Edge decals

[Phlookian]

Hello once again Ladies and Gentlemen, it's another begging letter

I'm trying my hand at map making for the first time (a little late I know with GRAW coming out (but you never know it might suck )).

I've read all the tutorials I can find but none of them cover the edge decals found on maps like Aurora.

I'll explain:

I've made two height maps (one for the playable surface and one for the surrounding hills which will enclose it)

The hills pass through the playable surface and at this point you get a nasty zig zag effect.

I think that what RSE have done with this is to layer over the distortion with a decal effect of some kind.

If you want to see this for yourself find the Aurora map and replace edge_decal.rsb with a solid colour (and remove the mask channel if you're overwriting). You will find that this layer travels around all the places where rocks meet with the sand and covers over the edge of the road to blend it with the desert.

As this decal is painted over the existing mapping (to see this make the mask layer solid black) it must have been laid over the top somehow..................

HELP!!!

My skills with this stuff have just found their limit.

Does this mean that a new object has to be created to take the edge_decal texture or is there some function of 3dsm I haven't found yet?

I can't even headbut my screen now I've bought a TFT!

Any help, is of course, very much appreciated.

[The Worm]

Dear Poor Noob,

I had to look at your map to see what you mean.

First, the zig=zag effect that you get has nothing to do with th decal effect. It has to do with the overlapping polygons on your map edge. Let's say, the surrounding rocks penetrates into the walkable ground, at a distance, the game engine gets sort of confused as to which texture to render, the rock or the ground. So you get a little of both.

The solution is to make sure the surrounding rocks and the ground meet exactly edge to edge. So the ground and the rock do not overlap one another.

(Easier said than done )

Now the edge decal thingy is something else altogether. If one edge of a bunch of polygons (eg a road) meet exactly at the edge of another set of polygons (eg a greenish ground), you get an un-natuarally straight line. So you make a texture named decal or transition whatever, which is half road and half ground, painted to look natural. Then this half road/half ground texture is placed betwwen the road and the ground.

Something like this: Click pic

So the edge decal in Aurora, is to give a more natuaral rock/ground transition.

Edited January 22, 2006 by The Worm

[Phlookian]

Gotcha

Thanks man!

This map making is turning out to be a bit more in depth than I'd anticipated.

Thanks for helping me out so quickly

[sniper82]

not to hijack well okay i am but worm when you gonna realase that map?

[The Worm]

not to hijack well okay i am but worm when you gonna realase that map?

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lol It's in CentCom. coming soon