Texturing (Basic Tutorial)

From WiCWiki

Jump to: navigation, search

Contents

The Texture Editor

The Texture Generator is a very powerful feature in WicEd. From the texture generator you will be able to add colour textures and add normal-maps and detail textures to a specific material. Here follows a short tutorial on how you work with a material.

1. Click The Ground Texture Renderer Tool to enter the texture generator.

2. Two new windows will appear. They look like this:

Figure 1 Figure 2
Texture Generator Figure 1 Texture Generator Figure 2

Figure 1 is divided into three menus, as shown below:

Layers Mask Surface
Texture Generator Figure 1 Texture Generator Figure 2 Texture Generator Figure 3

3. From the Layers menu you will be able to create new layers for the texturing of your level. You can add a new layer by clicking “add”. You will also be able to import a ground template that comes with Wiced in this window. And you can even export your own custom made ground templates.


4. From the Mask menu you will create the masks for your different material layers. The masks determine what kind of textures goes where on your terrain. It is important to note that the way you stack your layers will have a great outcome on your final texture. Therefore it is a good idea to name your layers properly so that you know when a rock material for instance shall be rendered on top of a grass layer.

You can decide to splat textures onto the play field or the surrounding fields, or both at the same time. And from the Layer stack you will reach your different layers.

  • Mask Opacity
    This column controls how much of the current selected layer will be visible when rendering the texture.
  • Altitude
    The altitude column will let you decide on what height a certain material should be applied on.
  • Slope
    In a rocky or mountainous part of your terrain it might be a good idea to create a good mask for, so that rock is applied the way you want it. Play around with the slope settings to apply a rock material for instance on a desired angle on the terrain.
  • Direction
    The direction column provides you with the ability to determine what direction you want a texture to be applied from. This is a good option to use for snowy landscapes were snow has been blowing from a certain direction.
  • Fractal Noise
    This option will help you create randomness in your mask. This is a good thing to use when you are after variation in the texture structure being applied on your terrain.


5. From the Surface menu you will assign a texture, a normal-map and a detail map. You will also add specularity, a ground material, auto-props and mass-grass.

You can easily scroll between your different layers by using the Layers stack. The first thing you will notice about the surface menu is two thumbnail holders. You can click those and choose a texture and a detail-map.

However, before doing this you need to know how the surface menu works. Read ahead.

Surface Features

  • Texture
    In texture you can decide how intense the colours should be from your texture. You can also modify the brightness of the texture you decide to import for the layer you are working with. You can also decide colour tint and tiling here.
    The side projector can be a very powerful tool. It lets you texture hard angles from the correct axis.
  • Normal Map
    This option lets you open a normal map for your colour texture.
  • Detail Texture
    Detail textures are very important for the look of your map. Without the detail texture you wouldn’t get the detail that is possible. You can choose to assign a detail *:texture that will work on both high and low settings. But you also have the opportunity to assign detail textures that only will be available at higher settings when you bring your map in-game. You do this in settings for the detail maps.
  • Specularity
    Decide the specularity amount for your different layers.
  • Autoprops
    Autoprops are there for creating detail to the ground level. You might want a couple of bushes leading up to a forest. Create a mask for your auto-prop layer and choose *:auto-props from a list coming with Wiced. Or create your own.
  • Mass Grass
    Mass Grass works like Autoprops. But you can use Mass Grass in a greater amount.
  • Ground material
    Determine what kind of effects and what craters that will spawn on the material at impact.

Wrap-up

  1. Create a layer.
  2. Create a mask for it
  3. Assign a texture.
  4. Assign a normal-map.
  5. Assign a detail map.

Optional

  1. Add specularity
  2. Add a ground material.
  3. Add auto-props and mass-grass.

You can do a lot of cool stuff in the texture generator. There are tons of features that can be combined in endless varieties. The more you play around with them; the more you will notice how to work with the texture generator.

Personal tools
User Created Content