How do I make a map to accuraty follow a map a drew?

Microman171 · Post by **Microman171** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 6:07 pm

Me and my friend are making a game where you defend our school from aliens. So I photo copied a school map then I put it into gimp and make it look nice but now I'm stuck with what to model it with?? Something like blender maybe but I tried that and soon realised that I would need to cut all the rooms as well. I would really like to do this in RF edit pro (I'm really attached to it now despite it crashing occasionally.) Does anybody have any suggestion??

Thanks

Danni Boi

PS What up with those VERY irritating ads??

jonas · Post by **jonas** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 11:30 pm

If I remember right there is a program in one of the older rf versions that had a program that would generate a bsp from an image. I have no clue which one version or what the program was called. I'll see if I can find it.

vegas WP · Post by **vegas WP** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 1:01 am

What you might do is to take your school map and place it in a commercial copier and use graph paper to print it out on. Adjust the enlargement of the outputted copy so that the graph lines have an easy scale to refer to on your copy. Now you have a crude scale map of your school. Well, RFEditPro gives you grid lines as well. Just make your level to scale off of that.

Gimp might also be able to put grid lines on your photo as well.

scott · Post by **scott** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 1:30 pm

im working on a way that should be easy to do what you are asking and also may help alot more people but i have a lot of problems to overcome.

Microman171 · Post by **Microman171** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 9:23 pm

Thanks guys!! I look forward to an editor that makes them from a picture!! I will do the gimp scale thing as it never crossed my mind THANKS!!

scott · Post by **scott** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 10:41 pm

in milkshape there was a tool that alowed you to type in text and it created this it self, so i wnet about looking how you create fonts, as i know you can get hand drawn fonts so thus you could have any picture as a font, then using the text tool within milkshape create a 3d plan of the rooms, wich works, i have successfuly done this, but the part that isnt possible yet is converting this into bsp geometry wich is a pian.

Microman171 · Post by **Microman171** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 4:17 am

alas oh well
I will werk on the hrid thing when I have time

GD1 · Post by **GD1** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 10:51 pm

Honestly, making your map that way is not good practice at all.

Your dimensions don't have to be exact. Just look at the map while you block out the level in RFEditPro, try to make everything look in proportion but don't get too exact because no one is gonna notice if something is a few texels or even 512 texels off.

Block out the basic floor plan, than add the walls, then cap it with ceilings. Model the doorways by hand, don't use cut brushes.

You also need to think about the design of the level itself. You are going to need to add a lot of things to what is in your school, and also remove a lot of things. Most real world locations make terrible game levels, even though they may at first seem perfect.

Microman171 · Post by **Microman171** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 4:52 pm

Yeah I know it is annoying using a real world location but it is really cool!! THANK YOU vegas WP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am going to put a grid on GIMP then print-screen then paste, crop, and print that.

EDIT|- Why model the doorways by hand?? you cut them out then you put more model into it to give it that extra width that doors sometimes have. I am going to bring my camera to school so I can

A> Get photo realistic textures

B> Get good photos of areas
C> Get photos of real people that have signed our contract saying that they can be in the game and give us unaid help if it concerns the game.

scott · Post by **scott** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 5:49 pm

what i am suggesting is for my method to be able to make maps by bitmap images, you can use paint, photoshop, paint shop pro, and the best part i think about this, is you can draw by hand, and then its an automated process of getting it into a 3d world from your paper. i just could see it making the process alot quicker for generating pre defind maps, not for acuracy, instead of taking 2 days to create the geometry for an office block/school/hospital/roads it would take 2 hours if its already drawn perfectly how you want it, and then if it isnt perfect you could alter it as it would be near to your idea, this can be away aswel for those people who cant model too well.

psYco · Post by **psYco** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 6:17 pm

I actually did this, I made my whole school and took pics for like textures and like made all meh m8s and the teachers (who were mutant bosses) >LOL, any way it took me 2 years (but i was mainly learning RF) so if you want any insparation you can download it at the official website http://www.sotd.co.nr (sotd is for school of the dead) check it out and its free! Good luck BTW!

Juutis · Post by **Juutis** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 7:18 pm

Why model the doorways by hand??

Cut brushes decrease your framerate. You should - so I have heard - stay away from cut brushes unless they REALLY make things easier. And in this case, it's really not that much trouble creating the doorways by hand.

Microman171 · Post by **Microman171** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 4:39 pm

Oh OK. Well That make me a whole lot of work haha, but in my game I need cut brushes. Cause if I dont then the textures arn't going to line up right.