3d Studio Max, Openzone & Terrain Basics I

[Richardo]

Cool Windcatcher. Hey, do you have any idea how to make a masked DDS file? I forgot how completely. I know you do it through photoshop and export it i as TGA file and then GraphicConvert.exe it to .dds. But I don't know the method in photoshop.

[Windcatcher]

You mean for trees? For OpenZone you need to take a 24-bit .BMP where the mask color is in the majority of the four corner pixels, and use OpenZone's command under the File... menu to turn it into a 32-bit transparent .BMP. Then you can use it with OpenZone.

[Richardo]

nvm.........

[Richardo]

Hey Windcatcher, can you help me find a way to draw terrain textures? :p I'm having a hard time creating roads, etc without creating a terrain image that is 20382308x2048204824

Any ideas? :p Texture shading/mapping in 3ds max is easy but it isn't supported in the cross over.

[Windcatcher]

Hmm. Do you know if .3DS files support multitexturing (with or without alpha blending)? If it does and if I can get a sample I can try adding support to OpenZone and SimpleClient, but that technique would only work for .XWF files (WLD files can't handle it). Do you need to make zones for the live client or only for SimpleClient? I'm guessing the former, but I have to ask. For .WLD files perhaps you could make a low-res zone texture, but that wouldn't look that great, or perhaps a low-res zone texture that is only used where there are roads?

Exporting to .EQG is a possibility, but I have no information at all on the format and I'd hate to have to go that route as it would take a lot of effort away from other things (for instance, I'm maybe halfway through building a human female player model and I plan to complete it this weekend, then I want to do GeorgeS' spider models). I then want to populate the Veldona zone with mobs and do another full-up release of SimpleClient, after releasing OpenZone 8.4.

[Windcatcher]

Were you able to make any progress, Richardo?

As an aside, my human female model is almost complete (I just have to do leather and chain helmets, but all the body texturing is done). This will be part of the next version of OpenZone and SimpleClient.

[Richardo]

To answer your question regarding the .3ds format... No, .3ds does not support alphablending. You can have multiple textures on different triangles but when it comes to blending a material... No, it is not supported. The .eqg format would be useful however to me it seems I will have to end up creating one big image for terrain and then using height maps to assign it correctly. I can split up the files but it may be better to keep it as one.

I've played with some terrain programs that support drawing textures. Might be nice. We'll see after I am done with some more testing.

[Thovar]

are these tutorials available anywhere? the links seems to be broken.

[Ropethunder]

Does anyone still have a copy of the tutorial files from the first post?

[Packet]

I lost these ages ago. :( Sorry bud.

[Pectabyte]

Hey Richardo,

Any chance you'll get the links for your tutorials back up? I'm trying desperately to find material on building custom zones.