MATERIAL EDITOR TUTORIAL [Archive] - Bohemia Interactive Forums

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Linker Split

Sep 9 2007, 20:37

Hi Folks!

Due to the enormous requests I had in these weeks about the use of the MatEditor (included with Oxygen2PE), I finally wrote a tutorial!

Here is the download link:
Material Editor tutorial (220 Kb) (http://ofp.gamepark.cz/_hosted/ofpmm/BHD_MOD/Downloads/MatEditor_tutorial.rar)

cheers all
Linker Split

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/294/cooleq0.gif

simba

Sep 9 2007, 23:36

cheers Linker split, you little tuts are very usefull. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

Martin_BM

Sep 10 2007, 12:27

great tut thanks http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/notworthy.gif

blackjack[VS]

Sep 10 2007, 13:00

This is a great help, thanks a lot Linker Split!

Sennacherib

Sep 10 2007, 13:11

Linker Split: the essential man http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif not done by sloganizer http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

great job http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

22GS2RGJ

Sep 10 2007, 17:15

thanx alot man! http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/notworthy.gif http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/yay.gif

MehMan

Sep 10 2007, 17:35

Thanks man! Great tut.

Baddo

Sep 10 2007, 18:03

Thanks.

Be sure to submit this to http://www.ofpec.com/

thanks for that.

Linker Split

Sep 10 2007, 22:20

if you have some questions, just post them here http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

Armored_Sheep

Sep 12 2007, 08:52

Check folder ArmAWork\MatTemplates made by the tools instalation. You have there material types already defined http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

Linker Split

Sep 12 2007, 21:39

Check folder ArmAWork\MatTemplates made by the tools instalation. You have there material types already defined http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif
thanks m8... http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

blackjack[VS]

Sep 25 2007, 19:06

Last night i reproduced your tutorial (which is very handy to make plp get used to shader passes,etc), but couldnt figured a way to make a simple cube to show up in the viewer with the material i just had created...
i solved the problem easily just copy/pasting one of the bis brdm rtv file, renaming it to cube.rtv and then opening it with text editor and made textures path follow my cube textures folder. lauched viewer and there was my cube!..

so today i opened the not working rtv file from last night, and all the fields with the ticks were blank, and so the 2 passes!! i recreated the material 1 again and overwrited it...reopened the file and still blank...
i went to the bismodels folders, tryed 4 or 5 rtv's and same thing happened...just diffuse or force diffuse active...

SO, what's happening?? its probably me doing something wrong, or it could be my system not running material editor ok... when material editor is opened, i dont have an icon on the top bar, i have a white square instead (the windows screwed aplication icon)...
in the other hand i'm not sure what exactly i should see in rtv file after saved..i open bis rtv's and i see 2 shader passes there, with the normal and spec texture path writen...

did anyone experienced this ?
this isnt kind of a problem, because there's templates avaible for all the arma materials. but i would like to double check that i can trust the material editor.

Linker Split

Sep 25 2007, 21:27

@<hidden> Sep. 25 2007,21:06)]Last night i reproduced your tutorial (which is very handy to make plp get used to shader passes,etc), but couldnt figured a way to make a simple cube to show up in the viewer with the material i just had created...
i solved the problem easily just copy/pasting one of the bis brdm rtv file, renaming it to cube.rtv and then opening it with text editor and made textures path follow my cube textures folder. lauched viewer and there was my cube!..

so today i opened the not working rtv file from last night, and all the fields with the ticks were blank, and so the 2 passes!! i recreated the material 1 again and overwrited it...reopened the file and still blank...
i went to the bismodels folders, tryed 4 or 5 rtv's and same thing happened...just diffuse or force diffuse active...

SO, what's happening?? its probably me doing something wrong, or it could be my system not running material editor ok... when material editor is opened, i dont have an icon on the top bar, i have a white square instead (the windows screwed aplication icon)...
in the other hand i'm not sure what exactly i should see in rtv file after saved..i open bis rtv's and i see 2 shader passes there, with the normal and spec texture path writen...

did anyone experienced this ?
this isnt kind of a problem, because there's templates avaible for all the arma materials. but i would like to double check that i can trust the material editor.
hi http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif
I've appreciated you read my tutorial, Ill try to explain how to make what you want.

So.

When you open your Oxygen, you have to create the object (a cube in your case), and then apply textures to it (only textures, not materials yet)

then you open your matEditor, follow the tutorial (adding Normal and specular map textures when needed) and save the RVMAT file you created.

then you return to O2, and select the whole cube, then hit E:
there will be a "texture" and a "material" box, (the texture one is already filled with your texture).
In the material box, you insert your own RVMAT.
You finished! http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

click the real time viewer button (make sure that the "show shadow" option has been selected) and run buldozzer! you'll see your material applyed!

anyway, if it should'nt work, pèost also some images of your Oxygen, and the RVMAT http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

blackjack[VS]

Sep 26 2007, 01:20

ty for the reply, i guess i didnt explained right...the cube i mentioned was a 5second model that i exported from xsi to o2.
then i did the "e" process of placing texture and rtv to lall faces selection.
But that wasnt my problem...the question around this was much simple then i could thought...i made the material editor my default rtv file editor, so i double click rtv files when i want to edit one...but that's exactly the problem..i cant double click, cause it just opens a blank document, instead of the real one. that happens to all my rtv's, BIS models included! so i got have some setting wrong in options or somehow it's not working properly.
But everything goes perfect if i just go to material editor meu tab and press open---->material, instead of double click..easy fix!

So after the short torture of finding the internal "bug", i manage to open my models nice and easy (as it should be&#33http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif.
Now i have tons of other considerations, relating the shading and textures, but that's for other thread subject.
i'll leave u a screen of what i had and the specular is working almost fine thanks to that script code u posted. ty for the help again!
(hope it is ok to post here a sample image, since this isnt an addon, just my 1st imported model thanks to this tutorial)

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/7084/elevadorxv6.th.jpg (http://img213.imageshack.us/my.php?image=elevadorxv6.jpg)

Messiah

Oct 2 2007, 18:14

getting a little frustrated with a specular I made - mainly because all it seems to do is create a full gloss coat of the texture, rather than anything metalic like.

I've used the example M16 metal rvmat values but I'm pretty sure it's my actual specular texture that's wrong. When I use the specular filter linker split wrote about in another tutorial, it comes out red, while the bis examples are a pink'ish colour

once I apply a bis smdi file to my rvmat, it works fine... what base colours should I be using before using the filter? Currently' i'm using greyscales as with the normals

Panda[PL]

Oct 2 2007, 18:46

When I use the specular filter linker split wrote about in another tutorial, it comes out red, while the bis examples are a pink'ish colour
IIRC one of devs once said how specular texture should look like:
Red = diffuse
Green = specular
Blue = specular power.
So if you don't intend to change specular power and diffuse then both R and B should be both set to full.
If diffuse is not all white (full) then the material gets darkened, if Blue is not all white then the value you imput as specular power in rvmat gets multiplied by this value (which is treated as a number betwen 0 and 1, not 0-255).
Texture for specular should be "1,x,1,1", where x is specular, unless you want to modiffy the diffuse and specular power.

blackjack[VS]

Oct 2 2007, 18:47

edit: Panda explained it all i guess, so this is also new to me...i thought the problem was using grey tones, instead of black/white only...ty for the explanation panda.

Messiah

Oct 2 2007, 19:43

ok, 'think' I've got what you mean, but how do I avoid the filter creating RGB values that cause those problems?

My knowledge only lies in photoshop, texview is utterly confusing to me

Linker Split

Oct 14 2007, 09:21

UPDATED TUTORIAL!

Fixed:
*changed the options to get all the templates working

Download Link:
Material Editor Tutorial v0.5 (http://ofp.gamepark.cz/_hosted/ofpmm//BHD_MOD/Downloads/MaterialEditor_tutorial0.5.rar)

cheers all
Linker Split

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