Feral Heart
Help & Guidance => Member Made Tutorials => Modding & Meshing Tutorials => Topic started by: Aedre on July 29, 2011, 09:37:25 pm
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i'm sure this will be very helpful to people who don't know how to use it. nice one! that must of taken a while to write! *gives karma*
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i'm sure this will be very helpful to people who don't know how to use it. nice one! that must of taken a while to write! *gives karma*
:3 Yay! Thank you for the karma. ^.^ I have fun writing these things to help people. I actually had a job once, writing guides and informational articles and how-to-care-for animal sheets...
I have just one more thing I'm going to write and then I'll be done for now. Maybe I'll put up a thread of tips/interesting things I've stumbled across while building objects. I hope everyone finds it useful. :)
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This is a simple blurb of things I like to do with my textures.
http://i486.photobucket.com/albums/rr223/Aleakim/Aedit.png (http://i486.photobucket.com/albums/rr223/Aleakim/Aedit.png)
I have a picture. I want to make a picture to put in-game. If it is a regular texture, it shows up distorted and blown-up and totally indistinguishable. So I played around.
When you put a texture into the files, and call it up in the object maker (on a basiccube.mesh, which is easiest to get a picture on) the texture is 'wrapped' around the object any way it can to fit over and cover it. It is also up-side-down.
To fix this? Rotate the picture 180 degrees (you don't even need a photo-editing software to do this; just right click the thumbnail image.)
I find Gimp is the easiest to do this next step on, because its a few right clicks and a save and you're done.
Open image. It is upside down now (if it isn't, make it so!) this means it will appear right-side-up in game.
Go to the layers palette, right click layer, 'duplicate layer'.
Select the background copy, right click, 'scale layer' and size it much smaller than the original - it should fit in the very center of the image. You may need to play with the size depending on how big the original image is, but you have plenty of wiggle-room.
Flatten image (right click layer > flatten image), save it as a jpg and make sure it's in the files with your other textures and written in the MATERIAL file. As long as the name does not change you do not need to add a new file to the texture material file.
When you load the basiccube.mesh and call up the new material file, the picture (the centered mini one) will appear on the TOP face of the cube. This is because it is centered. This is the only way I have done it so far (I only did it today, after all) so you will have to use the Pitch button to rotate it to the side, unless you want to make a doormat or something and then you can just flatten the cube a bit...
I believe that if you take the miniaturized version of the upsidedown image and, instead of placing it in the center, place it towards the bottom, top, or side of the image, it will appear on different sides of the cube. Perhaps even rotating the image can make it appear right-side-up on the sides of the cube. Feel free to experiment.
I might post a 'place mini image here with this side up if you want X orientation on cube' later once I go through the learning process myself, but I've done enough thinking and explaining for today. XD
(http://i486.photobucket.com/albums/rr223/Aleakim/MyTex5.jpg)
Now, with that said. I ask you all to please respect the copyrights of artists and photographers when you are making textures! As a growing photographer myself, I am especially keen on emphasizing this point and even more especially vehement in defending my own artwork from theft. Would I be thrilled if someone asked to use one of my images for something? Yes! Would I give them permission? Probably, so long as the user agrees to respect my work and use it in a limited environment. Many (non-strictly-professional, non-sells-for-a-living) artists and photographers would not mind their art being used WITH permission (I mean, how else would people appreciate it?) but I promise you nothing pisses us off more or draws a more immediate reaction than seeing our work somewhere it is NOT supposed to be.
Heh....talk about ending on a down note... >.> Well, yup, I think that's all I wanted to say.
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Can you take just any image from the internet and use it as long as it isn't copyrighted? If so would Flickr be a okay website to get materials from??? In the free area? Just wondering because I really want to do this. (last time i tried re-texturing I ended up with a stone waterfall)
Also. I got some .mesh files from wombat but no materials because they fail apparently. I was wondering if you could do a walk through on putting textures on wombat meshes? pretty please??? thanks you have been a big help already! Karma to you! -gives karma-
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<3 Omg thankies! But I am wondering what Molly has asked. Also how can you get materials other people have made to work on Oak Trees. Whenever I try to make it work it says "cannot find ___.material" :3 And I am still having the Sakura mesh problem. xD
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Yes, you can take any image and turn it into a texture. Keep in mind: Every single image on the internet is copyrighted unless it is in a 'creative commons' section. (This is what I hate about photobucket, because their entire gallery is creative commons and many artists never realize it. Which is also why you see that sloppily watermarked flower above. :P)
Now...do you want textures, or do you want pictures-on-the-box like I showed earlier? If you want textures, not only does Gimp come with plenty of marble, slate, granite, and wood-like textures pre-loaded on it (simply use the paintbucket tool on 'pattern fill') it also has tons and tons of downloadable brushes.
I had a downloading spree last night. Easiest thing I've ever installed.
http://www.obsidiandawn.com/all-brushes (http://www.obsidiandawn.com/all-brushes)
Not only would some of them make pretty awesome textures, I've been using them to help with heightmaps. The 'cracks' brushes make some interesting rivers if you play around enough.
Ok kinda off topic there....lol stone waterfall... Yeah I think the waterfall needs its own texture and would be odd to re-texture. o.0 As for Flickr, I've never been on it seriously so let me go dig a bit. I know Getty Images had some serious issue a while back with copyright...lol wrote an essay on it, about copyright. XD Think I'd know it inside and out by now but it has so many facets.
http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ (http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/)
Notice the "Attribution" section. I can't find one that doesn't require that you credit back to the original creator...I dunno your conscience but my conscience would get me a little if I stuck it somewhere it wouldn't be noticed, although I definitely wouldn't want a watermark in the middle of my pictures. Well, in game, anyways.
As I said above, photobucket - anything you can view is free game. (You'll notice my gallery as a whole requires a password to enter :P )
And back to meshes. I have never ever ever even tried to download a custom mesh. I've thought about it, planned on doing it today actually, but never done it. Toss me a link to wombat, toss me a link to the meshes you downloaded, and (if they're separate links) links to the mats you want too. I'll see what I can do. :)
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<3 Omg thankies! But I am wondering what Molly has asked. Also how can you get materials other people have made to work on Oak Trees. Whenever I try to make it work it says "cannot find ___.material" :3 And I am still having the Sakura mesh problem. xD
1. If you are typing anything.material it probably won't work because that's not the call-up name (you have the phone number wrong.) Only Mesh files require a 'anything.mesh'. Most files will be like somethingMat (crystalMat, rockMat etc.)
What material is it that won't come up?
Your Sakura tree problem is because you probably don't even have the file. It's just not there to be used - it is a custom mesh and texture bark/leaf that someone else made.
Edit: Tossed you a PM with the files. Maybe I'll put them up as objects instead of entire maps soon. XD
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Ok I am gonna make a readme file called "Attributions/Credit" and put all the names and such there
OK well I downloaded a lot of the meshes, and some like the castle pieces I was able to texture with materials that were already there here is the link to the section of Wombat that has meshes for FH.
http://wombat.worldforge.org/dir?path=3d_objects (http://wombat.worldforge.org/dir?path=3d_objects)
just make sure you are downloading the .mesh files and not .3ds. Its mainly the animal meshes I am having trouble with as since they turn up white all i can make is polar bears. Wombat has meshes that are really cool though but the material it has doesn't work with it. Hold on I am trying to texture a chicken that might work... I had to re-size the image it comes with.
ok so nvm about that... object maker says BearMat not found (I accidentally saved it as bear) but i will keep trying to figure this out. Thanks.
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Oh, that's actually a good idea. XD Didn't occur to me. Nice job, hehe.
And oooooooh o.o *Pokes the Wombat*
I'll play around some and see if a tutorial crops up. ^.^
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Nothing I could find on youtube
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*Huff*
A few hours, seven different types of (successfully but nonetheless incorrectly installed) birch tree, twelve different types of awkward and matless pine trees, and forty-eight downloads, I am clueless.
I gave up on the horse mesh because I couldn't figure it out at the time, but after my minor success with the birch I will try again and perhaps be more successful.
I downloaded the BirchA-D file meshes, and downloaded the D, N, S, and leaf file associated...Goodness the wombat filing system is chaos. I had to edit the DNS files to make them square. I tried using the OGRE text that was available for download with them but I had no clue where it was supposed to go and it crashed feralhearts when I had it so I just ignored it. Then I kind of played with it and put it in the code when I was putting the .pngs into the tree file so I could use them (like how you put the rocktex7.png into the rockMat material file) and altered the file path and yatayata tons of experimenting yatayata...lol probably just confused you....It was a crazy and jumpthroughhoops process to get a partial result. I still can't figure out the pine tree, and I can't figure out what makes it so different from the birch tree that it won't work. x.x
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I kind of got some of the animals meshes to work by using the materials that came with the IT animals... I also used crystal mat on the horse to make a unicorn... I'll keep texturing stuff and put it on DA later with a link
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Ok. :)
Edit: =/ I just crash FH when I try loading the animal meshes, even without textures.
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really? dang that didn't happen to me... Wonder what happened
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Hey I figured out how to texture the objects and such I have a forum and the files will be up soon
http://feral-heart.com/index.php?option=com_jfusion&Itemid=2&jfile=index.php&topic=10365.new#new (http://feral-heart.com/index.php?option=com_jfusion&Itemid=2&jfile=index.php&topic=10365.new#new)
so if you want to use any of them here ya go
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Thnx it was really helpful
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Lol im trying to make a ZD (zombie Dragon) Material from Impressive World. i can get it into my objects creator alright, and any other creature/item i want, but it all ends up white, its annoying because i want to make a map with all the animals in it
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Each time I put in waterMat it keeps on saying cannot find waterMat! SOME ONE PLZ HELP!!!
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remember the Material bar is case-sensitive. and WaterMat has a capital 'W' not a normal case 'w' i found out about how to get the materials on your objects, i think. you open up the material file, and on the top few rows it will say something,for example, since i am doing a Zombie Dragon, it would turn out soemething like this 'zombieDragonMat' Only problem is i cant test it out BECAUSE every time i try to go on FH it stops working. >:(
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Hey today I had the time of my life.I wanted to make something to put in my map,a mesh,so I retexture a cave with Fir Leaves and it was so funnyXDDRetexturing has a lot of fun but is rather difficult...I want so much to be a mesher O.O but I am a marker and a preseterXDDD
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Awesome.
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It's helper
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Cap the W on water.
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Hi ^^
I m soo glad that you post this :D It is really helpfull!!
And I have one qestion... Could you tell me how to use the Billboard and what is the Light for, in the EffectMaker? I need help to understand how I use this. I have tryd and I cant finde it out D:
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This is extremely helpful, thank you!! This helped me on making objects, although I was a little confused about textures. I got it now, and I am excited I'm talking like "textures, objects, etc." now! I sound so much more techy and nerdy. >3<
Anyways, I've decided to go ahead and try to make a few objects! I'm probably going to make some pictures with frames, a desk, maybe even a sword or something.
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Hey, thanks for making this. You helped me understand textures better.
Quick sidenote: To 'save as' you need to klick on the File Type selection and scroll up (or down in some cases)a bit. If you select 'all types'(or whatever it's called.), you only have to type .material after the name. It will save as a material file. It's easier because you can just make a new file instead of copy and paste. That's what I think.
Don't listen to my useless ramblings. I just thought it was a point worth noting.