Texture directories?

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sentharn
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Texture directories?

Post by sentharn » 2007-10-06, 04:27

I've been playing around with CaWE and started and planed a small level to experiment with. I'm used to other editors but finally got the hang of Worldcraft/hammer/CaWe.

Anyways, my question is, should I use the textures that come with the SDK as they are and hope that the directory layout isn't changed in a future release, or should I put them in the map's own directory?

Oh, also, do I need to use a specific entity to make skies emit light? I remember HL had the light_environment...
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Carsten
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Re: Texture directories?

Post by Carsten » 2007-10-06, 11:28

Hi Sentharn,
sentharn wrote:I've been playing around with CaWE and started and planed a small level to experiment with. I'm used to other editors but finally got the hang of Worldcraft/hammer/CaWe.
Great to hear that! If you ever find a feature that you think is much better implemented in one of the other editors, please let us know. I have only little experience with other editors, and thus any insight is welcome.
Anyways, my question is, should I use the textures that come with the SDK as they are and hope that the directory layout isn't changed in a future release, or should I put them in the map's own directory?
I'm not exactly sure if I understand your question right, but in fact, you cannot move the textures around: What you see in CaWE are not textures, but "materials". Materials in turn are defined in small script files in the DeathMatch/Materials directory, and these definitions in turn refer to the actual texture images in the DeathMatch/Textures directory. (The section "The Ca3DE Material System" at http://www.ca3d-engine.de/wiki/ has documentation about all the related details.)

In any case, you can rely on the material definitions not changing over time. Should they ever change anyway (e.g. because due to file renames etc.), you can rely on me fixing all related problems for you!
Oh, also, do I need to use a specific entity to make skies emit light? I remember HL had the light_environment...
No, any material can be defined to be a (radiosity) light emitter, either as a regular lightsource, or as skylight. Thus, you can simply apply one of the "Sky" materials, which are accordingly predefined, and CaLight will automatically get things right.

Btw.: I'm currently working on a "Your First Room" Flash tutorial that happens (as a side effect) to demonstrate that exact effect. I'll let you know when it is ready, probably even today or tomorrow.
Best regards,
Carsten
sentharn
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Post by sentharn » 2007-10-07, 06:23

All right, thanks! I was wondering about that.

Now that I've explored the .cmats a bit, they remind me a lot of Q3's shaders, which I'm familiar enough with to create and edit. I'm used to having only special shaders (Ie, light textures, water, or the really bad looking reactor texture I tried making) being materials...

Ah yes, I found one of the sky materials has the light params I need already...

By the way, one thing you might consider, (if you're not already working on it), is making it a bit easier to rotate patches than to select a vertice, drag it, seelct another, drag it...

Also, another feature (up a similar vein) would be buttons on the toolbar to automatically flip and rotate objects, like here in GtkRadiant 1.4, and maybe a way to customize build commands (like adding switches into command lines, etc, instead of having just 'quick', 'normal', and 'quality')
Hmmm, I must be in a screenshot happy mood.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y124/s ... editor.jpg
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Carsten
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Post by Carsten » 2007-10-07, 20:03

sentharn wrote:Now that I've explored the .cmats a bit, they remind me a lot of Q3's shaders, which I'm familiar enough with to create and edit. I'm used to having only special shaders (Ie, light textures, water, or the really bad looking reactor texture I tried making) being materials...

Ah yes, I found one of the sky materials has the light params I need already...
Ok, sounds like you're comfortable with the cmat files. Otherwise, just ask, I'll be happy to explain or assist. The cmat files were in fact modeled with Q3 shaders as a guide, but dynamic lighting considerations and programmable GPUs eventually made me design most of the details quite different.
By the way, one thing you might consider, (if you're not already working on it), is making it a bit easier to rotate patches than to select a vertice, drag it, seelct another, drag it...
Thanks for pointing this out, I'll look into this soon!
Also, another feature (up a similar vein) would be buttons on the toolbar to automatically flip and rotate objects, like here in GtkRadiant 1.4, and maybe a way to customize build commands (like adding switches into command lines, etc, instead of having just 'quick', 'normal', and 'quality')
Hmmm, I must be in a screenshot happy mood.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y124/s ... editor.jpg
Noted! Thanks!! :up:
(But what did you mean by "automatically"?? Any do I get this right that the rotate buttons only ever rotate 90 degrees clockwise around the indicated axis, and there is no button to rotate counterclockwise instead?)
Best regards,
Carsten
sentharn
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Post by sentharn » 2007-10-08, 05:39

Oops, sorry, I didn't mean to put 'automatically' in there. Yes, it does rotate the selected object 90 degrees in one direction, which means you'd have to click it three times to rotate 270 degrees, but I personally find that faster than pressing control-m (transform) and typing "-90" or "270" in the Z box...


That's about all that I've found difficult with this editor, the rest became natural after a few hours of practice. Now I'm trying to freelook in GtkRadiant with Z and keep having to remember it's not CaWE!

I'm working on an experimental little world right now to familiarize me more with Ca3D and the editor. I take it there is currently no real way to activate lifts/doors with seperate buttons or triggers?
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Post by Carsten » 2007-10-08, 12:17

sentharn wrote:Oops, sorry, I didn't mean to put 'automatically' in there. Yes, it does rotate the selected object 90 degrees in one direction, which means you'd have to click it three times to rotate 270 degrees, but I personally find that faster than pressing control-m (transform) and typing "-90" or "270" in the Z box...
Ok, thx for the clarification. :)
That's about all that I've found difficult with this editor, the rest became natural after a few hours of practice. Now I'm trying to freelook in GtkRadiant with Z and keep having to remember it's not CaWE!
:cheesy:
I'm working on an experimental little world right now to familiarize me more with Ca3D and the editor. I take it there is currently no real way to activate lifts/doors with seperate buttons or triggers?
No, not yet, but this is exactly the problem that the upcoming release is supposed to solve. The release date is planned for November 1st, release candidates are supposed to be available before that, so stay tuned! :wohow:
Best regards,
Carsten
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Post by Carsten » 2007-10-10, 11:26

sentharn wrote:By the way, one thing you might consider, (if you're not already working on it), is making it a bit easier to rotate patches than to select a vertice, drag it, seelct another, drag it...
Sentharn, did you try to use the Selection tool to rotate the bezier patches as described here?
It's supposed to work, otherwise, please let me know if you find something broken.
Best regards,
Carsten
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