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Improvements in texturing and subtracting

 
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MVi
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Joined: 10 Mar 2010
Posts: 2

PostPosted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 5:56 pm    Post subject: Improvements in texturing and subtracting Reply with quote

Texturing in DeleD could be made much easier with a few slight tweaks. I've narrowed it down to four aspects: snap, easy surface selection, easy texture selection and easy texture positioning/scaling/rotation.

QuArK is a good example. When you click on a surface, it opens this small texture tool in the lower right corner where you see the texture the surface currently has. But in addition to that, it shows the scaling and positioning of the texture with two vectors, one vertical and one horizontal, both inside a rectangle that indicates the shape and dimensions of the surface. If you drag the root of these two vectors, you reposition the texture. If you drag the end of either vector, you scale it along that axis. You can also rotate and skew the texture easily. All this with and without snap, whatever the user chooses. Both graphical and numerical tools are available. And when you click the texture, you get a texture selector screen. Very handy. I'd love to write this as a patch myself, but I don't have the proprietary Delphi compiler that is required.

In a level editor it is important to be able to create and manipulate geometry as fluently as possible, with as few clicks and button presses as possible. In addition to this, texturing in a general 3D-modeling program and in a level editor are two very different things. In a level editor the emphasis is on quick and easy texture selection and snap-assisted positioning on a rectangle surface. This, imho, means that we're not interested in UV-coordinates anymore, but instead higher-level things, such as position, rotation and scale of a texture on a surface. On code level this of course translates directly into UV-coordinates, but the difference for the end-user is huge. Try QuArK's texturing for reference.

Now, about subtracting. It's a wonderful tool, but there's one thing about it that makes it difficult to use. When I cut a window into a wall, the resulting wall is split into smaller convex boxes. This is as it should be. But the thing is that there's no easy way to separate them into separate objects because they are in fact one object. It would be better if subtract produced objects and simply grouped them together. This way the user could easily ungroup them if he wanted. Once again, see QuArK for reference.

Also, the map-importer is really slow for some reason. It takes more than 10 minutes to import a map with 500 brushes. Is there a solution to this?
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chronozphere
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Joined: 20 Jun 2006
Posts: 1010
Location: Netherlands

PostPosted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 6:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey welcome to Delgine. Very Happy

Quote:

I'd love to write this as a patch myself, but I don't have the proprietary Delphi compiler that is required.


First of all, great to hear that you are interested in DeleD development. Very Happy It's indeed quite a problem that there is not free delphi compiler available at the moment. Confused

About the texturing: Did you try my NashaUV plugin? It adds more texturing functionality to DeleD like easy to use move, rotate and scale functionality. It also has a snap tool, a mirror tool and support for more materials and layers. Check it out here:

http://www.delgine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3842

I'm going to add planar mapping soon, so stay tuned. Smile
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Jeroen
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Joined: 07 Aug 2004
Posts: 5332
Location: The Netherlands

PostPosted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 7:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi there MVi and welcome! Smile

Thanks for your suggestions. They're very useful indeed, especially as DeleD's texturing capabilities are rather limited. We could really use a few more coders. Is there any way you could get your hands on a Delphi 6 or 7 compiler?
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AWM Mars
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Joined: 06 Jan 2010
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 8:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is what makes this programme great.. first post and you have several replies from talented people wanting to help. Smile
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MVi
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Joined: 10 Mar 2010
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 8:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

chronozphere wrote:
About the texturing: Did you try my NashaUV plugin? It adds more texturing functionality to DeleD like easy to use move, rotate and scale functionality.


Yeah, I was really impressed by it, nice job! Smile I like how you've got the same selection options there than in DeleD: vertex, edge and face. Especially the edge and face selection modes speed up the process greatly. And I'm really glad there's the snap-feature! What I usually do is first draw my rough geometry additively, with as little subtracting as possible. Then I do a texturing pass where I select textures for all surfaces. Lastly I select each object individually and for each one I open up NashaUV to position the textures. But I've noticed that while powerful, it's a plugin that is most useful for precision type of work. You know, in situations where detail is concerned. When texturing large generic areas, it tends to be a little bit cumbersome.

What I've been longing for is a general texturing feature that is easy and quick to use, something that's there whenever you click on any surface. Something that you can use to quickly get your initial textures in place and properly scaled.

Jeroen wrote:
We could really use a few more coders. Is there any way you could get your hands on a Delphi 6 or 7 compiler?


I can ask around and see if anyone has an old license they'd be willing to part with, but otherwise it seems unlikely. However, something else caught my eye: http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/

It's not exactly a Delphi compiler, but it says in there that it's possible to get Delphi code to compile with it. Do you have any experience with this?

About the subtract issue. I didn't explain it too well, so here's a better example: We have a wall-brush, and we want to carve a hole in it. We put a box through the wall and use subtract on them. The wall is sliced into four pieces, and there's a hole in the middle. These four pieces are still a single object. Even though the pieces can be manipulated separately, they can't be separated into separate objects. It would be nice if they'd become separate objects after the subtraction, maybe grouped together. The user could then ungroup them if he wants to separate them. It's a very small issue, but it would be nice Smile

Btw you guys have done an amazing job with DeleD. And like I mentioned before, I'd be happy to contribute code once we find a way.

Thanks!
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chronozphere
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Joined: 20 Jun 2006
Posts: 1010
Location: Netherlands

PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 6:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:

When texturing large generic areas, it tends to be a little bit cumbersome.


True, that's why I want to add mapping modes. That would just be a matter of selecting a bunch of polygons, positioning a "mapping gizmo" and apply the operation. Smile
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Paul-Jan
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Joined: 08 Aug 2004
Posts: 3066
Location: Lage Zwaluwe

PostPosted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 1:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

About the freepascal compiler, yes we have looked into it. DeleD won't compile out of the box, in fact it will be a rather large amount of work to get it to compile on freepascal, but we are looking for people willing to (and with the necessary skills to) pick up that sub-project.
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