Digital Content Orientation.

Files located.

1.Mission files. *.mis
2.terrain displacement maps. *.png
3.Terrain textures. *.png or *.jpg
4.Terrain details. *.png
5.Interiors (buildings). *.dif
6.Interior textures. *.png or *.jpg
7.World craft textures. *.wad
8.World craft models. *.map or *.rmf
9.Shape files. *.dts
10.Shape Animation Files. *.dsq
11.Sky textures. *.png or *.jpg
12.Sky file list. *.dml
13.Sound. *.wav


Assumtions

unless otherwise mentioned images/ textures are rgb mode png's or jpg's.

Stick to images that are powers of 2 pixel dimension. eg 32*32, 64*64, 128*128, 256*256. Square aspect ratio is not nessesary, but problems (crashes) can arise when images become overly elongated.

png. a lossless (will not deteriorate visually when compressed.) format that can carry an alpha channel. Use whenever an image needs transparent areas or, arguably for improved quality. Adaptive compression is the most efficent option when saving (without thinking)
Thanks to Desmond Fletcher for his transparency tut. (paintshoppro)
holodeck.st.usm.edu/vrcomputing/vrc_t/tutorials/transtex/

jpg. can produce smaller file sizes, at the expence of visual quality. Fine for general use when no transparency (alpha channel) is required.

Here we are assuming you are using Worldcraft for making interiors, Desmond Fletcher has provided information holodeck.st.usm.edu/vrcomputing/toolkit/map_editors/quark4torque/ for users of quark...

The root for file location descriptions is the EXAMPLE directory.
Folders written in italics can be changed or created to suit your project. But will refer to an example that should work instantly.

The format of the next section is:
-file -extension
-location

-explanation

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1.Mission files. *.mis
\fps\data\missions\*.mis

Mission files, reference and locate all textures, shapes, interiors etc within space and time, this is ultimately what you save out of the editing environment.
NB: Remember to change the NAME field in the missioninfo scriptobject. This is the name that shows up in the mission selection window when selecting a game to run.

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2.terrain displacement maps. *.png
\common\editor\heightscripts\*.png

White defines high points and black defines low points, greys cater for all the heights in between. Must be 256*256 pixels.
These can be created externally with an image editor, or exported at any time ;from the torque editor with the file > export terraform bitmap command.
NB: you may need to make the heightscripts folder.


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3.Terrain textures. *.png or *.jpg
\fps\data\terrains\grassland\*.png

Must be 256*256 otherwise freaky bands start appearing. They work fine directly in the terrains folder too.


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4.Terrain details. *.png
\fps\data\terrains\details\*.png

This image is applied to the terrain when you are up close to it. It does what it says> adds detail, you can only apply one per mission. As a rule, keeping the image mainly white or light with smaller darker gritty areas will prevent the detail from changing the terrain colour to much. I have only seen greyscale detail textures but we have had interesting results with colour.... experiment ;)


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5.Interiors (buildings). *.dif
\fps\data\interiors\evil1\example\*.dif

Buildings etc created in worldcraft or similar modeler. Read worldcraft documentation that came with the torque engine for info on setting up and exporting to dif format.
I believe the intended directory structure was supposed to work a little like this:
\fps\data\interiors\alpine\large\*.dif
\fps\data\interiors\alpine\small\*.dif
\fps\data\interiors\tropics\large\*.dif
etc.......


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6.Interior textures. *.png or *.jpg
\fps\data\interiors\evil1\*.png

Textures used by interior files.
by default these are stored one folder above the *.dif file, you can get away with saving them anywhere up to the interiors folder, the engine searches around a little.


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7.World craft textures. *.wad
\fps\data\interiors\evil1\*.wad

The wad is only a temporary editing measure because worldcraft was never designed to read the actual png's or jpeg's used by the torque interiors. Providing the textures we package into our wad are named the same as the original texture we can still assign textures to our interiors. For info on making wad file read the documentaion provided on buildwad.

Wads can be located anywhere, (defined within the worldcraft options> textures dialog) but for conveinience it pays to keep them with the actual textures.


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8.World craft models. *.map or *.rmf
\fps\data\interiors\evil1\example\*.map

These are the native 3d editing formats of worldcraft, if they are kept in the same directory as the *.dif is to appear the default worldcraft setup, (see torque doc) will place the exported dif in the correct location.

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9.Shape files. *.dts
\fps\data\shapes\organic\*.dts

Shapes are the trees, rocks, player, weapons, vehicles etc exported from 3dstudiomax or milkshape etc. Save shape textures in the same folder as the shape.
Darren Hannah's tut [url] http://www.garagegames.com/articles/dhannah/tutorials/[/url] gives a solid background of torque specific modeling.

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10.Shape Animation Files. *.dsq
\fps\data\shapes\organic\*.dsq

animation can be embeded into shape files or stored individually. Providing the models naming and structures are identical the animations can be recycled.



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11.Sky textures. *.png or *.jpg
\fps\data\skies\*.png

7+ textures used to describe the sky cube mapping and resulting water reflection. can be up to 512*512 pixels each. Can be made with stitcherwww.hm3d.com.au/software/realvizst.asp, terragen, or with the reflect/ refract map in 3dstudio max (i'll make another resource if interested....)

Desmond Fletcher describes skys (terragen) in detail in this tut.
holodeck.st.usm.edu/vrcomputing/vrc_t/tutorials/surrounds/


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12.Sky file list. *.dml
\fps\data\skies\*.dml

just a renamed txt file defining the order sky textures are mapped onto the environment. refer to above tut.

Quote:dml arent only for skyboxes but for every animation that needs a couple of images for it, or even things that are textured with different images, for example, rain, which can have different pictures listed in a .dml file to get different drops, same with snow and other precipitations, lightning uses dml too, water uses it too, and many other examples.

(thanks Xavier "ExoDuS" Amado)

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13.Sound. *.wav
\fps\data\sound\*.wav

16 bit mono 22khz PCM format wav files
can be organised further under the sound folder. once again our main man Desmond Fletcher provides the technical insight: holodeck.st.usm.edu/vrcomputing/vrc_t/tutorials/sound/


There you are, that ought to about prepare you to create without too many technical hangups..
best of luck.
sam