Making a Texture Using MapZone
From C4 Engine Wiki
This tutorial is aimed for people with little experience in texture creation.
note: MaPZone is now a Free Standalone Program and the texture creation in Photoshop torch is carried by Luxology's imageSynth.
Contents |
What you'll need
- Adobe Photoshop
- Map|Zone FREE
Getting Started
First install Map|Zone FREE (not EX), if you haven't already.
This tutorial will show you how you can take advantage of Map|Zone FREE to create many unique textures.
Bricks
Creating bricks is simple enough, right?
Just open up photoshop, use one of the brick presets in Map|Zone, and you have a brick texture.
How about a complex brick texture? One where you can see little holes in the brick? Does Map|Zone FREE have that as a preset? Short answer: No.
This doesn't mean, you can't make one though.
Open Photoshop and make a 512x512 image with a white background.
Now open Map|Zone under Filter:Allegorithmic:Map|Zone...
The Pattern
Look under the Material folder, and choose Brick Wall 1. Adjust the Disorder value to 0. You can do this by moving the Shake slider. Now click apply. You'll see a Greyscale brick pattern. This is your heightmap. Now create a new layer.
Color
This new layer will contain the color map for your heightmap.
Go back into Map|Zone, and fortunately, your heightmap is still in the work space. What you need to be concerned with here, is the Output Filters tab at the bottom.
Go to the output filters tab, and in the current output filter field, switch it to Colorized Map.
Click on the bar of color to set different colors on the bar, and keep an eye on the heightmap in Map|Zone's work space. Experiment with the colors for a little while. When you're done experimenting with the colors and are happy with how the brick texture looks, click Apply.
The Details
Make your color layer invisible, and create a new layer set to Multiply.
Erosion
This new layer will contain a pattern which will make the brick look eroded in some places.
Go to Filter:Render:Clouds.
As you'll notice, not much has changed.
To fix this, go to Image:Adjustments:Levels... Adjust the levels until some of the parts of the brick show up as a dark grey, BUT NOT BLACK.
Holes
Now create another layer, and set it to Multiply.
Open Map|Zone.
If the brick pattern is still there, go to Library:Open to return to Map|Zone's library of textures.
Go to Noises/Simple and choose Noise 6.
Apply it, and go to Image:Adjustments:Levels...
Adjust the levels so it looks like there are only a few small grey holes on the brick pattern.
The Cement
Now we're gonna create a new layer for the cement between the brick. Instead of choosing Multiply, set the layer to Screen.
Go into Map|Zone, and choose the White Noise texture, and set the disorder to the 90-100 range.
Apply it.
The texture will come out looking way too bright, with no black portions visible.
The solution: Adjust the brightness of the layer.
Go to Image:Adjustments:Brightness/Contrast...
Move the slider all the way down.
Parallax, Ambient Occlusion, and Specular
Now that we have a texture (a broken up texture), we're ready to take advantage of C4's features.
Parallax Mapping
Bump/Normal mapping makes a 2D surface look 3D by making different spots in the texture respond to changes in light. Parallax mapping takes this even further by displacing the texture in different spots.
In C4, the Parallax Map is a heightmap in the heightmap's alpha channel. In our texture, we're gonna make the Color map invisible, use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to select the whole texture, and go to Edit:Copy Merged...
Next, we're going to create a new Alpha channel in the Channels tab, which is right next to the Layers tab.
Create the new channel, the same way you would create a new layer.
Click on the alpha channel and paste the hightmap there.
Save the texture as Brick_bump.tga (Targa file format). Make sure that Alpha Channel is checked in the Save As dialog
Color
Make the layers for the heightmap invisible, and Save as Brick_color.tga (Targa file format). Make sure Alpha Channel is checked.
Specular
A specular map contains information on how shiny a texture should look.
For the brick texture, you don't really need any specular at all.
There's many ways to make a specular map.
Here's the way we're going to use in this tutorial:
Open your bump map (Brick_bump.tga).
Go to Image:Adjustments:Levels...
Adjust the levels so you no longer see the cement in between the bricks.
Now make the white slider meet with the black slider.
Your texture will be nothing but black and white.
For added detail, make a new layer set to multiply.
Go into Map|Zone, and apply the Complex 2 noise texture.
Save it as Brick_spec.tga (Targa file format), with no alpha channels.
That's just one of the ways to make a specular map. More will be discussed at a later time.
Importing into C4
Now comes the part when we actually get to use the textures.
Move all of your textures into the Import directory for C4.
Start C4, and in the console, type itexture.
Select the color map first.
Importing the Color Map
Under Alpha Channel, Select Ambient Occlusion. Set the Normal Map Scale to 5.
Importing the Bump Map
Open the Texture Importer and select Brick_bump.tga.
Under Alpha Channel, select Parallax Data and make sure Calculate Normal Map is checked.
Set the Normal Map scale to 5.
Importing the Specular Map
Just open Brick_spec.tga with the Texture Importer, and import it without any options.
Using the textures
Refer to Creating a New Material.
Final Notes
When working with the textures in a material, set the specular low.
Also mess with the Normal Map Scale to find good settings for different textures.
Related Material
Importing a Texture - More information on using the Texture Importer.
Creating a New Material - How to make a new Material.
