Reality Factory

Yeah..It will be good to have a new editor...and one with Vertex Editing capabilites....RFEditPro is a good editor...but the lack of vertex editing takesoff a huge chunk of potential from it...

umm ok...to clear terms up for ya all...paralax and normal mapping are what the engine does to the texture to give a flat surface that realistic bumpy look! It has nothing (or not much) to do with the shinyness! Paralax mapping is an updated version of normal mapping.

Specular mapping is a greyscale version of a texture that the engine uses to calculate the specularity (shinyness) of the textures edges. A flat texture would not be shiny even if it did have specularmapping though..thats where the normalmapping comes in.

The normal or paralax mapping makes a surface look like it is more entricate then it realy is. It can make a flat texture stick out but not use any brushes to do it! the specular mapping then highlights that bumpyness.

pic's from Berserks Quake II Evolved Engine.
(note the flat texture (diffuse map)...normal map...specular map...and then height map)

EDIT: The forum wont let me post the pics......

Go here and look at the pictures
http://www.quake2evolved.com/blurforum/ ... genumber=1

sorry to correct you, but it looks like the the person who wrote the article you got your information from was a bit confused.

Parrallax mapping is NOT Normal mapping. Parrallax mapping manipulates the texture coordinates of an object to give the appearance of Parrallax (the obscuring from view of one thing by another) within the texture. Normal mapping on the other hand calculates the lighting on an object for each individual pixel in the normal map texture, rather than using the lighting information from the model, which allows for us to use much more detail in the lighting, giving a bump mapped effect. In many situations these textures are used together to provide a better effect.

what you said about specular mapping is 100% correct, but it's generally good practice to make a new bitmap for the Specular rather than greyscaling the old one.

Yes GD1 I understand what you said and I agree....I was just trying to explane it in a way that noobs to the subject could understand...

In the way of making a flat surface look complex normal and specular mapping are alike...Paralax is better looking and more advanced but still....they do the same type of thing....in the way the engine uses them and calculates the lighting and such they are completly different...but I figured since this is a forum of mostly non programmers (hince the purpose of RF) I figured I would explane it in laymans terms....Yes I get how it all works! I use it on a daily bases with q2e. I make my own normal maps bump maps modes textures ect....(no paralax mapping yet...well one guy has it working but he hasnt released his code yet...WIP)

ok, sorry for the misunderstanding

Could you have RF2 open more formats, such as 3ds and Blender?:?:
thats other than *.act files.cheers

I believe both of those are already supported by the graphics engine. Not sure about blender but I'm pretty positive 3ds is supported along with a lot of the other popular formats.

[edit] Nvm I doesn't support 3ds, only supports blenders .mesh . But I believe they have exporters for a lot of the different programs.

It was when the engine was Irrlicht. With Ogre, the only supported mesh file is .mesh, but there is an exporter for most modeling apps, including blender, and they actually work, which is a nice change from Irrlicht's "accuracy by volume" approach (try all formats, one of the 15 is bound to display your model right )

So no, 3ds is no longer natively supported, but since you use blender you can just export right from blender. There should be a list of supported apps on the Ogre site, http://www.ogre3d.org .

EDIT: Here is a page with a bunch of exporters for various programs: http://www.ogre3d.org/index.php?option= ... tcat&cat=5

Thanks

Does RF1 open any other formats besides .act for characters and stuff?

@zanny - Welcome to the forums! Im afraid I think RF(1) only supports .act files for importing meshes into its levels (for characters and stuff)

@AndyCR - The fact that Ogre only supports .mesh is fine by me, I just checked and 3DS max can export .mesh easily, but I'm wondering now, what about animations? Do we still use .MOT or is there another format we need to use now? cause im starting animation (for characters) now and I dont want to have to re-do them all cause they are in the wrong format...

There is another format that mot will be convertible into - I forget the exact extension, but basically it's very similar to MOT but also supports bone weights.

I'd really strongly consider using Blender as the official 3D modeler for RF2, just like MilkShape is for RF1. It's free and it does almost everything that Max Maya and ZBrush do. It's a little hard to learn, but i think we should all try to integrate it into our art pipeline, especially since it can readily export to OGRE's .mesh format.

Well, I don't really think we need an OFFICIAL modeler... And I dont think everyone who has made a game in RF1 even has Milkshape, and so just like with RF1 you will be able to use your own 3D modeler of choice so long as you can get the model into the .mesh format in the end. I really dont like blender very much, ive started learning it, but just found 3DS Max to be profoundly more straight forward and simplistic. Also alot more natuarl in the way it works... but then thats just personal preference.

Yes, I agree. It's only official to the extent that it's what I use and it works perfectly, but you can use whatever works and you like best.