MAPTEXTURE HELP

Introduction

If you're a skin artist and are attempting Map Textures for the first time, then like U2 say 'Everything you know is wrong'.

Map Textures are a completly different discipline than Character Textures. Skins are about impact and clear variation. Skins require a lot more shadow and light sourcing and theres a lot of different ways you can do this. The Emphasis is more upon Design. This is because skinning is closer to a cinematic discipline, if you imagine a skin is a film but with only one frame. You have to put as much into this one frame as possible.

Textures are a more minimalist and low contrast discipline. They should rely more purely on the the Engine's light sourcing and are more about defining 'material relief' sp that people can clearly understand what it is made of, be it in brick/ metal / wood. The hardest thing to come to terms with about map textures is that they are going to be tiled with each other over and over again so the 'repeat' has to be incredibly subtle to be any good. Additionally, a single GREAT texture unlike a skin is useless on its own.

Map Textures are about sets.Skins are just about one image.

The Map Maker Equation

Additionally, you dont always know how your map textures are going to be used so they have to be more versatile.

Mappers rely on textures being divible by 16 generally. The reason for this is that then 2 different textures cant sometimes intersect with another texture at a mid point. Plus due to the nature of map making mappers think in terms of the 16 times table. And so must you...

What most mappers overlook is that a player in Quake stands only at 64 pixels high. This means its very easy to make the geometry out of scale. The FPS genere is riddled with a bad sense of scale, levers are generelly 64 - 128 pixels long. My point being that your work must have a sense of scale as that will aide a map maker and yourself if you are mapping also. Again the FPS genre is rife with bad examples of this : 4 marble tile squares, black and white at 128 by128 is a common mistake. If the player is about 6feet tall at 64units then those tiles are 6feet wide each. You dont see many of those in the 'real' world and realism in games is something that as its grows up more must be focused upon to increase the feeling of emmersion we all demand from a game.

Map Makers are messy people at times. They require a 'fixer' texture often for areas of maps that wont break down into divisions of 16. A Good fixer texture for a 64by46 metal panel ( indented edges) is plain metal texture of exactly the same composition minus all the rivets, indents, weatheration etc. That way it can tile seamlessly.

As a result, fixer textures repeat must be as unnoticable as possible. This is where the 'material relief' being important comes in. Because for a texture that has to repeat in 4 different directions it must not have ANY distinct details. This is where ALL skinartists make mistakes at first.

Summary

So. In conclusion, map textures have to much more multi purpose. They may be required to be used in different combinations than you can forsee, part of the proof of a good set of textures is that they are versatile as much as realistic, imaginative and made with consideration to texture space!

But eventually, textures are a lot of fun as you tend to build through a series of boring similar base textures for floors/walls/ceilings etc before this leads up to a larger texture with a greater sense of design that is a minature centerpiece of a sort.

If skins are about creating people, then Maps texture are about creating a world.

Playing God is fun once you get used to the Nuclear quirks.

'Patience is a Virtue, and Artists are lazy people