Term

Hi guys and thanks for all the positive feedback. It's especially nice to see your work being welcomed by the many professionals hanging out here. I didn't find much time to check Mapcore for the past years, so I'm glad I could even retrieve my account info

Quakis, the "sliding" bug you're talking about, could you give me some more info on that? The reason is, I experience it myself since I upgraded (!) my vid card late in the development process. None of the testers encountered any problems, though, so I thought it was a problem on my end. What kind of engine update did you say introduced this bug? I'd like to include some info about that in the upcoming FAQs on our website.

Oops, sorry for screwing up the link.

What the nVidia tool doesn't handle quite as good as the one from ATI is IMO gradients of larger scale (i.e. for things like the concave monitor in my texture).

I dunno, it might be possible to come up with identical normalmaps from both the ATI and nVidia tool - but not with the default setings of the plugin. ATI normalmaps just seem to be right "out of the box" without much fiddling with settings. But to each his own.

No, there' a 3DSMax plugin on their site, but this application works with grayscale images (just like the plugin from nVidia). You save your grayscale heightmap as a TGA in Photoshop, open the app and direct it to it. It then generates the according normal map and saves it by adding "dot3" to the filename.

Unfortunately the ATI program has absolutely no options to tweak the outcome (which the nVidia plugin has plenty of), but most results were satisfying enough for me so I don't need tweaking options anyway. For the hardcore, it's possible to tweak settings in the included "TGAtoDOT3.cpp", but I can't figure out much of what the file includes

Yes, my gradients with the nVidia plugin always looked poop, that's why I tried ATIs solution to it (I only heard good things about it). It's a bit hard to find on their site, so here's a link. Note that they don't sport a PS plugin though, it's a standalone app which makes it a bit more time-consuming to use.

@Zacker: Not sure about Canada, but I know a lot of people in the US who smuggle a couple glasses overseas everytime they visit Europe

@ISB: Do I read it right that you suspect this to be the D3 engine? Unfortunately it's not :roll: I can't talk about the engine (NDA yadda yadda...), but trust me you wouldn't want to work with it.

Ok, I'm done with my normal mapped version. As a test I used the ATI Normal Map Generator instead of the Photoshop-Plugin from nVidia (which I used before), the resulting normal map seems a tad bit crispier to me:

Grayscale:

Normalmap:

Ingame:

The end result doesn't look that different from Kleinluka's, though. Very nice work, dude! :wink:

Hey that looks awesome already, especially considering you didn't have access to the source file at all! I did a quick shot of it in the halfassed engine I recently worked with, but the rendering quality of the engine is subpar (to say the least):

It would be cool if someone could make a screenshot in a more decent rendering system, currently I don't have many games installed on my system and have to stick with this older engine.

I'll have my go at the normal map later today, now I first need to have my cereals and stuff (Daniel, soll ich ein Nutella-Brötchen auf Dein Wohl mitessen oder gibt's das Zeug inzwischen auch in Übersee? ).

Gaaah, model that flux capacitor thingie?! No way, too much hassle Stuff like that would likely be modelled in the first place, without creating a diffuse map with such detail at all. But as this here is more of an experimental thread about how to enhance HL1 textures, I think I stick with the much more time saving method of creating the normal map in PS from a grayscale image of the height proportions in the original diffuse map.

Granted, it will look a bit odd and not as fancy as a 'modelled' normal map - but it is just a training exercise for me and I think most base textures you do nowadays don't require such a complex normal/bump map anyway - the detail comes with the models.

Funny coincidence, I just wanted to fiddle a bit with normal maps tomorrow (haven't done that too much before). Normalmapping this texture is a daunting task, though... but what better way to learn

So expect the normal map and an ingame shot sometime tomorrow.

Yeah, it's just a reminder for me, it reads "Get a job you bum!"

/edit

The "sans post it" version:

Hi guys, I finally got around to making the texture I promised... umm... a year ago? I still had an early template for the remake floating around and as I currently get back into texturing after a long pause from Photoshop, I thought a complex texture like this would be a good start to get into gear again.

Original:

Remake:

The photo references and handdrawn stuff don't blend together quite as good as I wished they would, but after several hours of fiddling with that bitch of a texture I decided it's good to go, heh.

BTW, as I know there's many industry buffs hanging around here: if any of your companies has use for a contractor in texturing or/and level design, I'd be glad to apply. Unfortunately I had to get out of a running project early and I'm actively seeking new projects.

Oops, my fault But they're both nearly identical and from the same guy... he must've been real lazy to just clone his own font and resell it to Microsoft o_O

BTW, the font "Interstate" I mentioned isn't freeware, but there's a freeware clone named "Blue Highway" which does the job just as good.

Heh yeah, and ain't each side of an octagonal stop sign supposed to have the same length? Your side lengths go all wild

Additionally (but a little nitpicky), "Verdana" is probably the very last font I'd use for signage. The font was created by Microsoft solely for screen usage, it looks awkward in print or larger sizes. Signage for the US can usually be lettered with the font "Interstate", which was created in the spirit of highway signs. Germany also sports a nice font family for their signs, called "DIN Schrift".

Sorry for the rant, but I just can't stand ugly fonts

Well, I'm not saying it's impossible... I just doubt it will happen here in this thread (no offense to any of the contributors). Redoing all of the original textures will require some sort of organisation and people willing to dedicate an enormous amount of time to it - I can't see a lot of people in here willing or able to do that.

Beside that, I'm not sure whether the old maps will look that much better with our new textures. The style and quality varies so much that a map with a mixture of textures from 20+ artists will likely look poop, however brilliant the single textures might be.

make a webpage for these textures and the ones that havent' been done yet.

Aaah, c'mon... how many textures have been redone in this thread, 40, maybe 60? HL.wad alone counts over 3000 textures and it's highly unlikely we will ever get together more than 100-200, at least not in this thread.

As I said before, I still wonder who came up with the idea to redo all textures from hl.wad for some sort of "Hires HL"... but I still doubt this idea is anywhere close to being realistic.

so should i delete the last two pages of replies or not?

My sentiments exactly. I think the spirit of the thread got lost a bit... wasn't it meant to be mostly a fun contest where amateurs and veterans kill some freetime and brag about their texture skills? And now everyone keeps redoing random posters (with little or no effort involved), following the new credo to "redo all HL1 textures and port them into Source!". Hm... weird.

It looks like the Valve guys have been hanging arround on google!

Pure comedy gold. Half-Life was released in 1998 while Google didn't leave it's beta status before 1999 :roll:

Yep Ted, nice tutorial indeed! What I find surprising is that, even though I'm sure there's a gazillion ways to receive similar results, every texture pro I met over the years uses the same methods for things like that (color range from base textures and stuff). Given the lack of actual useful tutorials on the web for professional texture editing, it must be some kind of common gene or something

BTW Ted, you still stick with PS 5.5, stoneage-style? Heh, I know I do... the Fred Flintstone of texture artists :roll:

IR, that texture is awesome, with all the little cracks and details. My only complaint would be the highlights, you used the dodge/burn method for them which doesn't work too well on concrete, makes the edges look metallish and not as dull as concrete/stone usually would.

looks prety good dont like the yellow though

Yep, I noticed that on a lot of textures in this thread with paint on it, the paint often looks like watercolors. It seems as if most of you just copy the color layer onto the structure layer which makes the structure look through too much.

Just think that those surfaces are varnished with full opacity and underlying structures would only shine through with their bumps but not with colors or contrast, the only place where an underlying material is fully visible is where the color peels off.

My take on it:

Original:

Enlarged & enhanced:

There are not bump-maps on most textures in the game, I would guess only on around 25-30% of them, where it would be very noticeable.

Heh, I love it when I've got something right without even knowing what I'm talking about

Personally I don't see normal maps as such a "next big thing" like everyone usually does after playing D3. Sure, the amount of normal textured planes and the resulting display quality is stunning... but when you consider that 99% of D3's surfaces are metal or polished plastic, one starts to wonder what other games should actually do with all that glossyness (is that a word?). For HL2, take a plain sandy desert surface or a dirty asphalt road - these surfaces wouldn't reflect any light in the way normal maps work.

What I want to say is: for corridor crawlers like D3, set in some futuristic tech environment, normal maps come in very handy... but a game with open organic environments like HL2 could as well do with only a couple of those on the more reflective materials (even if Mikey's right and they have normal maps for most surfaces).

yes: is there something im missing in photoshop? when i save as .jpg, it always comes out darker than the psd

You probably need to take a look into your Photoshop RGB color management. It's generally set up pretty good right off the box, but maybe you messed around with it sometime, that would explain the differences. Make sure your color profile matches your monitors color temperature as well (i.e. mine is 9300k, Trinitron).

remember, i'm a programmer not an artist

And that's for a reason No, seriously, the idea of painting keypads and stuff like that by hand takes ages and will likely always look flat and painted. I usually go with Zaphods suggestion and use photosources for that. Just take a trip to an aviation or industry museum, it has billions of lights, knobs and switches there... perfect for that old school Black Mesa look and everything labeled "pre-computing era".

If I still find the time the next days, I'm going to remake this one:

It should have tons of buttons and knobs so I'll see how far my photo resources get me

Oh, and to answer Mikeys question: yes, I almost went on a rampage over Vostok. I bugged the Levelord a dozen times to give us GBXers credit where it's due, but in the end not much happened (I'm listed as a LD for Valve on the CSX box, yay ). They raped Vostok for their deleted scenes, CSX and finally released it for CSCZ as well... that's what I call efficient (now if I'd only get a triple paycheck as well... d'oh).

@Tisky: I like the roller shutter, it recreates the feeling of the original texture very good. If I'd want to be nitpicky, I'd complain about the lack of depth for the bars in the upper half of the texture, the lower half has much more depth. But thank god I'm not nitpicky

@Splitta: The texture itself looks cool, but it doesn't resemble the original very good. The upper 3 metal parts are hinges (Scharniere ) and not just additions to general metal part. And it's kinda odd to see screwholes drilled into the side of a metal bar rather than right through it

/edit

Nevermind, just read your wall comment

ha, like your name!

Yeah, and in addition I actually play piano for more than 25 years now I'm somewhat blond as well, so Schroeder is probably the closest it gets to a carricature of me

My favourite concrete wall from Half-Life (my gibs must've been splattered a thousand times against it in all those Gasworks outdoor fights...

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