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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? :-)
-
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? :-)
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Yes please
Plus feel free to join www.farcryarena.com and post there aswell.
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<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.
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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.
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<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.
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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.
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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
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Turning off-sprites serioulsy effects performance.
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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
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