Oh wait, maybe I am...

So with all of this hoopla over the other developers and their dev diaries I decided to bunker down and give you all an idea of what it is that I actually do. I've had a few people ask "What IS a technical assistance director" and to be honest, I still don't know- Stieffers gave me a purposely ambiguous name because at the time I hadn't really settled into a niche.

Now that some time has passed and I've repeatedly scoffed at trying to learn ANYthing 3d I'm just gonna call my self a 2d artist. (I did look into 4-D art but the physics of it confused me)

Before I get into it lets take a look at some of the technology that the graphics of SF takes advantage of in the Source engine.

For something simple, take the SF block there actually is more going on then it seems.



For this block, there is a basic image called a Diffuse map (commonly just called the texture) which defines the colors and the general look of the block. (I.e. there is a white logo and a blue background as well as the grey borders.

Here's an example of a (terrible) modification of JUST the Diffuse on the shotgun: LINK

There is also another "picture" called a normal map applied which the source engine uses to simulate depth on our model. Here's an early one I did for SF 1.9.1:


(190 version then mine)
I'll touch upon this a bit more later.

And finally there are two additional maps which aren't used on the Blocks but will be taken advantage of when I continue this diary. I'll explain what those are and what they do as I get to it.

Well that was long winded and I'm making it that way because honestly- My job is not that huge of a deal, I'm just trying to make something very boring just a bit interesting- so hang around hopefully it'll get a bit more interesting!

So for this diary I'm going to add some extra maps to the pistol that Ficwill Made in his own previous diary. I'll post more as I get the stuff all prepared!

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Mmm, chocolate sourceforts logo =O

Allright, so as you saw before in FicWill's Diary the Diffuse Map is "built up" with varying details being added. Some of these details are wanted for my task, others aren't. Thankfully Ficwill keeps these details in separate layers in Photoshop- which means that I am able to pick and choose what I want to work from.

A cutaway showing some of the layers.

Class soon, I'll post this now and continue later.

When I get back from class, I'll show the finished normal map and explain a bit more on it's importance.

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How do you work on such a small screen..

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Eat crayons, poop rainbows!

:/ Im a pretty sure he just put it like that so it would fit in a smaller image....

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Flare is a Faggot

KG, im getting my PS today since i do want to get back into texturing and sigs, etc. but Im need some guidence!

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:O

I wanna see your progress to,I wanna get more into textures

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Made in the USA? What? Dammit make it something less known! US can't always be super most high tech.




Make it SLO :P



(Tehehehehehhehehehehehehhehehe.)


(This post is silly)

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*cough*made in chile*couch* nah just joking,but that of made in the usa already was discussed

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So Now that I have the Source File from Ficwill, I am able to pick through and select the details and maskings that will work best for the filter used to create the normal maps. I've been tinkering with the filter (available from nvidia) for a while and have learned to "eyeball" things to determine what a good look is for the normal map.

Usually though you'll want different settings for different sections of the gun. A good example here is the Pistol Grip material and the holes in the clip. Although the default passover does add some detail, the depth wasn't to my liking. I usually either cut those particular sections out and re-filter them at different settings or simply (but not so simply) manually create the edges I desire.



Here's the result of a satisfactory pass through the filter- note the arrows which indicate a few of the sections I added manually.

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