New textures/features?

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Xedoh
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Jun 16, 2013 5:50 pm UTC

New textures/features?

Post by Xedoh »

Hi,

I've been playing and mapping Tremulous some years back. My most well known map is perhaps specula (that too big, black/red, confusing, not quite balanced thing), maybe some of you still remember that.

Quite a while ago, Kharnov asked me whether I'd like to help Unvanquished by doing some mapping for it and while I'd love to do that, I simply failed to get anything done. That's why I decided to sign up on the forums and ask some questions that might help me get into mapping again.

One thing that really hampers my mapping progress is that I used to work a lot with the default tremulous-textures. Now that I want to create something new for Unvanquished, I fail to find suitable texture packs. Does anybody now any good texture packs I could work with? I tried the mighty google but it didn't yield good results.

My other question is: What new features does Unvanquisehd offer in terms of map design (lighting/scripting/etc.) and is there somewhere I can look them up/learn how they work?

Thanks in advance.

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Viech
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Posts: 2139
Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2012 11:50 pm UTC
Location: Berlin

Re: New textures/features?

Post by Viech »

Hi, Xedoh, good to have you here! :smile:

I made the map Parpax for Tremulous and ported it over to Unvanquished, but currently I got wound up in gameplay programming, so we are one mapper short (EmperorJack did Thunder and plat23, Pevel did yocto) and could use support.

Textures are really the scarcest resource we have so you will need to experiment with light color and brushwork to make a visual difference to the other maps. We currently have access to 2-3 very good sets, being eX by evillair and pk01/pk02 by philipk. There's also trak5 by TraK but most of the textures lack specular maps. Someday, when ancient parts of my TODO list carved into stone are unearthed, I will look into doing these specmaps. Ingar started retexturing Vega for us lately and the result should be a few more shiny textures for us all to use.

Here's the relevant part of Parpax's readme file with links and licenses to the textures I used (the sets named "evillair" and "philipk" are remainers of the older textures of the respective artists – a few of these ancient textures are still present on Parpax):

Code: Select all

scripts/parpax_evillair.shader
scripts/parpax_ex.shader
textures/parpax_evillair/*
textures/parpax_ex/*

Author : Yves 'evillair' Allaire (http://evillair.net/)

License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
         (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/)
         
         The author also grants the following modifications:
         - You may edit any shader/material file (.shader/.mtr file) as you
           see fit.
         - You may change the color of any "texturename.blend.tga/.jpg" or
           hue to fit the style of your map.

Notes  : scripts/parpax_ex.shader is a modified .mtr file.

Changes: The .shader files have been merged together and modified by Viech
         eq2_baselt03_blue.jpg is a copy of eq2_baselt03.jpg with modified hue
         eq2_baselt03_blue.blend.jpg is a copy of eq2_baselt03.blend.jpg with modified hue
         eq2_baselt03b_blue.jpg is a copy of eq2_baselt03b.jpg with modified hue
         eq2_baselt03b_blue.blend.jpg is a copy of eq2_baselt03b.blend.jpg with modified hue

Source : http://www.evillair.net/v2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=43


textures/parpax_exm/*

Author : Yves 'evillair' Allaire (http://evillair.net/)
         Modifications by Unvanquished Development (http://unvanquished.net/)

License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
         (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/)

         The author granted Unvanquished Development to make derivate works
         of his textures.

         Unvanquished Development claims no copyright for these textures.
         
         If you use them in your own project, atrribute the original author
         but also leave a notice that says that they have been altered with
         his explicit permission.

Changes: The textures in this set are merely mashups of evillairs ex
         textures that should resemble textures in his eq2 set.

Source : http://www.evillair.net/v2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=43


textures/parpax_ydnar/*

Author : Randy 'ydnar' Reddig (http://shaderlab.com/)

License: Usage and redistribution policy: Textures may be freely downloaded,
         modified, and used in free maps, mods or total conversions provided
         this copyright notice is left intact and a link to Shaderlab is
         provided in the credits or read-me file. Other non-commercial
         applications are considered on a case-by-case basis via e-mail. All
         other usage requires written permission. Bulk redistribution or
         archival of the textures in any medium, digital or otherwise
         (except mapping packages for mods) is prohibited.

Source : http://shaderlab.com/slrl/textures/


scripts/parpax_pk01.shader
scripts/parpax_pk02.shader
textures/parpax_philipk/*
textures/parpax_pk01/*
textures/parpax_pk02/*

Author : Philip 'Blazeeer' Klevestav (http://www.philipk.net/)

License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
         (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)

Changes: The textures in parpax_philipk have been converted from bmp to jpg
         by Viech.
         The .shader files have been modified by Viech.

Source : http://www.philipk.net/


textures/parpax_trak4/*
textures/parpax_trak5/*

Author : Georges 'TRaK' Grondin (http://trak.mercenariesguild.net/)

License: MIT("X11") license

Changes: The normal maps (*_local.tga) have been converted by using the
         inverted alpha channel as the blue channel and removing the alpha
         channel. The imagemagick command was:
         convert <old> -channel b -fx "1.0 - u.a*1.0" -alpha off <new>

Source : http://trak.mercenariesguild.net/node/3

If you want an example of how we organize the texture sets feel free to unzip map-parpax-d02.pk3 and look at its directory structure. Don't reference textures from other maps though, since they might disappear or change anytime – include a copy of the textures inside your own pk3 instead. Note that the textures inside Parpax's pk3 are in webp format, I convert them with a script when I package the map. Webp is well suited for textures and makes the resulting pk3's smaller.

Unvanquished has a nice "pk3dir" feature. just put a directory ending in ».pk3dir« where you would normally store pk3 files and it will be treated as if it was one. Inside the pk3dir you have the same subdirectories as in the package (in fact you only need to zip the pk3dir and you will have a working release of your map, albeit it often makes sense to remove unused textures and remainers of the map compilation process :wink: ).

We have a well organized wiki with a page about mapping, you might want to have a look at it, too, as some questions might be answered there.

New features include, apart from support for normal, sepcular and parallax occlusion maps for textures (the last is performance hungry but can be used on selected textures), colorgrading (an arbitrary linear transformation of all colors in the scene, can be used to give a map or a region of a map an atomspheric complexion), better quality light flares and a refactored and improved entity system (some of its features are not yet supported by the level editors, such as multiple targets for entities). Some of this might be documented on the wiki but if you don't find anything there feel free to ask me, one of the other mappers, Timoteo (hwo rewrote the entity system) or gimhael (hwo works on renderer features).

I'm reachable 24/7 via IRC, which is probably the best place to ask quick questions.

Hope that answers some of your questions!

Responsible for: Arch Linux package & torrent distribution, Parpax (map), Chameleon (map texture editor), Sloth (material file generator), gameplay design & programming, artistic direction

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icaro440
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Posts: 183
Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2012 10:46 am UTC
Location: [SP]ain

Re: New textures/features?

Post by icaro440 »

hi Viech, talking about this, do you know any document or tutorial which explains the process for obtaining a minimap?

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Viech
Project Head
Posts: 2139
Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2012 11:50 pm UTC
Location: Berlin

Re: New textures/features?

Post by Viech »

Responsible for: Arch Linux package & torrent distribution, Parpax (map), Chameleon (map texture editor), Sloth (material file generator), gameplay design & programming, artistic direction

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icaro440
Marauder
Posts: 183
Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2012 10:46 am UTC
Location: [SP]ain

Re: New textures/features?

Post by icaro440 »

ty

Xedoh
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Jun 16, 2013 5:50 pm UTC

Re: New textures/features?

Post by Xedoh »

Woah, thanks a lot Viech, that information really helps me. I hope I can provide one (and perhaps more) suitable maps for Unvanquished. :smile:

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poVoq
Mantis
Posts: 67
Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2012 5:01 pm UTC

Re: New textures/features?

Post by poVoq »

Basically many of these textures (and map-models) would be very nice to work with in Unvanquished if someone took the work and make the q3 shaders for them:
http://opengameart.org/users/yughues

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