Level Design yet another noob question

[Prodigy]

ok, so i am making a map. i may be terrible at it, but atleast it is something.
i wanted to make crates, but the crate texture provided in the industry textures pack is terrible, so i got one off of google images resized it and imported it.
Here's what it looks like in the editor:

and here's what it looks like in-game:

what do i need to do in order for it to show the texture?

 

[Prodigy]

wow murphy that was impressive, you answered my question without ever talking to me.
i went to your tutorials page, and the bubbly thing was under FAQ, man thats pretty nice of you.

[Size=+2]<3 Murphy[/size]

 

[YoYoBatty]

Are you using BSP to build those boxes? You should never use it for that, ever. Always use staticmeshes for environment type objects(Unless its walls, terrain, ground, rooms, ect...). I don't blame you man, I did this to when I first went to Unreal Editor.

Note: If you did use staticmeshes, then don't flame me cuz it looks like your using BSP.

 

[Fel]

Yea use the mesh to build the boxes, then if you want a different texture on them, you can change its material (texture) under the static mesh browser

 

[Prodigy]

i have no clue what either of those are.
i assume im using BSP, i just made boxes and textured them lol.

 

[YoYoBatty]

Staticmeshes are objects that you can place in the environment and they save an incredible amount of CPU and memory. BSP is walls, ceilings, those plane square rooms you used to build your map.

 

[Rops]

1 Make a cube in BSP
2 Move the red builder brush
3 Right click on the purple BSP cube and choose Convert to Mesh
4 name mylevel, package mylevel and add any name for the brush
5 This then saves the mesh to your static meshes
6 Go to the texture browser and select your texture
7 Go to the static mesh on the static mesh browser and find the materials section
8 Click use to use the texture on the mesh

Essentially you are doing this

Converting BSP to a static mesh
Adding your texture to the static mesh

Static meshes run faster in the CPU

 

[Murphy]

6, 7, and 9 are not necessary if you texture your BSP before-hand because the converted StaticMesh will keep the textures.

Converting simple cubes to StaticMesh isn't really necessary, especially if they're big because thanks to vertex lighting they won't look very good. If you want big cubes as StaticMeshes I suggest using a 3d program to make them and to subdivide the faces a bit so lighting is more detailed on them.

 

[Fel]

because thanks to vertex lighting they won't look very good.

If you set the pivot point before you convert to mesh, you will have no problem with lighting.

 

[Murphy]

How does the Pivot factor in aside from maybe screwing with your zone associations and thus possibly making the StaticMesh receive ambient lighting from the wrong zone (and atm I'm not sure it can even do that)?

The problem I'm talking about is that a cube like the ones in the screenshot only has 4 vertices per side so it only receives lighting information at those four points. If you have something small that's supposed to cast a shadow on the side but not the points you won't get a shadow at all and if it's casting a shadow on one of the points you get an ugly black gradient over every adjacent side (and the latter would most likely be the case if he wants to bunch them up and put them on top of each-other! What he wants are dark rectangles as shadows on the sides of the lower crates if there is one on top that stands out a bit. What he'll get is a black gradient over the side of the lower box which looks like bad mushrooms on a pizza).
It's not a problem if the vertices are close together (i.e. if the box is very small or if its faces are subdivided) but if it's a simple 1m

 

[Fel]

Dunno, ive created complex meshes and found out if i don't set the pivot point, then the lighting is all messed up.

I started setting the pivot on a corner of the mesh and BAM perfect lighting every time on meshes. I cant get into all the fine details of how this would work, but it seems to do the trick for me

 

[Murphy]

Can you post comparison screenshots? Who cares about fine details if the results are good!

 

[Fel]

Can you post comparison screenshots? Who cares about fine details if the results are good!

Only screen i have is this, Realy i dont have time to go make the object and set the piviot to some outlandish angle I have tons of school to prepare for.



I made this in the editor, not in any, blander/3ds Max

Its all brush work baby.

And I set the pivot point to center, THEN compiled it to mesh.

I think the lighting is damn good if i say so.

And if you look in Damnation, it looks even better with Lightmaping

 

[dextronaut]

best stagecoach made from BSP ive ever seen. in fact, the only stagecoach made from BSP that ive ever seen.

 

[YoYoBatty]

I tend to do that with a lot of meshes that have really, really ugly lighting. While I'm at it I use a shader instead of texture for a nice polish and shine.

 

[Fel]

best stagecoach made from BSP ive ever seen. in fact, the only stagecoach made from BSP that ive ever seen.

Thank you Dex

 

[dextronaut]

I tend to do that with a lot of meshes that have really, really ugly lighting. While I'm at it I use a shader instead of texture for a nice polish and shine.

yeh shaders are cool. makes the textures more dynamic