Introducing
In the first parts of the series, we setup the environment and started our first build. In the next parts we will cover parts of the modding process, tools or functions of them. You can read them chronologically or just jump to the thing you need in this moment.
Many people run into problems with texturing. I use a special way to handle textures and want to show you how.
Every adt is devided into 16 x 16 subsquares called chunks. You can see them if you turn on the lines view option in noggit over the view menu or by pressing F7. The problem now is that every chunk on an ADT only has 4 texture slots. If these slots are full, you can´t add another one. To see these slots just turn on the paint mode, hold the CTRL Key and click on the ground. A window will open that shows you the 4 textures on this chunk. If this box is full you cannot paint with another texture on it.
So this technical restriction makes it important to plan your texturing and modeling of the ground. If you move a mountain corner a little to far and hit the next chunk, then another texture is gone which you could need for some other tasks like a road or the second layer of grass.
Also if you paint a texture in noggit, it adds this to the next free layer. So it will happen that you have a road on one chunk at layer 2 and on another one at layer 3. This makes a later rework with alpha map editing nearly impossible and makes it much harder to plan your texturemap.
How WoW Paint the Textures?
You have the 4 Layers of texture and between them 3 grayscale transition images. This image defines what parts of the underlaying layer you see through the next one. If you paint a texture in noggit you don't paint the texture but you edit this alpha map.
This is an example of a textured ADT. You see the 4 texture layers and the 3 alpha maps in between.
This leads to that texturing.
And with modelled ground.
Thats why I started to use an ADT with all 4 layers of textures predefined to create my maps from.
I have a dirt layer on layer 1, a darker grass on layer 2, a lighter grass on layer 3 and a rock/mountain texture on layer 4.
You can find this ADT inside the ADT adder folder in tools.
So Lets Get Practical.
So now you have on all chunks the same textures on the same layer. But how to add a new one now?
You can't and will not. You will just swap an existing texture on the needed chunks to create your stuff.
>> Load the test01 map in noggit.
>> Turn on the lines with F7.
Now we want to add a road to our map. For this task we need to swap one texture layer with a road texture.
Best to use here a texture not used on the chunks you want the road on. Then we can paint the road with the swapped texture. We will use the underwater texture on slot 2
>> First turn on the texture paint mode by pressing 3 or click on the icon with the feather.
>> Turn on the texture swapper by pressing the button inside the paint options windows. The window will change to swapper mode.
>> CTRL + left mouse click on one of the chunks.
>> Select the underwater texture on slot number 2 you see in the image above.
>> Click the button set destination to mark this texture as swappers destination.
>> Open the texture browser by clicking at the texture icon on the toolbar.
>> Load many zones.
>> Click on the filter button and select in the next window ROAD.
With the texture filter option you can search for textures with different options. You can search by type and zone.
>> Close the filter and select a road you want.
>> Close texture browser.
Now plan where you want to have your road and try to hit as less chunks a possible in mind. Every chunk you hit you lose a texture slot on. So a good planning is best here. Here an example of a good road and a bad one. The right road hit much more chunks than needed.
>> Now do a SHIFT + left mouse click on every chunk you want to have the road texture on.
>> Close the texture swapper window with the close icon on the left top of it.
You can now check if you did right by moving the mouse over the chunks with the texture picker shortcut CTRL
and left mouse button hold down. The texture picker window will auto-update with the textures on the chunks you hover over.
Now as we have the texture on all chunks we can paint the road on them.
>> Select the paint tool and set a good size for a road. I did 2.2.
>> Set a hardness and pressure of 0.7.
>> Paint the road on the chunks and ensure that you only hit chunks where the road texture exists.
Texturing Tips
How to Practice
You want to get skilled in texturing?
I practice in the following way. I load a zone from Blizzard with a texture set I like what I want mine to look like. Then I delete the texturing on some chunks with noggit.
>> CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + left mouse click on 2 till 4 connected chunks.
Now try to recreate this chunk texturing that you don't see deleted and orient your work on the still existing textures on the surrounding chunks. This way you learn the technics Blizzard uses, learn how they work and experiment around to how you can recreate them with noggit. During this process you will get better and better and get your own style doing texturing.
Think Realistic
As the wow texturing is built in layers the real world is too. You have dirt or mud on the base. Rocks, road or grass on top of it. So if you have a grass area and a road on it, you should first open the dirt layer where you want the road and add then the road on top. Also you can add dirt spots on grass areas to make it look more natural. Here an image of a road with and without dirt under it.
If you think about texturing, always think about how it works in the real world and try to create this look.
If water runs over stone it gets darker. In slots between rocks there will be sand or dirt the wind has brought there. If there is ground there can also grow grass or other plants on top. Also mixing of temperature in one zone like green grass and snow is not good.
Try to Hide Repetitions
Textures are seemless images that you can tile in every direction as often as you want. The problem with this is that you can see on some textures that they repeat. You can hide this by using 2 kinds of the same texture types. Like 2 grass layers. Also you can use the second layer to give the ground more depth. For example if you paint darker grass in sinks.
Use Opacity
On the left side of the texture options window you have an option slider with a black to white gradient.
You can use this tool to mix textures and create gradations. Play around with this option.
Here is an example of what this can look like. The different texture nuances are made with this tool.
This guide has been completely proof-read and corrected in grammar by Mountainlion. Feel free to message him.Next >>> 07 - Editing textures with alpha export/import
