depth to it.
Once you've painted down some textures at 100% opacity, you'll probably look down at your work and think it looks fake, like a child scribbling with a crayon. So then you'll start mixing a bunch of textures together, in the vain hope that mixing everything up will make it look better. It won't. Mixing a bunch of textures together just gives you a muddy grey blob. Instead, you have to be very careful and deliberate about which textures you mix and how you mix them. Grass should be grass, and dirt should be dirt. When two textures meet, try using a third texture to blend them together. I like to use #34 grass and #3 sand for my roads, with the #2 mud as leavening. I paint down the grass at 100%, then paint in the sand road at 100%, and then use the mud at 50% to soften up the boundary. Then I go back with the mud at different opacities to make the road look properly worn.
The biggest problem with textures, though, the reason they often look really bad, is because after a certain point it the repeating pattern becomes really obvious, and the user sees a grid of wallpaper instead of realistic-looking terrain. The key is to break up the repeating, tessellating pattern wherever possible. Use the terrain tool to add slight rises to the terrain, and to carve out slightly sunken roads. Use the grass tool to add in patches of grass. Most important of all is to use the color tool to paint in 'megatextures', patterns of color and shade that are bigger than the regular textures, and so break up the monotony of the regular texture pattern. I like to paint the 'valleys' between grassy knolls darker, as well as the texture underneath drawn grass. Then I'll go and 'bleach' the top of the knolls by adding a bit of the sand texture, just at 20% or so. The general idea is to always give the eye something big to look at, so that it doesn't notice the small problems.
Create a new area to test out the different textures, as swapping textures in and out a lot can cause some weird bugs to pop up, like the texture turning black.
Each megatile (outlined in black with the grid turned on) can have only 6 textures. If you plan carefully, you can seamlessly integrate more textures into a single area, but I've found that it's best just to pick out a palette of 6 textures that work well together and stick to them. You'll need a grass texture, a dirt, a mud, rock/escarpment, forest floor, and maybe a paving stone.
You already seem to be a bit frustrated with the grass textures. So was I, they all seemed to be too yellow, not lush enough. But the trick is to use the color tool to deepen the color of the grass, using a dark green color to paint in splotches of thicker, lusher grass. The grass tool, used sparingly, also helps give the grass a bit more depth to it.
Once you've painted down some textures at 100% opacity, you'll probably look down at your work and think it looks fake, like a child scribbling with a crayon. So then you'll start mixing a bunch of textures together, in the vain hope that mixing everything up will make it look better. It won't. Mixing a bunch of textures together just gives you a muddy grey blob. Instead, you have to be very careful and deliberate about which textures you mix and how you mix them. Grass should be grass, and dirt should be dirt. When two textures meet, try using a third texture to blend them together. I like to use #34 grass and #3 sand for my roads, with the #2 mud as leavening. I paint down the grass at 100%, then paint in the sand road at 100%, and then use the mud at 50% to soften up the boundary. Then I go back with the mud at different opacities to make the road look properly worn.
The biggest problem with textures, though, the reason they often look really bad, is because after a certain point it the repeating pattern becomes really obvious, and the user sees a grid of wallpaper instead of realistic-looking terrain. The key is to break up the repeating, tessellating pattern wherever possible. Use the terrain tool to add slight rises to the terrain, and to carve out slightly sunken roads. Use the grass tool to add in patches of grass. Most important of all is to use the color tool to paint in 'megatextures', patterns of color and shade that are bigger than the regular textures, and so break up the monotony of the regular texture pattern. I like to paint the 'valleys' between grassy knolls darker, as well as the texture underneath drawn grass. Then I'll go and 'bleach' the top of the knolls by adding a bit of the sand texture, just at 20% or so. The general idea is to always give the eye something big to look at, so that it doesn't notice the small problems.
#9
Posté 19 novembre 2010 - 05:32
Vaalyah
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@Kamaltoe & Dunnite: thanks for the links, guys! I should find a way to learn how to search things at the vaults! By the way, Dunnite, please, can you tell me what does the Ladydesire's plugin is supposed to to? In the page you linked, there's just written it's an update version of something else...
@Alupinu: I can assure you I am doing my best in practising :-D but I think that a little more "theory" could be useful too ;-)
@Lugaid: Thanks for all your suggestions. I agree with you: the problem with textures is that they repeat themselves a bit too often so the realism is completely lost. Here a link of my first attempt in texturing (please, don't laugh too loud)
http://lh5.ggpht.com...reenShot606.jpg
the basic green (neon green) grass, with 2 mud textures and 2 brown flat colours to give a bit of intensity. As you can see, I am a desperate case...
'
@Alupinu: I can assure you I am doing my best in practising :-D but I think that a little more "theory" could be useful too ;-)
@Lugaid: Thanks for all your suggestions. I agree with you: the problem with textures is that they repeat themselves a bit too often so the realism is completely lost. Here a link of my first attempt in texturing (please, don't laugh too loud)
http://lh5.ggpht.com...reenShot606.jpg
the basic green (neon green) grass, with 2 mud textures and 2 brown flat colours to give a bit of intensity. As you can see, I am a desperate case...
'
#10
Posté 19 novembre 2010 - 07:19
Lugaid of the Red Stripes
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You're almost there. Just add in some mud at the base of the buildings and other placeables, along with some more dark coloring to blend the buildings into the grass. You might want to take the terrain tool with a small circle, like 1-2, and use it to rise and lower the mesh a little bit (set the placeables to height lock first). You might want to get in close with a small brush, 1-0, with the textures and color to make the mud-grass transition a little bit more jagged. Then add in some drawn grass, just a clump here or there along the edge.
You might want to try playing with the day/night settings a bit, too. The defaults don't look very good, with most of the light coming from the sky. Increasing the sunlight/moonlight and decreasing the skylight and groundlight makes the textures look more three-dimensional.
Here's a picture for getting an idea of how to blend a dirt texture into a grass to make hills look more realistic:
http://nwvault.ign.c...e.php?id=149386
You might want to try playing with the day/night settings a bit, too. The defaults don't look very good, with most of the light coming from the sky. Increasing the sunlight/moonlight and decreasing the skylight and groundlight makes the textures look more three-dimensional.
Here's a picture for getting an idea of how to blend a dirt texture into a grass to make hills look more realistic:
http://nwvault.ign.c...e.php?id=149386
#11
Posté 19 novembre 2010 - 07:27
PJ156
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Does not look any worse than my early efforts, or perhaps my current ones 
Some more things to think about might be.
1. It's easier to add texture to terrain than terrain to texture - therefore do your terrain before you texture (i.e. if your road is going to dip do that first) that gives a guide one where to grey scale (add shadow) when you come to that. Also when you do come to change terrain your nice texturing you pre laid is not in the wrong place.
2. For those bright grass textures set your colour to a light grey and your intensity to 10% and then with a very large inner brush and no outer just tap a small amount of grey over the top, that knocks it back a treat.
3. I start with the base texture first and then build up from there. as lugaid says, pick your pallette for the map or square, I then lay the earth texture over the whole map. I then build grass over that at 65%, 85% where I want it stronger. I rarely, if ever, use 95%+. If you use a small brush the earth shows throuh as you paint and you get a thin grass effect. I find doing this give continuity over maps even when I am using differend grass textures - using the same base earth textures makes the maps feel contiguous.
Hope that helps I'm no master at this but the above is the way I go about things.
PJ
Some more things to think about might be.
1. It's easier to add texture to terrain than terrain to texture - therefore do your terrain before you texture (i.e. if your road is going to dip do that first) that gives a guide one where to grey scale (add shadow) when you come to that. Also when you do come to change terrain your nice texturing you pre laid is not in the wrong place.
2. For those bright grass textures set your colour to a light grey and your intensity to 10% and then with a very large inner brush and no outer just tap a small amount of grey over the top, that knocks it back a treat.
3. I start with the base texture first and then build up from there. as lugaid says, pick your pallette for the map or square, I then lay the earth texture over the whole map. I then build grass over that at 65%, 85% where I want it stronger. I rarely, if ever, use 95%+. If you use a small brush the earth shows throuh as you paint and you get a thin grass effect. I find doing this give continuity over maps even when I am using differend grass textures - using the same base earth textures makes the maps feel contiguous.
Hope that helps I'm no master at this but the above is the way I go about things.
PJ
Modifié par PJ156, 19 novembre 2010 - 07:32 .
#12
Posté 19 novembre 2010 - 09:42
Vaalyah
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@Lugaid: I am almost there??? Where, in the hall of shame? :-D thank you for your suggestions, they seem really interesting. I have to try them! Can you tell me a bit more about day/night settings? I haven't do more than a quick glance to what they are, but I have not tried to set them differently from the default values.
@PJ: As in the picture above, I raise/lower the terrain before adding texture, just for being able to see where I have to put them :-P but the realism effect is far from my hands right now :-(
Is it possible to find some more textures? I mean, does the vault contain more interesting texture files?
Finally, I can't find the mod for having a decent camera movement in game. I would like to use it to better observe the textures of the ground and other small particulars. Can someone, please, link it to me? Thank you all!
@PJ: As in the picture above, I raise/lower the terrain before adding texture, just for being able to see where I have to put them :-P but the realism effect is far from my hands right now :-(
Is it possible to find some more textures? I mean, does the vault contain more interesting texture files?
Finally, I can't find the mod for having a decent camera movement in game. I would like to use it to better observe the textures of the ground and other small particulars. Can someone, please, link it to me? Thank you all!
#13
Posté 19 novembre 2010 - 10:53
PJ156
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Day night settings:
Open the area properties top tab is appearance,
In day night cycle stages you can play with the light settings as you wish.
Or in the top bar you have import properties
Go to environmental settings/daynight cycle stage/all from here you can import the day night settings for any of the areas in the OC if you know where to find them (I dont but someone will) or you can go here and download them all. Put them somewhere you av navigate to and import them as you need.
Lighting presets
PJ
Open the area properties top tab is appearance,
In day night cycle stages you can play with the light settings as you wish.
Or in the top bar you have import properties
Go to environmental settings/daynight cycle stage/all from here you can import the day night settings for any of the areas in the OC if you know where to find them (I dont but someone will) or you can go here and download them all. Put them somewhere you av navigate to and import them as you need.
Lighting presets
PJ
#14
Posté 20 novembre 2010 - 01:35
Vaalyah
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Oh thank you very much! There's everything at the vault! So, I am the only one totally unable to find anything there '
'
#15
Posté 20 novembre 2010 - 03:38
dunniteowl
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Don't feel bad, Vaalyah, the Vault takes some getting used to. Also it's a fair bet that most folks who are not the kind who take "No" for an answer will spend a lot of time searching. I tend to be one of those guys who keeps digging and digging until I can determine if the files are there or not, no matter where they might be hidden. You sort of have to develop that attitude if you're going to use the toolset, because you have to force it and bend it to your will. Nothing less will do.
dunniteowl
dunniteowl
#16
Posté 21 novembre 2010 - 02:35
Vaalyah
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I know, try and try again, it would get results... but for now all the things that I need I am totally unable to find... If I use the search window, I specify to search, ie: "texture" in the NWN2 tutorial section. I get result of EVERYTHING except for texturing tutorial ' I think I am misunderstanding something...
' I think I am misunderstanding something...
#17
Posté 21 novembre 2010 - 04:08
dunniteowl
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try "Texture Pack" or "Custom Textures" and other close approximations.
dno
dno
#18
Posté 21 novembre 2010 - 05:30
Vaalyah
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:-* thank you! I'll try as soon as my connection would work decently again!
In the meantime... can someone tell me how can I raise the vertical level of my placeable? I want to put a tree over a hill and the tree or is too low or is too high'
In the meantime... can someone tell me how can I raise the vertical level of my placeable? I want to put a tree over a hill and the tree or is too low or is too high
'
#19
Posté 21 novembre 2010 - 06:50
Vaalyah
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Some experiments after having read those tutorials:
http://lh5.ggpht.com...reenShot640.jpg
http://lh3.ggpht.com...reenShot641.jpg
I'd say I'm improving...
http://lh5.ggpht.com...reenShot640.jpg
http://lh3.ggpht.com...reenShot641.jpg
I'd say I'm improving...
#20
Posté 27 novembre 2010 - 09:44
Anotherone773
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For the placeables select the object and either page up or page down or hold shift and use the mouse wheel. page up and page down are more precise and the mousewheel is much faster.
My opinion on texturing. Texturing is your background. So it doesnt need to be extravagant.After you add all the extras such as grass trees objects it should break up the big patches of background texture.
Also the pressure part of the tool is good for blending textures. Say i want to make snow fading into lightly snowy rock. I would use two textures for this snow_01 and snow_05.
Snow 5 is my alpha. On top of this where i want pure snow i put snow 1 at 100% pressure. Then i blend them together( if you want a blended look) by using the snow1 and reducing pressure on the brush gradually as i move out and away from the 100% snow 1 area. This gives the appearance of snow fading into lightly snow cover rock. Something you might see going from a valley up a mountain side.
How you blend the two textures together really depends on what you want to the end result to look like. How much of a contrast do you want/need. With a cliff wall going to a grassy plain i would use 3 textures. A cliff texture, a grassy/rock texture and a grass texture. I would use the grassy rock at the base of the cliff. These would not be blended together. The grassy rock to grass would have one or two blendings between them.
Using the pressure to blend does not count towards your 6 textures. You are still using only 2 textures just overlapping them with one having varying degrees of some transparency.
The toolset has issues with texturing. One issue you may run into often is that it refuses to paint certain textures. The workaround for this is to paint the area in a texture you are not using that it will paint in. then use the swapper to swap to the proper texture. This works well on paths and other textures that are not going to be blended. Textures that you blend together may be more difficult to get to the look you want.
the toolset also sometimes allows textures to bleed through in certain areas. Giving you a different look than the area next to it despite both being painted the same . The more textures you have on a tile the more likely this is to happen.
My opinion on texturing. Texturing is your background. So it doesnt need to be extravagant.After you add all the extras such as grass trees objects it should break up the big patches of background texture.
Also the pressure part of the tool is good for blending textures. Say i want to make snow fading into lightly snowy rock. I would use two textures for this snow_01 and snow_05.
Snow 5 is my alpha. On top of this where i want pure snow i put snow 1 at 100% pressure. Then i blend them together( if you want a blended look) by using the snow1 and reducing pressure on the brush gradually as i move out and away from the 100% snow 1 area. This gives the appearance of snow fading into lightly snow cover rock. Something you might see going from a valley up a mountain side.
How you blend the two textures together really depends on what you want to the end result to look like. How much of a contrast do you want/need. With a cliff wall going to a grassy plain i would use 3 textures. A cliff texture, a grassy/rock texture and a grass texture. I would use the grassy rock at the base of the cliff. These would not be blended together. The grassy rock to grass would have one or two blendings between them.
Using the pressure to blend does not count towards your 6 textures. You are still using only 2 textures just overlapping them with one having varying degrees of some transparency.
The toolset has issues with texturing. One issue you may run into often is that it refuses to paint certain textures. The workaround for this is to paint the area in a texture you are not using that it will paint in. then use the swapper to swap to the proper texture. This works well on paths and other textures that are not going to be blended. Textures that you blend together may be more difficult to get to the look you want.
the toolset also sometimes allows textures to bleed through in certain areas. Giving you a different look than the area next to it despite both being painted the same . The more textures you have on a tile the more likely this is to happen.
Modifié par Anotherone773, 27 novembre 2010 - 09:44 .
#21
Posté 28 novembre 2010 - 09:28
Vaalyah
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Thank you very much for your suggestions! I am curious. No more than 6 textures on each tile to avoid slowing down the computer but... let's speak about trees... I would like to put some trees over the hills at the town in my pics side. I've seen there are trees and there are also "fake trees", just the silhouette of them. How many trees can I put there, before slowing down a computer?
#22
Posté 28 novembre 2010 - 11:47
Anotherone773
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I would say that depends a lot on your machine. I can do 30-40 trees in an area with different seeds/trees plus objects and grass with no noticeable lag in the toolset or the game. But i run decently high end pc also. i have not tried to do more than about 40 as none of my areas called for it. I think i read at one time their was a soft limit of like 5 different trees but i think this was due to technology at the time and not the game or toolset itself. I think most people's computers just couldnt handle more than 5.
Note: No two of my trees were alike and i used 6-8 different types of trees.
Seeds: I think i read that the toolset was suppose to change the seeds when you put down the trees. But this is not the case in my experience. If you want your trees to be different you have to do it manually.This is just simply changing the "random seed" value under tree's properties to a random number. I dont know how many different seeds their are for each tree but the numbers go up to the lower hundred thousands that i have seen.
Note: No two of my trees were alike and i used 6-8 different types of trees.
Seeds: I think i read that the toolset was suppose to change the seeds when you put down the trees. But this is not the case in my experience. If you want your trees to be different you have to do it manually.This is just simply changing the "random seed" value under tree's properties to a random number. I dont know how many different seeds their are for each tree but the numbers go up to the lower hundred thousands that i have seen.
Modifié par Anotherone773, 28 novembre 2010 - 11:48 .
#23
Posté 29 novembre 2010 - 02:47
dunniteowl
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Read this thread, regarding trees: What's the tree limit situation? and specifically see my post (last one) in it. Lots of helpful info there regarding trees/shrubs.
The placeable cards for trees work pretty well at distance and should only be used in unwalkable areas to 'fill out' the forest look from a distance. You can use these creatively and make "walls" of trees with the placeable cards in the background and they will save you having to place a lot of trees to get similar effects. I'm coming to appreciate the placeable cards more and more over time.
Performance varies with respect to trees and placeables, but there is a hard limit of something like 3500 total placeables for an area. I am not sure if it matters how large that area is, either, so the more placeables you use the faster you reach a point where your area isn't going to work. Trees are placeables, so be aware of that. The one real issue with the trees as SpeedTrees is that you cannot convert them to Environmental Objects.
The rest you can pretty much read up on from the link.
dunniteowl
The placeable cards for trees work pretty well at distance and should only be used in unwalkable areas to 'fill out' the forest look from a distance. You can use these creatively and make "walls" of trees with the placeable cards in the background and they will save you having to place a lot of trees to get similar effects. I'm coming to appreciate the placeable cards more and more over time.
Performance varies with respect to trees and placeables, but there is a hard limit of something like 3500 total placeables for an area. I am not sure if it matters how large that area is, either, so the more placeables you use the faster you reach a point where your area isn't going to work. Trees are placeables, so be aware of that. The one real issue with the trees as SpeedTrees is that you cannot convert them to Environmental Objects.
The rest you can pretty much read up on from the link.
dunniteowl
#24
Posté 30 novembre 2010 - 03:48
M. Rieder
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Vaalyah wrote...
Some experiments after having read those tutorials:
http://lh5.ggpht.com...reenShot640.jpg
http://lh3.ggpht.com...reenShot641.jpg
I'd say I'm improving...
Hey, those screenshots look nice. One thing I like to do with hills is to put little rocky outcroppings at the steep parts. This can make them look pretty nice.
You can softent the border between houses and the surrounding grass by using a little bit of dirt at about 30% pressure. Then use the color brush and darken the dirt in areas. You can also raise small hills around the base of houses to give a nice blend with the surrounding.
Looks like you're really getting the hang of things.
#25
Posté 30 novembre 2010 - 05:56
Vaalyah
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@ Anotherone: well, my computer is a sort of beast, so this is the problem. I can put whatever I want in a module... but if others aren't able to play the module, it's useless. I need some answers by users with an old computer, I think. Thank you for the seed comment. I needed a clarification about that 
@dunnite: thank you for the link! Are the environmental objects less heavy in terms of computing time?
@Rieder: To say the truth, in those screenshots I TRIED the thing of the rocky texture in steep parts... the "whiter" part in the hills is the result of that :-D I think I have to use a bigger pressure! Thank you for your suggestions. In the last week I had no time at all to use the toolset. I hope this week will be different!
@dunnite: thank you for the link! Are the environmental objects less heavy in terms of computing time?
@Rieder: To say the truth, in those screenshots I TRIED the thing of the rocky texture in steep parts... the "whiter" part in the hills is the result of that :-D I think I have to use a bigger pressure! Thank you for your suggestions. In the last week I had no time at all to use the toolset. I hope this week will be different!
