Custom Textures - working but what's missing?

Open Blade

L420: High Member
Nov 30, 2007
439
34
I used Interlopers tutorial to generate a custom lava texture for my map.

http://www.interlopers.net/index.php?page=tutorials&id=8219

When I open Hammer, I can find my texture easy enough. When I click to apply it, the surface turns white. Is that normal, probably will see it in game but is there a way to view the texture applied to the surface while in Hammer? I'm a very visual designer and I would like to see the texture while in Hammer.

Thanks.

Also, I scoured the web looking for a way to add bump mapping to my texture. I found a few but they were complicated. I'm still not totally sure between bump map, normal mapping and all that stuff. Any "friendly" tutorials on how to add depth to your texture would be helpful.

Furthermore, I like a particular stock cliff texture but want to make it a totally different color, how can I do that? Where are the stock textures located and how can I open then in Photoshop, and would I just use the same VMT and just rename it to my new VMF?

Thanks again mates.
 
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Snipergen

L13: Stunning Member
Nov 16, 2007
1,051
150
Make sure your paths setup in your .vmt are correct
Also right click on perspective and see what options there are. 3D shaded is broken for overlays.

Depth is nowdays a normal map. Bump map was the old method but normal mapping is the standard now. Don't try too much fancy stuff with bump mapping though, I experimented with it for custom tf2models and they looked too realistic and out of place. If you do it subtle it's worth it like some tf2 textures have a normal map, but for custom maps you might ask yourself if it's worth the extra filesize.
 

Open Blade

L420: High Member
Nov 30, 2007
439
34
Make sure your paths setup in your .vmt are correct
Also right click on perspective and see what options there are. 3D shaded is broken for overlays.

Depth is nowdays a normal map. Bump map was the old method but normal mapping is the standard now. Don't try too much fancy stuff with bump mapping though, I experimented with it for custom tf2models and they looked too realistic and out of place. If you do it subtle it's worth it like some tf2 textures have a normal map, but for custom maps you might ask yourself if it's worth the extra filesize.

The location is exactly where I saved the VMF file, with the final folder being Custom TF2 Textures

D:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\"my email"\team fortress 2\tf\materials\Custom TF2 Textures


VMT

"LightmappedGeneric" { }
"LightmappedGeneric" { "$basetexture" "Custom TF2 Textures/lava01" }
"LightmappedGeneric" { "$basetexture" "Custom TF2 Textures/lava01" "$surfaceprop" "quicksand" }

As I said, the texture shows up in the texture browser, but when I click to apply it, it turns white. Is that wrong? Should it be white and when I compile I will see it in game or should the texture show on the brush as it shows in the texture browser?

...................and where do I find the stock textures?
 
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Open Blade

L420: High Member
Nov 30, 2007
439
34
I looked at that tut and I got lost at the normal map stage. It doesn't say if it's a new file, if not, what layer or channel you need to be working on. How do you merge them, etc...

Those steps are simply left out and it's a guessing game.


EDIT. Ok, now my texture shows up when I apply it to brush face. Still, I would like to have more clarity on the normal mapping stage of the texture creation.

Also, nobody has said where I can find the stock textures. Where are they?
 
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Open Blade

L420: High Member
Nov 30, 2007
439
34
i thought that tutorial was quite easy...but i used it a long time ago so i can't really explain it further

to look at the stock textures you need GCFscape http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?p=26
then you just open the tf2 materials gcf file...
C:program FilesSteamsteamapps is the default location

Thanks,

The reason that tutorial is confusing is because at the part where it shows how to do the normal map using the nvidia tool, that's the last thing shown. If you look at the last picture, it's a blue normal map or height map or whatever. Mine is that way too. But that can't be the final image, a blueish height map. It doesn't say how to merge or if it's a seperate file. After his blu image, he says to save the VTF. It's missing something in there.
 

MrAlBobo

L13: Stunning Member
Feb 20, 2008
1,059
219
you save the texture as...say... cheese.vft
then you make the normal map and save the normal map as cheese_normal.vtf
then reference it as i did in the sample vmt
*note* do not name your textures cheese... *note*
 

Open Blade

L420: High Member
Nov 30, 2007
439
34
So what's the lowdown on how to make overlays and signs?? Is that just a different setting in the VMT file or is there adjustments to the actual image (such as opacity and stuff)?
 

Snipergen

L13: Stunning Member
Nov 16, 2007
1,051
150
Overlays have an alpha channel, black and white tells the engine what to draw and what not to draw. Tones of gray is the transparency. Just look at example textures/vmt's what you need for it, you actually have all the examples in your folders :)