Large Grated walkway/platform.. arg! looks bad...

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efciem

L69: Deviant Member
Mar 31, 2008
69
6
OOOoook...


I have an outdoor area of my map, that consists of a walkway that borders the 4 sides of the area.. and the interior floor of the area is raised up and should be a metal grate type .. so you can see the ground 15 feet below it...


I have checked a couple of the grate textures.. that use Alpha transparency.. and when I use them over a large area.. they look kinda crappy..

So I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions as to how to get the look im aiming for..


How do models function for floors? , I could make a grated floor model.. but might end up being taxing on the poly count...

Other option is... Making the floor segmented somehow and using the grate textures/materials that ship with tf2...

Or creating my own texture.. with larger holes in between the metal grates to show more of below.. but with large holes.. the apparent "alpha" transparency technique seems to be too visible..


not sure what to do..
 
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Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
1,443
710
Post a pic. If we can't see what you think looks bad we can't recommend an improvement.

As for some of your Q's:

Models aren't that taxing and can be fairly high polycount. That being said there is still no sane reason to 'model grating' when an alpha tex can work perfectly. In fact you could add a bump map and make it look VERY good while being very low poly.

If the grate holes of Valve tex aren't big enough for you then increase the texture size. Are you stretching them weird? If you have a long rectangle and use 'fit' then it will look like crap because it's not evenly stretched, instead just use 'scale' and keep x and y the same no matter how big/small you go.
 
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Benvox2

L1: Registered
Jul 2, 2008
13
0
So grated walkways are actually just BSP coated with a grated texture? as opposed to a static mesh of some sort?
 
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efciem

L69: Deviant Member
Mar 31, 2008
69
6
right now I have for example, a single square brush,

all sides have NODRAW texture on them except the top surface texture is a Grate texture with alpha Transparency..

it looks OK when you stand directly over it, but looking at it from a distance to the side looks like a$$
 
grazr

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
Unfortuantely that is just the way the textures get rendered at a distance/acute angles. Textures with a majority of transparency will appear transparent from a distance/angle because source blends the texture.. whilst turning mostly metallic grating grey, ignoring the alpha transparency.

I would suggest maybe blocking players from veiwing the grating from such distance/angles with objects or something, limiting the size of the room. I think the only texture incorporating alpha transparency that valve frequently utilises is the metal/chicken_wire001, and maybe with good reason? Although i saw a grate texture being used in cp_fastlane that worked alright.

A model is actually a good idea and i'd imagine pretty simple to create if it is only a grate. I'm not entirely sure you would encounter the same rendering issues with the model though. Atleast the fences don't come out pretty weird when running along side them ie cp_badlands, before entering either bases side entrance.

The safest alternative would be to use glass..
 
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efciem

L69: Deviant Member
Mar 31, 2008
69
6
Well for now, since im still blocking in the layout of the map. I've put this issue off.. I will tackle it when It comes to detailing the area.. I have a few ideas to counter the ugliness.. like you mentioned , adding objects etc to break up the viewing perspective of the textures at the longer distance...


My map in general is larger spaced.. and I aim to have the map suitable for larger scale battles.


12v12 and up..


Most maps I find are congested when the player numbers increase greatly...

So I want to attempt to make a larger scale map.. while I see all these custom 1v1 , melee and duel maps coming out I want a full scaled map.


;)
 
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