AcidOsmosis' Sandbox Mappers Tips

[AcidOsmosis]

A few tips from me for using Sandbox.

Q: When I create a new map and generate textures, my texture is purple.
A: When creating a NEW map this is mainly due to one thing. That being that the default "sky color" is a sort of blueish color which mix with several other environment colors creating a purple color on your terrain.

The answer to this is to first, change the sky color to something other than that blue color.
You'll want to use something pretty bright. You don't normally want a dark color as your sky color. You also don't want something as bright as a pure white because this creates a "shiny" blinding brightness to some of your textures.

You should also check your Textures for anything which has a purple color to it. Or something similar. A mistake that has been made in the past is to export the texture settings from a CryTek map, import into your map and leave the settings at default. Crytek's maps use an underwater texture that has a purple "far away" texture which starts at 16 elevation. You will need to change this to something like 12 to lower this texture far enough below your above water textures so that it does not effect them.

After you have checked both of the above, Generate Surface Textures. If you made changes to the environment settings, make sure you hit Apply.



Q: Vegetation looks nothing like in the CryTek maps.
A: The answer is very simple. The main thing that you need to do to get that beautiful vegetation that Crytek maps have is this:

Click on the veggie which you want to paint (or have painted) and in the properties below, go a little further than half way down and in the "AlphaBlend" box click the checkbox so that it changes to "True". Now, those specific veggies will look much better.

Experiment with the follow properties:

Size: (a good setting would be something between .53 and 1.2)
Bending: (try 1)
ElevationMin: make sure this is set below 17 if you wish to paint this veggie underwater. Depending on how far below the water you are painting.
UseSprites: F (to get rid of those boxes that appear with vegetation from a distance)



Q: How do I create shootable swinging lights?
A: This is much more simple than you think!

Open your Objects rollout, select Entity, Lights, double click Dynamic Light.

To make it easier to place, click the follow terrain button on the toolbar. Slide your dynamic light onto the floor as directly below the ceiling where you want the light to be placed as possible. Now click your "select and move" button and drag the dynamic light on it's Z axis up about 4-6 inches from the ceiling. Sandbox automatically somehow knows to attach the other end of the light cable to your ceiling (at least this happens when I do so).

Now it is time to edit your Entity Properties for this dynamic light. I will list the main changes that should be made.

LightType -
2 = long industrial style light
3 = round lamp style light

note: make sure you hit reload script under Dynamic Light's rollout after changing the LightType or weird things USUALLY happen.

After you have changed your LightType, you can click your Select and Move tool and drag the light up/down on it's Z axis to make the light cable longer/shorter.

LightStyle -
Experiment with this setting. Creates a "blinking" or "fade in out" effect for the light.

OuterRadius -
The strength of your light

ProjectorTexture -
This is where more of the "magic" happens. Do you want to create a spotlight effect? Choose the gk_spotlight01.dds file under FarCry\textures\lights\.

LightShader -
More of that magic I was talking about. For a quick experiment choose the "LightFlicker_flare2" shader by clicking on the box in lightShader and then clicking the [...] and selecting this shader. There are also tons of other shaders which you may use for a light which start with "Light..."



Q: How do I create respawns for single player, TDM, ASSAULT, FFA, etc?
A: The answers are below

FFA respawns:
Objects, Tagpoint, Respawn. Place your spawn point on the map where you want it.
For ALL of your respawn points name them "players".

TDA respawns:
Objects, Tagpoint, Respawn.

Name your red team respawns as "red" and blue team respawns as "blue".

ASSAULT respawns:
Objects, Entity, Multiplayer, ASSAULTCheckPoint.

You are given the following options:
AttackerSpawnPoint: T/F
CheckPoint_Number: x
DefenderSpawnPoint: T/F
Visible: T/F
WarmupTime: x

If this is an attackers spawn point change AttackerSpawnPoint to True and DefenderSpawnPoint to False. If this is a Defender's spawn point do the opposite.

Now, change Visible to FALSE.



more later... possibly? :-)

[AcidOsmosis]

A few tips from me for using Sandbox.

Q: When I create a new map and generate textures, my texture is purple.
A: When creating a NEW map this is mainly due to one thing. That being that the default "sky color" is a sort of blueish color which mix with several other environment colors creating a purple color on your terrain.

The answer to this is to first, change the sky color to something other than that blue color.
You'll want to use something pretty bright. You don't normally want a dark color as your sky color. You also don't want something as bright as a pure white because this creates a "shiny" blinding brightness to some of your textures.

You should also check your Textures for anything which has a purple color to it. Or something similar. A mistake that has been made in the past is to export the texture settings from a CryTek map, import into your map and leave the settings at default. Crytek's maps use an underwater texture that has a purple "far away" texture which starts at 16 elevation. You will need to change this to something like 12 to lower this texture far enough below your above water textures so that it does not effect them.

After you have checked both of the above, Generate Surface Textures. If you made changes to the environment settings, make sure you hit Apply.



Q: Vegetation looks nothing like in the CryTek maps.
A: The answer is very simple. The main thing that you need to do to get that beautiful vegetation that Crytek maps have is this:

Click on the veggie which you want to paint (or have painted) and in the properties below, go a little further than half way down and in the "AlphaBlend" box click the checkbox so that it changes to "True". Now, those specific veggies will look much better.

Experiment with the follow properties:

Size: (a good setting would be something between .53 and 1.2)
Bending: (try 1)
ElevationMin: make sure this is set below 17 if you wish to paint this veggie underwater. Depending on how far below the water you are painting.
UseSprites: F (to get rid of those boxes that appear with vegetation from a distance)



Q: How do I create shootable swinging lights?
A: This is much more simple than you think!

Open your Objects rollout, select Entity, Lights, double click Dynamic Light.

To make it easier to place, click the follow terrain button on the toolbar. Slide your dynamic light onto the floor as directly below the ceiling where you want the light to be placed as possible. Now click your "select and move" button and drag the dynamic light on it's Z axis up about 4-6 inches from the ceiling. Sandbox automatically somehow knows to attach the other end of the light cable to your ceiling (at least this happens when I do so).

Now it is time to edit your Entity Properties for this dynamic light. I will list the main changes that should be made.

LightType -
2 = long industrial style light
3 = round lamp style light

note: make sure you hit reload script under Dynamic Light's rollout after changing the LightType or weird things USUALLY happen.

After you have changed your LightType, you can click your Select and Move tool and drag the light up/down on it's Z axis to make the light cable longer/shorter.

LightStyle -
Experiment with this setting. Creates a "blinking" or "fade in out" effect for the light.

OuterRadius -
The strength of your light

ProjectorTexture -
This is where more of the "magic" happens. Do you want to create a spotlight effect? Choose the gk_spotlight01.dds file under FarCry\textures\lights\.

LightShader -
More of that magic I was talking about. For a quick experiment choose the "LightFlicker_flare2" shader by clicking on the box in lightShader and then clicking the [...] and selecting this shader. There are also tons of other shaders which you may use for a light which start with "Light..."



Q: How do I create respawns for single player, TDM, ASSAULT, FFA, etc?
A: The answers are below

FFA respawns:
Objects, Tagpoint, Respawn. Place your spawn point on the map where you want it.
For ALL of your respawn points name them "players".

TDA respawns:
Objects, Tagpoint, Respawn.

Name your red team respawns as "red" and blue team respawns as "blue".

ASSAULT respawns:
Objects, Entity, Multiplayer, ASSAULTCheckPoint.

You are given the following options:
AttackerSpawnPoint: T/F
CheckPoint_Number: x
DefenderSpawnPoint: T/F
Visible: T/F
WarmupTime: x

If this is an attackers spawn point change AttackerSpawnPoint to True and DefenderSpawnPoint to False. If this is a Defender's spawn point do the opposite.

Now, change Visible to FALSE.



more later... possibly? :-)

[GazzaBinks]

Yes please

Plus feel free to join www.farcryarena.com (http://www.farcryarena.com) and post there aswell.

[GazzaBinks]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
UseSprites: F (to get rid of those boxes that appear with vegetation from a distance)
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That works, but is not the way to do it. When you re-generate textures the white boxes will dissapear.

[Lo.TekK]

Uner the environment settings (Terrain tab, Environment button), don't forget to hit "Apply" to see the changes (new skybox, angle of skybox, fog color, environment color, etc). The only thing that doesn't seem to update immediately seems to be the "Water Fog" color. For whatever reason, I have to regenerate the surface textures in order to see the change.

[Poseidon88]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by GazzaBinks:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
UseSprites: F (to get rid of those boxes that appear with vegetation from a distance)
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That works, but is not the way to do it. When you re-generate textures the white boxes will dissapear.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Plus, if you turn off sprites and you have a lot of vegitation, the frame rates on your map are going to go down the toilet.

[AcidOsmosis]

Turning off sprites does not effect my performance with over 40,000 vegetation objects used. I write tutorials assuming you have a system that can handle it. I give some pointers on keeping performance up, but not many.

When using vegetation such as grass, set the distance for 0.75. This is a good setting to use and will not render your grass too far away. For trees use a higher setting. You'll want to experiment.

[publicvoid]

Q: When I create a new map and generate textures, my texture is purple.
A: Coz the sun is set to a low default position creating a sunset/dawn atmosphere with long shadows and redish ambience.
You should be seeing two suns one sun is just painted on skybox, the other is the actual sun object that determins from where the light is comming and lenseflare effects etc,
on creating new levels/loading new skyboxes these dont align, so you have to set sun object to match the position of the painted skybox sun in the Lighting settings

[GazzaBinks]

Turning off-sprites serioulsy effects performance.

[Shockwavezero]

i posted a question yesterday about about grass i painted on my map the gras didnt show up until i got fairly close to it to solve this what i did was changed the sprite view distance from 1 to 1024 and i could c the grass far into the distance
just my 0.02

[brettfire]

Q: Why does my shark chase me to the land and even on to the the land after me?

Q: Why does my shark NOT patrol the tags around the small island, when the properties are all set (pathname, etc.) and the tags and shark have the same name?

[Shockwavezero]

lmao i would love to c a short clip of the shark chasing u on land that would be a laugh
sorry i cant help ya with ai paths havnt looked at them yet

[AcidOsmosis]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by GazzaBinks:
Turning off-sprites serioulsy effects performance.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

All of you need to open CryTek's maps. Sprites are turned off on vegetation.

[AcidOsmosis]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by brettfire:
Q: Why does my shark chase me to the land and even on to the the land after me?

Q: Why does my shark NOT patrol the tags around the small island, when the properties are all set (pathname, etc.) and the tags and shark have the same name?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Create a Forbidden Area for your sharks. Under Objects goto AI, ForbiddenArea. Start drawing a box around the area that you want your shark to stay inside of. In the Shape Parameters rollout, click "Pick" and select your shark entity. It is better to use the top view to do this, so that the box is straight. With the Width/Height parameters set at 0 your ForbiddenArea will take effect for any area above or below it. I usually drag this box even with the water, or a few pixels above so that it is easily visible later on if you need to change it.

[AE-on]

Swoop,

would be a good idea to add AcidOsmosis' great posts to your ongoing FAQ.

FYI folks, Swoop has been putting together a nice FAQ, and collecting some of the more instructive posts here at the forum. I have edited the FAQ. Hope the new version is out soon, for everyone to read.

AEon

[This message was edited by AE-on on Sun April 18 2004 at 03:08 AM.]

[Teq1]

Good stuff. This sprite discussion made me think that a list of (verified) Do & Dont's might be a useful addition or part of a FAQ regarding performance, AI or whatever...

So now, is the sprites a Do or a Don't? http://ubbxforums.ubi.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[KonradA]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by AcidOsmosis:
Q: Vegetation looks nothing like in the CryTek maps.
A: The answer is very simple. The main thing that you need to do to get that beautiful vegetation that Crytek maps have is this:

Click on the veggie which you want to paint (or have painted) and in the properties below, go a little further than half way down and in the "AlphaBlend" box click the checkbox so that it changes to "True". Now, those specific veggies will look much better.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm just so curious... What is AlphaBlend? http://ubbxforums.ubi.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[Lo.TekK]

Alphablend, as far as I can tell, should only be used on select types of vegetation, like grass, maybe bushes, etc. Trees look a little funky with alphablend on.

As far as sprites, I seem to recall the manual suggesting only turning them off for grass and other small vegetation, and keeping the draw distance low for said vegetation. Trees and such should definitely be left with sprites enabled.

[KonradA]

Thank you Lo.TekK for the answer, but I still don't know WHAT it is http://ubbxforums.ubi.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

*Beach - 20% Finnished*

[GazzaBinks]

Ok, yes the sprites are turned of for cryteks maps. Sorry oasis.

Turn them off - sod it

Aplha Blending. Alpha beldning applies a blur to the edges of the vegetation mask.

[Lo.TekK]

It doesn't apply a blur to the edges, it makes the sheet parts (as opposed to "solid") semi-translucent.

[AcidOsmosis]

As far as I can tell AlphaBlend is a form of anti-aliasing.

[KonradA]

So if I turn AlphaBlend on, will I recieve more fps or less?

*Beach - 20% Finnished*

[IceflowX2]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by AE-on:
FYI folks, Swoop has been putting together a nice FAQ, and collecting some of the more instructive posts here at the forum. I have edited the FAQ. Hope the new version is out soon, for everone to read.

AEon<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Where is this FAQ?
I have done a search for it but no results!

[AE-on]

The FAQ is not yet publicaly available, alas. I just received the latest version from Swoop, and will edit it some more. I'd like to add some color and possibly some screenshots.

Only today I found another 20 Q/A... trouble is these all need to be edited and *tested*. And checked to see that they indeed help you to do things step by step.

Hope to have a version done in 1-2 days though. We'll open a new thread on this then.

Aim of the FAQ is to collect the most commonly asked questions and to give concise and *working* answers, without all the noise typically found in forums http://ubbxforums.ubi.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

AEon

[KonradA]

Maybe I'm kind of late, but just wanted to say... NICE!!! http://ubbxforums.ubi.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

*Beach - 20% Finnished*

[AE-on]

Since Swoop and I don't 'invent' the anweres to all those questions, we'd like to thank AcidOsmosis for his ongoing effort to shed light on Sandbox editing. Obviously thanx also go to all the other constructive folks.

I hope the FAQ will help cut down the noise in this forum somewhat, to let everyone quickly move to the more complex and thus interesting problems http://ubbxforums.ubi.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

AEon

[Mad_Axe_Man]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by AcidOsmosis:
As far as I can tell AlphaBlend is a form of anti-aliasing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's not my understanding of alphablending.

In normal gfx you have rgba (red green blue alpha) where the alpha channel represents the level of transparency of a bitmap.

I would guess alphablending when applied to objects has information on the texture that specifies how much background rendering shows through - in effect specifying the level of transparency applied to parts of the object.

This would work quite well when applied to smaller "thin" vegetation such as grasses, especially when up close.

I would guess it would look a little daft on trees though.

[Mad_Axe_Man]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by KonradA:
So if I turn AlphaBlend on, will I recieve more fps or less?

*Beach - 20% Finnished*<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Almost certainly less.

[AcidOsmosis]

Not exactly. Please read this post.

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=400102&f=273109392&m=791108163

[AE-on]

AcidOsmosis,

your suggestions explainations at the top of the post are already in v0.92 of Swoop/AEon FAQ... thanx again. Great info.

AEon

[Szasza_hopeless]

I've got a problem with alphablend. When I turn it on, the alphablended tree's shadow won't take effekt on the player anymore. So I usually don't use alphablend because of the shadows.

[Earlywine]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by brettfire:
Q: Why does my shark chase me to the land and even on to the the land after me?

Reminds me of when I first started building a Half-Life Mod many moons back... In one Map.. in a Research Lab.. I had one of the HL Sharks in a large Tank, complete with Clip Brushes... yet everytime I played/tested through that area.. here came the Shark down the hallway... waddling very slowly.. completely ignoring me... and right on out through the wall at the end of the hall and out into the black of the build box void...
After talking with Autolycus at ERC and Doug Lombardi.. none of us could figure out just why this kept happening in this particular map.. and no-where else..
I still have that Mod... and I left the shark thingie alone..just for a laugh...