Posts by Yanzl

  • VMT Editor - fast and simple editor for vmt files

    Quote from FMPONE

    16 hours ago, FMPONE said: Would you guys consider phasing out vtfedit entirely? It's bothersome that it never got 7.5 support, plus it would put everything under one roof.

    I'm not really much of a coder, I can add new parameters and simple stuff like that, and to include all the functionality of VTFEdit it would take a lot more work. Dima (the main programmer) is also not really committed to the project anymore, so unless we get some new programmers it's probably not going to happen. Also, VTFEdit has 7.5 support, you just have to download 1.3.3 version not the 1.2.5.

    Quote from Dosentti

    7 hours ago, Dosentti said: I tried to create decal through it, but it didn't recognize an alpha channel at all. Through vtfedit it went very well. I find it annoying that browse button is disabled every time I start the program. It's not a big thing to add a game every time but it could remember the last used game. VMT Preview is great and program has very nice features too. I don't know where to use all those stuff so there could be those little question mark icons in the main screen after every property (Meaning headings like Other, Color, Specular...) that would stand shortly which button/slider does what. People will learn those eventually but this would make it easier to use as a new mapper/texturer.

    For the alpha to show you have to check either transparent or alpha test in transparency group. Seems there's bug with alpha test though, it only shows half the texture.

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/PL2ygs0.png]

    Remembering last game should work, can you check in options if Save last selected game is checked?

    And adding tooltips is planned but not a priority, for now I hope the post explaining stuff above will do.

    Quote from JSadones

    4 hours ago, JSadones said: Any plans to support phong shading as one of the toolbars?

    Awesome tool so far.

    That's the Specular group.

  • VMT Editor - fast and simple editor for vmt files

    This editor is focused towards creating vmts, not vtfs. Using VTFEdit for creating vmts is more or less like using a text editor, and you have to remember or search for all the parameters. In VMT Editor you can just tweak sliders and checkboxes to get your desired material look, no parameter memorization necessary. As for DXT5 compression, they both support it.

  • VMT Editor - fast and simple editor for vmt files

    Here's a quick explanation for some of the parameters:

    Shader select:

    Here you select the shader, depending on the use of your material. Most of the time this would be either LightmappedGeneric for brush textures and decals, WorldVertexTransition for displacement blend materials or VertexLitGeneric for model materials.

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/yXEyOdK.png]

    This is the toolbar that contains shortcuts for the most used parameter groups, I use only these in 95% of cases. Other groups can be found under Add... menu item, or you can add any missing parameters under the Additional parameters tab.

    Top-to-bottom these groups are: Transparency, Detail, Color, Other, Reflection, Self Illumination, Specular and Misc.

    Transparency group:

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/PL2ygs0.png]

    Opacity controls the overall opacity of material, transparent and alpha test use diffuse alpha channel. Transparency is smooth but has sorting issues that alpha test solves, but has hard edges - used for foliage and such. You can control the cutoff point with threshold. Additive doesn't need an alpha channel, black is see through and white is solid (like Photoshop). Check Decal if you plan to use the material as decal or overlay.

    Detail group:

    Should be pretty self explanatory, adds a detail texture over the whole material, scales higher than 1 mean smaller than diffuse and lower than 1 mean larger than diffuse. Note that non-uniform scale is not implemented yet. Default detail blend mode is similar to overlay, meaning neutral gray has no effect.

    Color group:

    Tints the whole material. Color is for LightmappedGeneric and color 2 for VertexLitGeneric. Blend tint by base alpha uses diffuse alpha channel as color tint mask (works only on models in CS:GO).

    Other group:

    Here you can add a lightwarp texture, control reflectivity of the material or use seamless scale for displacements. Seamless scale doesn't work with normal maps, only ssbump.

    Reflection group:

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/nY27UFr.png]

    This if for cubemap reflections, you can use auto generated cubemaps with the Use cubemap checkbox or specify your own custom cubemap in the Reflection: line. For the reflection mask you can also specify separate texture in the mask line (only works with no bump map) or use either diffuse (base) or normal map alpha channel.

    Tint controls the intensity of the reflection with the slider or its color with the pick color dialog. For saturation 1 is default and 0 is black and white, for contrast 0 is default and 1 is most contrast. Fresnel controls the visibility of reflection depending on the angle; 1 means default behavior, 0 is no reflection when looking perpendicular and full when looking horizontal.

    Light influence and Anisotropy are new parameters introduced in Nuke update, explained here: http://blog.counter-strike.net/workshop/maps.php#anisotropic

    Self-Illumination group:

    For glowing textures, uses diffuse alpha channel by default. You can control the power with the tint slider.

    Specular group:

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/nfTXcdr.png]

    Phong reflections on materials. This one is different depending on selected shader. This is for LightmappedGeneric, only works in CS:GO. http://blog.counter-strike.net/workshop/maps.php#phong With amount you can control the color as well as power of the specular reflection. Since it doesn't take the color of the light environment into account, it looks best if you use the color of the sun. Last value should generally be left alone as it brightens and darkens the whole material. Glossiness controls the size of the highlight, smaller values mean bigger highlight.

    Brush specular also uses diffuse luminosity for mask as default, you can control the contrast and brightness with the next set of sliders. You can switch the mask to base alpha or normal alpha mask (uses same parameter as reflection, you can only use one).

    VertexLitGeneric specular group:

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/GBNpFxn.png]

    Fresnel controls the visibility of the highlight at certain angles. X is looking 90° at the material Y means 45° and Z is 0°. Better explained here https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Phong_mat…_Fresnel_ranges I find a good value to start with is 0.5 0.8 1. Tint works the same as in Reflection group, you can also use diffuse color to tint the whole phong highlight. Unlike brush specular, it takes into account the light color, so it's best to leave it white/grey unless you want a special effect like colored metal.

    Glossiness controls the size of the highlight the same way as in brush specular with the exception that you can provide your own glossiness texture. You can make the highlight brighter with the boost slider.

    By default, specular uses the normal map alpha channel as mask, but you can also use diffuse (base) alpha or its luminosity as masks.

    Misc. group:

    Contains tool texture and keywords lines, as well as other parameters that you may find useful in certain circumstances. Model checkbox only needs to be use on materials other than VertexLitGeneric. Vertex alpha and Vertex color make the surface derive its alpha and color values from per-vertex data provided by the engine. No decals means no impact, blood or other such decals can show up on the surface of this material, useful for chain link fences. Ignore Z ignores the engine object sorting and displays material in front of everything. No fullbright and No lod are used in UI textures (such as L4D posters). No fog means the material is not affected by the environment fog.

    -------------------------------------------------

    There's no set values for any of these parameters so it's best to test yourself and see how it looks in game. Use the mat_reloadallmaterials command to quickly see changes after you save.

    Hopefully that covers the basics, if you have any questions feel free to post them here.

  • VMT Editor - fast and simple editor for vmt files

    LATEST UPDATE: Version 1.3.10 on Mar 27th, 2018

    LATEST RELEASE

    OFFICIAL WEBSITE

    DOCUMENTATION

    Hey Mapcore!

    This is an open source vmt editor that aims to improve the tedious experience of editing text files with an easy to use UI and fast workflow.

    Dima Butemann did most of the heavy lifting involving the programming while I took care of the UI and bothered him about updating it.

    It has texture previews, can convert jpgs, pngs or tgas to vtfs (and move them to proper directories), verify vmts, features a batch vmt creation and has support for (most of) new parameters introduced in Nuke CS:GO update.

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/ZqxLgwo.png]

    Version 1.3.10 with all the required files can be found here: DOWNLOAD

    Alternatively, if any of you know Qt and C++ and would like to help with the project, you can check out our git repo at https://github.com/Gira-X/VMT-Editor

    Here is a quick video to demonstrate how fast making vmt files is:

    And converting textures to vtf: https://streamable.com/zlwed If it doesn't find any games you have to manually add them in the Manage games dialog: [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/qM08hS9.png]

    And browse to the main game directory:

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/CetnLom.png]

    Also a shoutout to the creators of VTFLib (http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/) that provides the texture converting and preview functionality.

  • CS:GO phong on world surfaces

    Quote from nicoreda

    Oh! Can you tell me how do you make your custom cubemap ?

    I drew the sun on a spherical map of the sky and made the background black in Photoshop like this: http://i.imgur.com/jCvEfS8.pngThen I used HDRshop to convert it to hdr and cubemap format, added it on top of the skybox in Photoshop and changed the exposure +4. The images should be in this arrangement http://i.imgur.com/pa7lnGk.jpg  except mirrored vertical.

    I saved the image as .pfm (it has to end with _hdr) and used vtex to convert it to cubemap with

    cubemap 1

    pfm 1

    pfmscale 1

    nocompress 1

    Then you just add in in the vmt as $envmap "cubemaps/file_hdr"

  • CS:GO phong on world surfaces

    Updated Resort materials to include phong: http://i.imgur.com/ouhdMhk.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/a8ImBuv.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/9wnB9P3.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/Z7urlaY.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/YSDJpel.jpg Some stuff I've learned (don't know if it's been said before): It uses the same mask as envmap, so you can use it with both base alpha or normal alpha.It doesn't work on 4wayblend or water.Since it uses the same mask as envmap, you can only have one on a blend material.You don't need a normal map for it to work, unlike on vetexlitgeneric.$phongMaskContrastBrightness "[1 1]" - the first value is contrast and second one is brightness of the mask, but it's tricky to get results, values go very high, still need to play with this some more.$phongAmount "[1 1 1 1.0]" - this is in format [R G B power], but the last value also makes the whole material brighter instead of just the highlight, so it's best to leave it at 1. You control the specular intensity here with RGB float values, or with the brightness of the mask.And yeah, it only works with environment light, probably because it can use the dynamic shadows as a mask, instead of adding even more data to lightmaps. And bonus:http://i.imgur.com/pbCQ1sa.jpg