Shader questions

[Computron]

First, what does the material name field determine? if i name a gravel shader tough_terrain_gravel, will it produce dust from grenade explosions and a gravel sound?



Second, How are the yellow sandy paths blended so smoothly with the green grass in the pathways on bloodgulch? is there a shader that will take multiple diffuse maps and blend them? I am looking at the template folder and i cant seem to find this. I have found shaders that can read multiple specualr and detail maps and blend them, but i have no clue how it works. Ive tried writing my own but i cant see the difference. quick shader tut anyone?

[Vicky]

1st: Yes of course that's how it works! I made a Ferrari model and called the shader Ferrari and it was just fine... all red and shiny with even the brandmarks in place... (not).

2nd: You sort of get that i think, it's kinda like in CE but the shaders are different so pick ur pick.

[Resinball]

1) The material_name (inside a .shader file) is what you need to look at.


2) These tags should help:

Coag Shaders

Coag Bitmaps

[Vicky]

Guess you got kids :P

[Computron]

1st: Yes of course that's how it works! I made a Ferrari model and called the shader Ferrari and it was just fine... all red and shiny with even the brandmarks in place... (not).

Sarcasm, nice.

I was refering to the material_name field thats located in the first line of the .shader file's code as resinball clarified.

Guess you got kids :P

uh, what?

1)
2) These tags should help:

Coag Shaders

Coag Bitmaps

Thanks resinball, I'll take a look and report back.

[Garanas]

A Small extra:

There are special shaders that can blend diffuse maps together, using other bitmaps.
example, tex_bump_detail_blend_detail
Now look carefully at the options you have. First off, you have the bump map, which makes the bumps in the surface when you throw a grenade, nothing special. But then it comes.
The Base map under the "texture" tab, this is the bitmap that tells Halo 2: This is where I want that texture to be, and that texture to be there.
Now look at the Coag Bitmaps, and find the coag_ground bitmap and open it up in Guerilla, there are 2 important differences:

The Diffuse side of the bitmap determents what main color the bitmap should have on that polygon.
The Alpha map tell Halo 2 what bitmap their should be on the polygon.

You can make Alpha maps using Photoshop, which isn't really hard, you can search for tutorials on it with search engines, obviously.
The way I make them, is to copy the entire ground, export it and then use vertexpaint to draw my textures on it. After that, I render once (on 512 x 512) with the bitmaps, and once without (just plain white and black colors for the Alpha) And then I put the Alpha into the Diffuse side in Photoshop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwsrDVlqq-w

This is the vertexpaint part, a photoshop tutorial on the Alpha map shouldn't be hard to find.

After this, just experiment a little with it, good luck

[Computron]

Thanks garanas, I had figured out most of it, that video was really neat.

Garanas, have you made any maps?

[Garanas]

Thanks garanas, I had figured out most of it, that video was really neat.

Garanas, have you made any maps?

Sorry for the late respond, I have a test week so I'm not checking any forums

I'm making maps, here is an example of one of them...
http://www.mediafire.com/?5dchhjz0x5gvgh1
The file is called nameless, but ingame it should be called Green Place/Hill. (not sure what version it is)

Keep in mind that the vertexpainting isn't supported, you need to make a bitmap of it. (with alpha)
If there are any questions, just send me a pm, or ask me on Halo 2 (Garanas is the game tag )

Edit: Make sure you run it on high quality or medium quality, so that you can see the decorator_sets. (when you're looking at my map)

[Computron]

map looks great, thanks!

[bumlove]

This might be help for question 1 although that is for h2x, surfaces have a material index number in collision bsp, the collision materials index determines which of the 182 material types that group of surfaces used for [foot] response