Mapping with the sketch-tool
by Duion · in Artist Corner · 05/14/2013 (3:17 pm) · 10 replies
While playing around I just noticed that the sketch tool is better than I thought, with some tricks you can build full levels out of it.
When you create a cube with the sketch tool you can scale it as a whole, this means the UV-map gets stretched, but if you select only one face and scale it, the UV-map does not get stretched, instead it stays the same size and just tiles.
Here I made a sample picture
First the default cube, then the default cube with changed material and stretched the front face to 3 times the texture, after that pulled into heigh without stretching the textures and on the next block changed material again and rotated the texture, this can be done with selecting the face with the sketch tool with the rotate function.
So there is almost all basic functions you will need to build complete levels, only thing needed to be upgraded would be individual scaling of the texture, I think this could be done, since the function is already in there, but only if you scale one face, so you lose the proportions while doing this. To make it complete there should be a switch where you can chose to scale the texture or the block.
The other thing is, an edge/vertex manipulation method would be needed for more complex shapes, but with these two things done, people would be able to build complete levels inside the Torque editor very quickly and easily, without having to use complicated third party softwares.
Here I tried to build a quick house for fun in about 10 minutes:
I hope someone with the knowledge may be able to integrate those changes, because I think this would be a great bonus to Torque3D.
When you create a cube with the sketch tool you can scale it as a whole, this means the UV-map gets stretched, but if you select only one face and scale it, the UV-map does not get stretched, instead it stays the same size and just tiles.
Here I made a sample picture
First the default cube, then the default cube with changed material and stretched the front face to 3 times the texture, after that pulled into heigh without stretching the textures and on the next block changed material again and rotated the texture, this can be done with selecting the face with the sketch tool with the rotate function.So there is almost all basic functions you will need to build complete levels, only thing needed to be upgraded would be individual scaling of the texture, I think this could be done, since the function is already in there, but only if you scale one face, so you lose the proportions while doing this. To make it complete there should be a switch where you can chose to scale the texture or the block.
The other thing is, an edge/vertex manipulation method would be needed for more complex shapes, but with these two things done, people would be able to build complete levels inside the Torque editor very quickly and easily, without having to use complicated third party softwares.
Here I tried to build a quick house for fun in about 10 minutes:
I hope someone with the knowledge may be able to integrate those changes, because I think this would be a great bonus to Torque3D.
About the author
http://www.duion.com - Human Paradigm Specialist
#2
But if there would be texture alignment, vertex manipulation and maybe vertex snapping, you would have a fully functional tool.
05/15/2013 (10:17 am)
The tool is not designed for that, it is just for sketching, so you cannot do that, but you can get pretty far with it.But if there would be texture alignment, vertex manipulation and maybe vertex snapping, you would have a fully functional tool.
#3
Unfortunately, as this is a convex shape tool, allowing free form edge and vertex movement is tricky, and usually doesn't give the results that you would expect from a polygon editor. Not impossible, just tricky.
If someone wanted to update the Sketch tool to improve its texture and model handling that sounds like a great project.
- Dave
05/15/2013 (10:43 am)
Cool stuff, Duion. These sound like some good ideas for improving the Sketch tool.Unfortunately, as this is a convex shape tool, allowing free form edge and vertex movement is tricky, and usually doesn't give the results that you would expect from a polygon editor. Not impossible, just tricky.
If someone wanted to update the Sketch tool to improve its texture and model handling that sounds like a great project.
- Dave
#4
05/15/2013 (10:53 am)
Since there is already an export function, this could be used to bake multiple convex shapes into one proper mesh for performance reasons and also to be saved and re-used later.
#5
05/25/2013 (6:37 pm)
Hm found a bug, the collision for vehicles does not work properly, the vehicle only collides with the edges, not with the faces... so if you have a wide enough stretched shape you can drive through. 
#6
we should move forward regarding the art technical way
T3D is a great tool that is as capable as any other big name engine
i would like to point out
www.thiagoklafke.com/modularenvironments.html
modular building prefabs/assets should be the way to go
for the ones that just want to test this method
nobiax.deviantart.com/art/Free-Modular-Building-asset-366950300 this is a link to a free cc0 licensed modular building
asset pack
it should be fairly straight forward to get it into your 3dapp
just try it.
05/26/2013 (5:20 am)
Don`t get me wrong i would as everyone else like to expand this but honestlywe should move forward regarding the art technical way
T3D is a great tool that is as capable as any other big name engine
i would like to point out
www.thiagoklafke.com/modularenvironments.html
modular building prefabs/assets should be the way to go
for the ones that just want to test this method
nobiax.deviantart.com/art/Free-Modular-Building-asset-366950300 this is a link to a free cc0 licensed modular building
asset pack
it should be fairly straight forward to get it into your 3dapp
just try it.
#7
The only way to get modular properly working is to build them strictly on the grid in the modeling programm and strictly in metric dimensions and then use snap to grid in Torque.
So almost all what you got now, you can throw away or import every piece and fix it, which will result in almost as much work than building something from scratch.
For example the nobiax thing, I tried all of them, but he, as most of others build in a unit system, also used in the tutorial you posted, they use 128 unit, 256 unit and so on, maybe this works in their programs, but torque uses metrics, so you would first have to convert them to metrics. So maybe you go for metrics divided through 10 so you have 2.56 meters instead of 256 units, but 2.56 is not a good dimension for snapping to grid, so you would have to convert it to 2.5 meters, that will fit very well, leaving you with work and maybe destroying the dimensions, so everything will look stretched.
So you see, no matter which way, you are confronted with many problems, that need to be fixed.
But I don't see why not both methods should be fixed, so they work.
For example you want to make a 100m wall, with modular system you would have to start your modeling program and build a module, maybe 2x2 and ingame you would need to place 50 of them in a row, so you have your 100m wall, leaving you with many objects, many polys and so on.
With sketch tool, you would just place it an pull it to 100m, done.
So there is use of both tools. And other engines have these functions also. Valves source engine mostly uses this method and UDK also has a lot of primitive creating functions still in its editor, only editor I tested so far, that does not have that function is the CryEngine editor.
05/26/2013 (5:55 am)
Modular environments do not work also, because of the missing snap to vertic/edge and so on functions.The only way to get modular properly working is to build them strictly on the grid in the modeling programm and strictly in metric dimensions and then use snap to grid in Torque.
So almost all what you got now, you can throw away or import every piece and fix it, which will result in almost as much work than building something from scratch.
For example the nobiax thing, I tried all of them, but he, as most of others build in a unit system, also used in the tutorial you posted, they use 128 unit, 256 unit and so on, maybe this works in their programs, but torque uses metrics, so you would first have to convert them to metrics. So maybe you go for metrics divided through 10 so you have 2.56 meters instead of 256 units, but 2.56 is not a good dimension for snapping to grid, so you would have to convert it to 2.5 meters, that will fit very well, leaving you with work and maybe destroying the dimensions, so everything will look stretched.
So you see, no matter which way, you are confronted with many problems, that need to be fixed.
But I don't see why not both methods should be fixed, so they work.
For example you want to make a 100m wall, with modular system you would have to start your modeling program and build a module, maybe 2x2 and ingame you would need to place 50 of them in a row, so you have your 100m wall, leaving you with many objects, many polys and so on.
With sketch tool, you would just place it an pull it to 100m, done.
So there is use of both tools. And other engines have these functions also. Valves source engine mostly uses this method and UDK also has a lot of primitive creating functions still in its editor, only editor I tested so far, that does not have that function is the CryEngine editor.
#10
05/28/2013 (5:19 am)
@Duion - yeah, too many windows open, clicked on the wrong one. 
Julius
It is possible to move the textures on the meshes to make them fit properly to the geometry?