Frictional Games Forum (read-only)

MANY THANKS TO CG TEXTURES FOR THE TEXTURES! WITHOUT THEM, THESE MODELS WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE. IF YOU USE THE ASSETS, CREDIT ME AND CG TEXTURES!

There's not enough definition or shape in this model, it's just a box.

Also I couldn't help but notice that the texture is upside down on one side, the chains on it are hanging upwards, looks very strange.

Hmm... if you'd like some feedback: you should make at least a specular map for it. There's no way rusty metal and paint can look even remotely realistic without one. Don't be scared, there's nothing hard about making a specular map: Its simply a greyscale map (okay there are colored specular maps but a greyscale map would be sufficient here) - parts that should be shiny are bright, parts that shouldn't be are dark. In simple cases like with this door it can easily be done by applying some Photoshop functions like desaturate and curves or brightness/contrast to your diffuse.

Normal map is a bit trickier but if you have photoshop you can use for example the NDo plugin to get decent results.

In general I'd erase the door handle and chain from the texture and model those as actual meshes. Also you have parts of wall and doorframe on your door, those should be cropped.

This isn't a suggestion for the models, but you should be able to use the [IMG] tags like so:




Also, imgur is better.

Thanks, lolmaster!
Anyway, I'm working in an improved rusted door. I will add the hinges, I solved the texture upside down of Traggey.
I've made the Specular, too. By the way, if someone wants, could he/she explain me the nrm maps? I just don't understand them.

(09-06-2012, 09:24 AM)The chaser Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks, lolmaster!
Anyway, I'm working in an improved rusted door. I will add the hinges, I solved the texture upside down of Traggey.
I've made the Specular, too. By the way, if someone wants, could he/she explain me the nrm maps? I just don't understand them.

I think the basic idea for the normal map is to invert the color of the green channel (in Photoshop, you can use ctrl+i ). I'm sure there is more to it though. Now we just wait patiently for Traggey to stop eating our crisps and respond

Don't listen to Andy, he knows nothing!

I'd suggest you download Xnormal, which also functions as a plugin for photoshop that generates normal maps for you, not perfect but it will do. Basicly it's a channel that tells the game engine how light bounces off the surface of the object and adds a fake depth to the model.

Well, I've just downloaded the normal map plug-in of gimp. Now it's very cool, really. I think I will ALWAYS put normal and specular, I didn't really know their importance.
Thanks to everyone, BTW. I only have to make the hinges...
Leaving technical things, do you think it will be a cool door in future CS? Just to know it.

If you want to know the technical side to a normal map(you probably don't but I love writing walls of text ): When the engine computes how brightly lit a vertex is, it uses the normal vector of the vertex to do that. It's basically a vector that tells the engine where the "up" direction of the vertex is (don't know how to explain it better).

It might be easier to imagine if you take the normal vector of the polygon that is formed by the vertices instead: if you take a piece of paper and balance a pen on its tip so its perpendicular to the paper, that's the normal vector = the direction the paper is facing ^^

Now to compute the lighting, the engine basically compares that normal vector of the vertices/polygons with the vector of the incoming light. If they're exactly opposite, the light is hitting the polygon at a right angle and it is lit with maximum brightness. If they're going in the same direction, the light is hitting the polygon from behind and it is not lit at all = black.

What the normal map does basically is, it uses red green and blue values to store the normal vectors of a highpoly mesh (the rgb value stores the x,y and z values) in the texture of a lowpoly mesh. (You can also generate "fake" normalmaps from photos) Now when the engine is computing the lighting, it uses these stored vectors instead of the normal vectors of the lowpoly. This allows you to fake surface details or soft edges without additional geometry.

Okay... It appears in the model editor... but it doesn't in the Level Editor!
Weird thing... BTW, you can see how it is:


Thanks Hirnwirbel, so the normal map it's just like a 3d texture in a 2d space... something strange but useful.
Don't panic, I will turn the door, so the chain doesn't look weird.
Stop eating my crisps, Traggey!