Inserting Textures

[NuclearPowered78]

Hey guys, nice site, wondering if I could start my mapping here.

First question is:
I download a bunch of nice textures. I looked in sourcesdk_content and sourcesdk...where do I put custom textures ?

Thanks and I hope this forum is usefull :thumbs:

 

[XANA]

welcome, newbie. im not entirely good at mapping, but there are plenty of people that can help you here at this link: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page

 

[NuclearPowered78]

Well I know someone here knows how to import custom textures...

 

[TCfromBN]

You will need to put the custom textures in the materials folder for the game/ mod your are maping for. (Asuming that you have already converted them, which I dont know how to do.) There is however, more to if if you want it to show up with a .jpg in the materials browser.

 

[NuclearPowered78]

The files I downloaded are all jpg's (usually less complicated).
By the way I'm making a counter-strike: source map, so where do I put them in the cstrike/materials folder ?

 

[Raeven0]

A post that consists entirely of a link to another mapping site (one that is impossible to navigate, at that) isn't very helpful. Don't do it again.

VMT/VTF pairs go in ./mod/materials/. You downloaded a JPG texture pack; those JPGs need to be converted to TGAs, compiled to VMT/VTF pairs in some way, moved to the materials folder, and embedded into the final BSP.

 

[NuclearPowered78]

Okay I'll re-download a targa pack and convert, thanks very much.

 

[NuclearPowered78]

Okay, sorry about the double post, but if I edited the old one it wouldn't be updated.

Now I didn't know there was a Photoshop CS2 plugin, so I installed it and made some vtf's. The directions on your link raevon were a little confusing. So do I put my custom files in counter-strike source/cstrike/materials ? An example would be counter-strike source/cstrike/materials/floor001.vtf ? As in the file is in no other folder after materials ? Also I ran "pakrat" which should embed files in the bsp. How do I use the files I embed in the map ? Thanks for the info !

 

[Sly Assassin]

You can add the vmt/vtf's into the cstrike/materials folder if you want, but it may pay to add them into their 'type' of folder, ie wood type materials to go into the materials/wood folder etc. This way its cleaner and when you type wood into the texture browser its alot 'cleaner' looking in there (To me anyway).

Also you don't need to embed the files into the bsp if you don't want to, unless of course you don't want people to use any custom content you've made (Which can still be accessed by using a decompile program like vmex).
But for when you're releasing the map make sure to include all the cusomt content you've made/included in the map into the zip file or .exe you've got the map in.

Hope thats nice and clear for you aswell.

 

[Raeven0]

Mr Assassin is right. As long as the VTF/VMT pair is in ./materials/ or some subdirectory thereof, Hammer and the game will recognise them.

You don't even need VMEX to pull custom content out of a BSP. Pakrat opens BSPs.

 

[NuclearPowered78]

I got you now, what I was wondering is where the game pulls the textures from, AKA materials. So I know what to do, in the zip include the root to materials. Thanks a lot, and I'll post my map when it's finished (or if it's even released =D)

 

[NuclearPowered78]

EDIT:

Ah I see it, opened it in notepad, looks complicated....but is there any way to automate it ? I have over 1500 textures...

EDIT:

Anyone know a site with high resolution free textures with the VMT for each ?

 

[Limpet]

Automation would depend on whatever you feel you're comfotable with.

If your textures are already named sequencially you can use something like a perl or VB program to do it. I was going to make my own little VB program to do exaclty this, but I'm sure there are already other programs/scripts out there.

I can't give you any ways to do this right off hand. Someone might though.

 

[Raeven0]

I don't think I know of a free mass-conversion program. VTEX supports wildcards, but that would require having the textures in TGA format to begin with...

 

[NuclearPowered78]

Yes, they are in TGA, how do I do it in vtex ?

EDIT:

Also I have bought Photoshop CS2 because I might be a graphics designer, any automation scripts ring a bell ?

 

[Limpet]

If they're already in TGA there is no reason to use Photoshop. It's just a matter of using vtex to convert the TGAs.

 

[Ti133700N]

My VtexGUI utility can convert all tga in a folder to vtf as far as I know.

 

[NuclearPowered78]

Okay thanks, but my point is I have photoshop if I need to easily convert JPEG's to Targa's (AKA tga's). But the problem is giving all the VTF's approriate VMT's so they appear in texture list. I copied a VMT from another file to put into hammer and changed the appropriate paramaters, but it shows up as transparent in hammer...

Anyone feel like making a brief specific way to insert working custom texture's into a map ? If not make a little explanation here ?

EDIT:

Ah Nice program Ti133700n, but...it makes empty txt files. They're blank, and they're not VMT's; so what's their purpose ?

 

[Raeven0]

The .txt specifies parameters for forming the VTF. VMT files go anywhere in materials, same as VTFs, and look like this:

"LightmappedGeneric" // shader
{
     "$basetexture" "folder/mytexture" // file:  ./materials/folder/mytexture.vtf
}

 

[Ti133700N]

Ah Nice program Ti133700n, but...it makes empty txt files. They're blank, and they're not VMT's; so what's their purpose ?

I dunno if it's a bug but the vmt are created, but in another directory. I found mine in counter-strike source\cstrike\materials\[FolderNameYouSpecified]. Oh wait, I remember now, the vmt are created under the game directory of the game you selected in the SourceSDK pannel (the Current Game combobox). So you only have to select all the vmt in that directory and copy em to the directory where your vtf are.