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[SoA] Wicked Arsonist Thu Dec 30, 2010 1:23 pmOverview
First of all, in order to use the Surface Map Painter, you have to have already generated surface maps. Second of all, if you regenerate surface maps after using the Surface Map Painter, your painting will be overwritten. So, make sure that you've got your surface maps generated just how you like 'em before you begin painting on top of them, or else you'll have to redo it all.
The Surface Map Painter is for detail work, modifying small areas of terrain. It isn't designed for large-scale manipulation. If you want that, import a custom texture for your material mapper.
The Tools:
The Brush Selector: This dropdown menu gives you a selection of brushes to work with. These brushes operate like many paint programs, designating the area that will be affected by the painting tool. The cool thing here is that you can make your own brushes, by creating an 8-bit grayscale bitmap in the paint program of your choice and then dropping it into the "brushes" folder in Battlecraft 1942.
Darken Texture (Z) : Selecting this will make the paint program paint black onto the terrain-- used with one of the "noise" brushes, or any brush on low intensity, this is a good way of adding a dark area to your map or increasing shadows.
Lighten Texture (X) : Selecting this will make the paint program paint white onto the terrain-- useful for creating bleached out textures, or that nice "salt flat" look.
Paint Material on Texture (C) : This tool works slightly differently than the other paint tools. After selecting this, you should go over to the dropdown menu of textures on the right of the Surface Map Painter and select which texture you want to use. NOTE: This is not actually painting a "material" in the strict sense of the word; if your surface map is "mud" painting "grass" with the Surface Map Painter on top of it will not alter the sound that the material makes when a soldier walks across it-- it will still sound like squishy mud. I've been able to make some very interesting effects by using two textures on top of each other-- play around, have fun with this one.
Blend Texture (Y) : This tool, very simply, blends the area that the brush is affecting, smoothing the colors in the area together.
Color : This highly useful and entertaining tool allows you to select a solid color for the Surface Map Painter. You can add some red blood speckles, some blue-white iciness, or just stick with the default bright pink color and sign your name in letters large enough for only God (and pilots) to see.
The Intensity Slider : Much like the Intensity Slider for the terrain editing tools, this slider affects how much "paint" the Surface Map Painter applies with every click of the mouse. At it's lowest setting, it's a barely noticeable brushing-- at it's most intense, a few clicks will make the area solidly whatever color or texture you're painting.
And that is basically that. Play around for awhile, and you’ll quickly get the hang of it. Just remember not to generate surface maps (or shadows, for that matter) after using the Surface Map Painter.
First of all, in order to use the Surface Map Painter, you have to have already generated surface maps. Second of all, if you regenerate surface maps after using the Surface Map Painter, your painting will be overwritten. So, make sure that you've got your surface maps generated just how you like 'em before you begin painting on top of them, or else you'll have to redo it all.
The Surface Map Painter is for detail work, modifying small areas of terrain. It isn't designed for large-scale manipulation. If you want that, import a custom texture for your material mapper.
The Tools:
The Brush Selector: This dropdown menu gives you a selection of brushes to work with. These brushes operate like many paint programs, designating the area that will be affected by the painting tool. The cool thing here is that you can make your own brushes, by creating an 8-bit grayscale bitmap in the paint program of your choice and then dropping it into the "brushes" folder in Battlecraft 1942.
Darken Texture (Z) : Selecting this will make the paint program paint black onto the terrain-- used with one of the "noise" brushes, or any brush on low intensity, this is a good way of adding a dark area to your map or increasing shadows.
Lighten Texture (X) : Selecting this will make the paint program paint white onto the terrain-- useful for creating bleached out textures, or that nice "salt flat" look.
Paint Material on Texture (C) : This tool works slightly differently than the other paint tools. After selecting this, you should go over to the dropdown menu of textures on the right of the Surface Map Painter and select which texture you want to use. NOTE: This is not actually painting a "material" in the strict sense of the word; if your surface map is "mud" painting "grass" with the Surface Map Painter on top of it will not alter the sound that the material makes when a soldier walks across it-- it will still sound like squishy mud. I've been able to make some very interesting effects by using two textures on top of each other-- play around, have fun with this one.
Blend Texture (Y) : This tool, very simply, blends the area that the brush is affecting, smoothing the colors in the area together.
Color : This highly useful and entertaining tool allows you to select a solid color for the Surface Map Painter. You can add some red blood speckles, some blue-white iciness, or just stick with the default bright pink color and sign your name in letters large enough for only God (and pilots) to see.
The Intensity Slider : Much like the Intensity Slider for the terrain editing tools, this slider affects how much "paint" the Surface Map Painter applies with every click of the mouse. At it's lowest setting, it's a barely noticeable brushing-- at it's most intense, a few clicks will make the area solidly whatever color or texture you're painting.
And that is basically that. Play around for awhile, and you’ll quickly get the hang of it. Just remember not to generate surface maps (or shadows, for that matter) after using the Surface Map Painter.