Please post comments on the topic Development Blog Update - Texture preview tool here

Something tells me this tool won't be used just for NS2 mapping.... it looks very useful indeed! Phong looks nice to have on walls and floors as well.

Does your tool support .VMT files? It would be nice to have a GUI for this as well. Also, will this tool make it into the next NS2TR?

P.S. ns2_tharum.bsp.... oooh

WOW! That looks like a great tool! Cant wait till we can all get our hands on it to use!

Should help mapping alot!

That is incredible, Max! The title "Texture preview tool" had me excited - now, after reading the blog post, I am left giggling in anticipation.
That is, if the tool is being released to the community.

I wished for this back in the... forth podcast comment thread, and this is far better than what I expected.
Looks good!

awesome sauce!

why not have a similar tool for 3d modellers that are trying to texture their models?

great idea on the psd/texture support. as a mapper ive come across 1 tool that really is similar but with not as many features. Its called crafty, take a look. http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?p=45

Actually, if you have watched this awesome model texture video by j , you could have seen that he changed textures in ps and was able to check it on the model immediatly.

When i try and view it, it says that i am trying to preform an illegal opperation... before it even downloads the movie
So it freezes FireFox and i have to ctrl+delete.

I love the idea though, very creative and clever thinking.

EDIT:
I just downloaded it onto my computer and it works.

Good job!

You know, this could be quite valuable in its own right, given that you sold Decoda I’m surprised you don’t sell this as well. Even if you’re not designing games it would be useful to write textures in Photoshop and see them directly in 3d right away.

Nano Grid > Texture preview tool
do a vote if you dont believe me, it would make the awsomest name for it and tie it to the NS universe.

That's hillarious!

"(In an odd coincidence, when I was writing the BSP loading code, I referenced this article which in turn references an article I wrote many years ago on loading Quake 2 BSP files)."

lol, small world! Looking good Max!

I was wondering about this as well. Can we have the VMT open while the tool is running and have changes reflected every time we hit ctrl-s? Would be great if so.

I've been reskinning some World of Warcraft models myself, and it's very tiring to have to go through the process of saving the file to .PNG, convert it to .BLP, open the datafile and import it, save it and close it, open WoWModelViewer and see the result.

This isn't WoW but this is just totally and utterly awesome that you made a tool for this. Gonna have to give NS-mapping a go when it comes out!
The collective amount of work you guys have done so far is just breathtaking, pleasegivemethistoolnow

I'm sure you've been told this before, but Max, you are one extremely clever chap. Call the tool 'Pretexa'

Mmm, those few textures there are looking mighty sexy.

Incredible, this will really help texture artists in seeing how their textures look, straight away. Excellent work Max.

Man, this thing looks slick. Having a game texture inside an engine, in real time, and being able to update it is useful, but having it with almost no overhead? That's awesome. In the past I've had Maya open with real-time high quality rendering turned on to get a good look at my texture in progress, but it's clunky and resource intensive. Being able to the see the texture literally ingame would be a godsend. I don't see why anyone would ever texture outside of that tool ever again

And I'm really interested in the Phong illumination stuff. I was under the impression that Source's Phong implementation wasn't the same as traditional Phong shading, but whatever they did it definitely looks nice and I'd take it over cubemaps for level geometry any day.

Tycho I thought you told someone this before,

"Hl2 uses phonge illumes on the hl2 touch and or other player activated light source's like exsplosions.
but the rest of the lightin is handled by envi maps"

wouldnt this mean there is a node in the network that removes the phong effect under enviroment lighting
or more so the other way around, the envi lighting ignores the phong network.

I need to be nicer around here.

I'm not sure I understand, but I think you're saying that HL2 uses Phong shading for real time light sources and env maps for level lighting. That's wrong, in any case, so the conclusion you reached based on that is also erroneous.

Fair enough, just remeber reading it some were and thought it acctuly came form you, oh well then I am at a lose.

listen to the HL2 ep 2 comentary see if that has anything fun to say about it.

oh and puzl "pretexa" is acctuly a cool name for it

Nano Grid was the best idea for a name in this thread.

This looks quite pimp. Quite pimp indeed. I was always surprised how difficult it was to get a texture ingame.

Idea: bundle it in as a constie bonus, so in a way, you're not just 'buying it', you're also helping fund NS2 and joining the Constellation. That means all the people who really don't care about NS2 but join the Constellation to get this awesome software will still be on a mailing list which can be used to generate future awareness and sales of NS2. Instead of "What's Natural Selection 2?", it'd be "Natural Selection 2 is that game from those guys who made the simply awesome realtime bsp texture viewer!".

/2 cents
/eyes constie badge
/wants texture software

not bad thsi could of also gone in teh E team thread, it has merit.

You know it's going to be a good week when the weekend grants you a little gift like this. Leave Max alone for a couple days and you invariably get something rad!

All praise teh m4x0r!

P.S. Click that Digg button on the news post!

Very nice That is incredibly useful and I can't wait to play with this. Well done !

Actually, don't! That takes you do a page to submit a new entry to Digg, rather than linking to this as it should.

--Scythe--

Why should the NS1 digg page be the one everyone should go to? Wouldnt we want more people to go to the NS2 one?

Didn't Valve start by making WorldCraft for Quake, then they supported Quake 2 and at some point decide to go and make their own game, Half-Life?

Maybe I'm wrong but if I'm right then you may be following a proven path. Sell your tools and make your game

Question for Max - will Texture preview tool support material (vmt) changes? Its realy actual for meh: live define right params like $envmaptint,$envmapsaturation,$envmapcontrast & etc (to get result like this - desaturated env_cubemap reflections for steel, yellow saturated reflection for brass).

How about "Pretexta," like seeing your textures with this tool is a pretext to how they'll look in-game?

dont quote me quote puzl, its his name, and i would say the extra letter isnt nessacery, but it does int the pretext sence.

I vote nano grid.

I believe a third party made Worldcraft for Quake 1 and then added Quake 2 support, at which point Valve bought it and distributed it with Half-Life. It's actually very much the same as it was when it supported Quake.



What's wrong Texture Preview Tool ? Does exactly what it says on the tin.

But... it's not hip and cool! It doesn't drop a bunch of syllables down a hole, leaving intelligibility far behind! It's not Web 2.0!

Max,

What other tools are on the horizon?

If this isn't a tool you are willing to release for the mappers, do you think it's possible someone could take the hl2 sdk and make a mod that accomplishes the same thing your texture tool does or does it require serious access to source code?

Yar

I wouldn't say this is a tool for mappers so much as it's a tool for texturers. In any case it's running off his engine, not the Source engine, so you can't do it with the HL2 SDK unless there's some completely different way of doing the same thing, with or without the SDK.

Ive found though my time doing 3d models that Phong really is only good to make things look really plastic looking. It would probably be good for the infestation but not for metal surfaces etc. Is HL2 capable of doing Blinn?

I meant it as released with the NS2 mapping release, I was a bit brief there. I understand he uses his own engine, but he's said that he usually uses his own engine because he developed it for rapid prototyping... so if this is something possible with HL2 (since he would probably have a better handle on it then anyone else) I'd like to know. I'd like to take a shot at making a tool like that, but if Max suggests you need more access then is allowed with the SDK, then I might not.

I'm pretty sure the "Phong" in Source is actually Blinn-Phong. Most games use Blinn-Phong because it's cheaper to compute.

You're thinking classic Phong, which is not the implementation that the Source engine uses, I believe. They're very different; right now, for example, Source's Phong lighting model just applies to characters, which of course aren't plastic.

Tycho, I'm convinced that your sole purpose is to shatter my love of games and smash my dreams.

Eh? One Phong's not better or worse than another. In fact, whatever the heck Source thinks it's doing, I certainly like it more than another way to simulate plastic toys, which is what Phong is traditionally good for.

I agree this is a really neat tool, but is it bulky at all on system resources?