Anyone know how custom textures work in mesh editor?

[DocRBP]

Hi, ive been pondering on using custom textures (or just modified versions of the already exisitng textures/materials only with different properties), but i'm not sure how this works compatibility wise. People seem to have no problem downloading a map and getting all the custom items when on mania exchange, but when it comes to custom textures/material properties im not sure. So far ive had to work around the already existing textures and while that sort of works, i kind of feel im starting to run out of ideas. Would custom textures mean someone has to go through a whole bunch of mumbo jumbo just to get the thing to work or can i just go ham and then put it on mania exchange without there being anything other than pressing the download button, in order for someone to download and play my map?(other than maybe a large png file hogging about 50% of the allowed map file limit).

I also feel custom textures would help me get away with certain things, as i can use a more specialized texture to get a desired look rather than having to use 4 times the ammount of faces just to get the desired look. i have no problem with the 1mb custom item limit but the actuall coppers of the map can start to skyrocket if you have a heck of a lot of 3-4 copper items on the map(gotta get them bois down to 1-2).
(not that anyone would go through the trouble to plunk all of those down and expect someone to load in that monster...but thats where im at i guess lol).

[niebo26]

Hi,

So far, custom materials made in the Mesh Modeler are not embeddable in a map. Hence it means indeed it needs a bit of work when giving a map to someone else to play. The shared materials can be placed anywhere in the Documents/Maniaplanet/Materials/ folder but the textures they point to have to be in the same folder as what the creator specified when creating the material file. For example, if the textures were in Documents/Maniaplanet/Items/Common/MyTextures/ then you'll have to make this folder if it doesn't exist. (Textures can't be pointed outside of the Documents/Maniaplanet folder and are always .dds files)
If giving files by hand is an issue, you can also make a title pack that contains your materials and textures

Niebo

[DocRBP]

Hmm, thats a bummer. Have found somewhat of a work around though. Figured i could just make decently detailed and non generic buildings by smartly placing simple shapes, so i think im going with that(seems to work well so far and it is seemingly more optimized than what i did before).

A custom titlepack would have been interesting but im not sure about the magnitude of technical knowledge and dedication required to create one.
Speaking of titlepacks, do they have the same 1mb limit or do the custom items count as if they where a part of the actual game?

[niebo26]

Hi,

In a title pack, every data that you put in the pack when creating it (for example in one of the title makers) will be seen as "part of the game". Thus, every item, material, etc won't need to be embedded in the map because the map is based off the title pack (and you need the pack to play a map made in it)

Niebo

[Demented]

Nice questions and answers.

[DocRBP]

Now that's interesting. I could probably give it a try sometime but as of now im stuck working on a rather monsterous map(which hopefully wont be too bloated on the coppers side given the sort of crude but decent detail).

[DocRBP]

On the subject of textures, what causes some custom block UV´s to have straight lines for shadows?
Is this just the fast computing or have i messed up my items somehow? also, sometimes when you compute lightning you suddenly get a lot of fps drops and im not sure if the line shadow blocks are the cause.
I do have a lot of items present and a lot of them are clipping/intersecting one another(brief amount of hidden flickering from square geometry).
Im not sure how this affects lightning calculations but i usually keep things like ghost blocks/custom items away from the level generated water (non interactive flat water textures work fine).
Should i avoid excessive clipping and create smarter block pieces or could something else be the cause?

Does the light bounce of clipping geometry but detect areas where a lot of bounces occur or does it sort of standardize it in some way?
Btw, computing the light takes as long as if i was using stock blocks with identical coppers.

[Demented]

Could you attach a screenshot or two to show some of your lighting issues?

I think your frame drop after calculations could be that calculating lighting also adds the 2D decals (sprites) like grass and bushes etc... I've never really noticed a difference but I'd guess it must take slightly longer to render frames. Probably depends a bit on the GPU as well.

I've seen some shadow lines at the edges of certain items also. This was not present before the update that also bugged calculating in Ultra.

[DocRBP]

Not sure how to attach screenshots on this forum. Everything has to go through maniapark or a corresponding image host site as far as im aware(might be wrong on that though but not really sure how to go about it). Btw, the thing you mentioned about the 2d grass being rendered makes me wonder if this causes any problems when you have a dirt texture hidden under another one. Ive been working on a rather long map and it has dirt curves that go upwards on top of a flat dirt plane which serves as the main ground floor.

[Demented]

You can actually drag and drop an image into your reply (in some forums)
I will try it to be sure.

Whathesaid.gif (914 Bytes) Viewed 4067 times

I you see "What he said" image, then it worked...
Drag and drop then at the bottom click [place inline].


Good question. I'm not sure if the sprite images are drawn on top of eachother or not. That's one for the devs I guess.
You could try placing a small stack of items next to just one items, calculate lighting, then compare how they look.