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View Full Version : Texturing : material blending in leveldesign

enzodiac
05-05-2003, 09:01 PM
Hi there
I am about to make some stills in 3dsmax which should represent game screenshots just to get my ideas out to the people how my game would look like.

I have encountered a problem here while creating the level for my still. When I was about to texture the ground i noticed that in games of today the ground is very nicely textured with smooth transactions between i.e grass and road.

I wonder how this is done in 3dsmax if it is possible. 3dsmax should be able to act like a leveldesign tool so it should be possible don't you think ?...
Arnage
05-05-2003, 09:13 PM
Apply a mix map to the ground with the grass in one slot and the road in the other slot, then put a map in the mix amount slot to define what should be road and what should be grass and you got a smooth transition.

Hope that helped :)
Signal2Noise
05-05-2003, 09:20 PM
Since you're into level design you may want to check out discreet's gmax (http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/) which is geared specifically for that purpose. It's older brother 3ds max is definitely more powerful and versatile but gmax makes things nice and easy, as long as the game you're creating for supports it.

Just a thought...:shrug:
enzodiac
05-05-2003, 09:47 PM
thank you for your replies

arnage: the mix amount map would be really huge then right ? to cover such great areas...

and i will try gmax for that, but i want to render my stills and thats not possible with gmax as far as i know...
Signal2Noise
05-05-2003, 10:22 PM
You are correct about the rendering part. Stick with 3ds max for doing that stuff.
enzodiac
05-06-2003, 05:38 AM
as i am making small scenes i can simulate the real computer game stuff with mix map...

thanks both of you !!!
suck
05-06-2003, 07:49 AM
i love max and everything, but why don't you use a level design tool for quake, ut, or halflife? there are lots of free tools out there and large communities that support them. just a thought... although not like i should talk, we use max for our levels. :)
Arnage
05-06-2003, 09:46 AM
The mix map can be a lot lower res then the actual texture map and only has to be b&w, so even though it can't be tiled most of the time it doesn't have to be that large. I know the unreal engine uses this method for texture blending in their terrainengine from my own expirience and i'm sure it's not the only one.

btw, dont forget to post the pic's when you're done :)
enzodiac
05-06-2003, 03:45 PM
oh nice
well here is the beginning of my concept screenshot...

http://hem.bredband.net/sivfou/screen1.jpg

edit: textures are just from 3dsmax for the moment i will make my own later on :D
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