Silk can't map, or test maps, or post, help him! :P

I'm currently using blend_snowsnow01a
The problem is, as the name indicates, that both of them are snow. And both of them are waaaaay to slippery, since driving the nf cv is making donuts untill you reach the water and sink (the BE vehicles however are barely affected for some reason).
A second problem is the lack of the correct non-blend texture. It only has non-blend texture (the blueish snow) while i need the other (white) snow.

I tried blend_icesnow in the folder jj45 (yes, i was in jj45, sue me). The ice texture looks good on cliffs (although my cliffs are pretty large, so i need to use a scale of 1.8). The problem is that i have some caves that are completely made of ice, while this texture is only intended to be used on cliffs (with the snowy edge) and can't be used.
However the style of ice is what'm looking for, but it should be able to be put next to eachother on all 4 sides, not only left and right.

 

you can delete your own damn posts in edit. how many times do i have to tell you silk?

 

I'm currently trying to make my own material. I'm using an existing snow texture (i think the one from JJ45), and a self made ice texture. I've made normal maps for both of them. I've got 1 vmt, but i'm not sure if it's valid. Have a look:

The problem is that when i use 'buildcubemaps' that i can see all pictures appearing, but then it shuts down and i go back to windows without an error. Since i've added the "$normalmapalphaenvmapmask" 1 line to the vmt i can see the pictures appear but when it shuts down again and i go back to my desktop there's an engine error message: can't load file.

Building cubemaps worked before i applied my own material to it, so i'm pretty sure that's the problem.

Also i'm not sure if i have a valid 32bit targa file. I used Paint.NET to save the normal map (probably 24 bit) as a 32 bit file. I wanted to make a greyscale mask as well, but had no idea how i could save one file as an alpha channel in another file.

All files are 512x512 btw.

Does anyone here happens to be so incredibly kind he doesn't mind helping me?

Edit: I took some pics of the texture ingame (before building cubemaps obviously). It's become way to bright, but i assume that can be fixed by lowering the intensity of the light.





Edit2:
Could it have something to do with the map being 78MB?

 

Could this be the problem?

648% seems a "little" too much perhaps.

 

Try compiling with -novirtualmesh.

 

Unfortunately i always do that, so ...

Some info that could be helpfull:
The map consists almost entirely out of displacements. There are a few brushes but they are only there as detail, mainly in the 3d skybox. Some versions ago i went over the max limit of displacements (or displacement surfaces, not exactly sure about the exact message anymore). I've redone a lot since then and have been able to decrease the amount of displacements, but i think i'm still rather close to the limit. From all the displacements i have about 80% are level 3 and the other 20% level 2. If that's the reason then i'm screwed, since there's not much (nothing) that i can remove. With some luck changing most displacements from level 3 to level 2 could be possible without making everything look ugly, but ... i don't think so.

Offcourse i also have a lot of nodraw brushes behind/under the displacements to block view/light. Do they count as physics thingies as well?

But you think the vmt file itself is valid? Atleast that's good news.

 

I compiled it again yesterday with the old material. Filesize went down from 75 to 52 MB, but when i tested it i noticed i forgot to compile the water (i turned it off to be able to select brushes more easily). But i don't think 1 water brush can take up so much space.

Buildcubemaps worked, so it probably is either the filesize or the material, and my guess would be the filesize, which seems to increase a lot when using normal maps. Just guessing though.
Is it possible to have only one texture with a normal map in a blend texture?

 

I never got it to work. Theoretically, you could use a blend texture with basetexture1 and basetexture2 the same, and two different normal maps. I fiddled with it quite a lot in the past though, and I couldn't seem to get normal maps to blend at all though.

 

The problem was indeed the filesize, and the normal maps really were the main reason (20MB difference when using normal maps or not). So i had to take them out. Reflections were easy to add, however they looked like reflective crap so i had to remove those as well. In the end not much has changed to the textures

At least some other things are getting done .. slowly.

 

The map is coming along rather nicely. Some problems still remain and some stuff i wanted in didn't make it in the end, but in general i'm satisfied with what i have at the moment.

I took some screens now that i was able to run the buildcubemaps command without crashing to desktop, so why shouldn't i show what i've got.

The minimap is not up to date, but the general shape of the map hasn't changed much, so it'll have to do for now.

The story behind the map is simple: The BE are working on a huge project in the arctic regions. The NF however learn of its existence and try to stop them while the project is still in it's early days.

 

Looking awesome. Is that ice or water? You should have it so that it cracks and breaks when a tank drives over it (func_breakable_surf?).

 

Apart from the ice bridge, what you see is water.
The ice bridge has to stay or tanks couldn't pass anymore, however i suppose i could add a thin layer of ice on top of the water as well (like 3" thick), which breaks when a tank gets on top of it, or gets shot.

I'm at 58 MB, so i only have 2 MB left to add things. I hope it's possible to add some breakable stuff.

 

If you haven't already, increase your lightmap scale: that should cut down file size dramatically.

 

Lightmap scale is at 32.

I'm having troubles with the func_breakable_surf brush entity though. Once i load up the map in empires it sais that multiple surfaces are not nodraw. However i'm a 100% certain that 5 surfaces are nodraw, and last time i checked 6 surfaces minus 5 surfaces is 1 surface, so i don't know why the engine is bitching about this.

 

Lightmap scale can safely be as large as 128 in some open areas.

I think the func_breakable_surf always has to be square, that's the only possible issue that springs to mind. I take it that it will compile fine, but the map won't start in-game?

 

It started, but in the console was said that those brushes had been removed.
However i found the problem. There's 2 nodraw textures, and only one of them works. Offcourse after searching for 'nodraw' i used the first of the 2, which didn't work.

So ... lightmapscale of 128 is fine is it? That's very good to know. But i need to ask, is it ok to have one surface with a lightmap scale of 128, and the next one with 64, or will it make everything look ugly?

Well when i get home from work this evening i'll test it anyway.

Thx btw

 

You can change them to be different values on different surfaces. For example on areas where there are no shadows you should leave it relatively high, but the edge of a shadow should be pretty low.

 

So you have to know/guess where the shadows will end, so that only those surfaces which have a shadow edge on them can be set to a more detailed lightmap scale?

Well i don't think it's that much trouble with a map like this.

 

I'm testing the lightmap scales now.

That func_breakable_surf thingy doesn't look all that good.
http://users.telenet.be/samhannes/mapping/emp_frost/emp_frost0123.jpg

It's like 1 nanometer thick ice that breaks and sounds like glas, with a square shaped edge that doesn't want to go away.

 

The entity was made for breakable glass, not for ice.