The NGLE Manual
Animating
Textures - The Basics
By Bedazzled
Note:
This tutorial applies only to the new game
engine which has opened up a whole new world of
possibilities for using animating textures in levels. The setting up of animation ranges
is also far easier than
ever before.
The main
points are listed below.
-
It is
now possible to have multiple UvRotate ranges each
scrolling with a different speed and or direction,
alongside one or more TR3 style waterfalls.
-
The
textures can now be placed anywhere in the texture map
providing that all of the textures to be used in each
range are grouped together.
-
There
is no longer a requirement for the UvRotate = line in
the script; everything is setup from within the
Animating Texture window of the editor.
-
A
previously built V49 project with all animating ranges
set and working correctly can be converted to a V50
project simply by using the map converter. And the new
project will continue to work correctly without the need
to reset the animation ranges.
As the
title suggests this tutorial covers only the basics; a
second tutorial will cover more advanced techniques
requiring use of new triggers and script changes.
I will
first describe how to setup the various types of animating
textures and then show the correct way to convert a V49
project to a V50 project.
Description of the animation
range window dropdown boxes and buttons
Notes
-
The
Reduce button only appears if a V50 project is being
used.
-
Before
setting the very first range get into the habit of
clicking the “R” button to clear any existing ranges.
-
The
Anim-type dropdown box contains several options, two of
which, the P-Frames and River-Rotate
options, are covered in the advanced animating
textures tutorial.
Basic
water textures
These are the simplest to setup. Select the
required textures by clicking and dragging and leave all
settings at their default values as shown here.
Now click the Assign button followed by the
Ok button. To check the range has been assigned open the
Animation Range window again. The range should now be
surrounded by a green line. Click ok to close the window.
It should be noted that the range settings
will not be shown. However clicking on a range will put a
red border around them and bring up the settings assigned to
that animation range. This is very useful when you have
several scrolling ranges set and want to check their speed
and direction. As long as you don’t click the assign button
again their settings will remain unchanged.
Scrolling Textures
These are the waterfall textures used in the
Angkor Wat level of TR4 and also the falling sand and Lava
textures used in TR4. These are setup in a similar way to
normal water textures but this time you must set the anim
type, the frame rate and the animation speed.
Begin by selecting the range as before and
apply the following settings.
Click the Assign button and close the window.
Additional scrolling texture ranges can be setup in the same
way and different animation speeds can be applied to them.
If you
want to adjust the speed of a previously set animation range
simply click on it. A red border will surround it and then
set the new UvRotate value and click the Assign button.
TR3
Waterfalls
I'm going
to show how to make TR3 type waterfalls animate inV49 and
V50 projects when using TRNG. Forget the old technique of
applying all the textures in a small hidden room, that no
longer works with the TRNG MK4 installer and possibly some
previous dll versions as well.
You will need a graphics program which is capable of
displaying a grid and also has a snap to grid feature. If
you don't have a suitable graphics program, GIMP will fit
the bill and is free to download and use.
All TR3 waterfalls consist of a block of 8 texture tiles as
shown in fig 1, these will not be used in the levels tga set
and we only need any 1 of those tiles to work with. If you
use T-Builder you can simply copy 1 tile into a new tga and
save it as your temporary working tile.
Figure 1
Load your temporary working texture into your graphics
program and display a grid showing lines every 16 pixels and
enable the programs snap to grid feature. Using the programs
select tool select the 32 x 32 pixel section of the texture
you want to use as shown in fig 2.
Figure 2
Copy the selection and paste into a new image which will
become your new tile to work with. This new 32 x 32 tile now
needs to be resized to 64 x 64 if using a V49 prj or 128 x
128 if using a V50 prj for your level. The texture is almost
ready for use but not quite.
If this texture was used you would see a horizontal line as
the texture scrolled, this is because the top and bottom of
the texture is different. To fix this select the top half of
your texture and paste it as a new image, flip this image
vertically and again copy it. Now paste this copied segment
onto the lower half of our resized image, combine the layers
and save your new final texture.
Figures 3 and fig 4 show the texture before and after
correction.
Figure 3
Figure 4
Once corrected the texture can be added to your tga in any
position, The setting shown in fig 5 should be used in the
animation ranges window, the UVRotate setting will determine
the speed and vertical direction of the scrolling.
Figure 5
V49 and V50 prj's
The
texture can be applied to a wall as a normal texture and
allowed to stretch where it will animate at the speed set in
the texture animation panel. If however you apply it to a
portal with the editors transparent and double sided buttons
on, you must also apply it as a normal texture to a hidden
tile in your level before it will animate.
Converting a V49 project to a V50 project
It make
no difference if your V49 project consists of only 64 x 64
pixel textures or a mixture of 64 x 64 and 128 x128 pixel
textures the conversion method is the same.
The texture alignment used in original prj box should be set
to 64 x 64 and the target data should be set to 128 x 128.
But you should be aware that any 128 x 128 textures which
were in your V49 map will be resized to 256 x 256 during the
conversion process.
