CREATE SOME VERTEXSIN MILKSHAPE I created some vertexs and used CTRL G after creating everyone to snap em to the grid keeping stuff square. Note I'm working in the TOP view, this will give correct export to the B3D format. Another thing is you could scan a sketch or plan and use it as a background to model from, just a thought :)


CREATE SOME FACESNow I fill in the vertexs by building faces 1,2,3 as in my other tutorials, and I end up with a solid flat shape resembling the plan view of the rooms.


ExtrudingSelect all the faces then Extrude upwards (unchecking X,Z to stop sideways movement) you now have some depth but it has no floor, leave the ceiling selected and go to the next step. BUT before you do note the orientation of the level, I'll make an image soon showing how to orient stuff so it imports correctly into Blitz Basic 3D.



DUPLICATE AND SNAP 'N' WELDUse CTRL D to create a Duplicate, VERTEX MIRROR TOP->BOTTOM to flip it, then MOVE it down to line up with the bottom of the walls as shown. Now Select ALL and regroup, hide all the verts in the tops of the walls in that side view by selecting em and using CTRL H. Now in the top view go around all the verts arounf the floor and walls one by one, snapping and welding, CTRL N then CTRL W. This joins it all together nicely, unhide all with CTRL U.


REVERSE VERTEXSSo now I have a solid set of rooms but all the faces are facing outward, so select all FACES and click FACE->REVERSE VERTEX ORDER to flip all faces inside out, you also need to right click in the 3D window and uncheck DRAW BACKFACES, now as you rotate around you will see only faces that are facing towards you, and faces that face away are invisible, woohoo! I now have an interior :)


REGROUPINGIn this side view select ALL then use SHIFT-RIGHT CLICK DRAG to drag a box over the walls and the floor, leaving only the ceiling selected, regroup and rename to CEILING as shown, now hide it, do the same for the floor, select/regroup/rename/hide and the same for the walls, I now have 3 seperate objects, WALLS, CEILING, FLOOR! CTRL U unhide all :)



UNWRAP 3DSave in MILKSHAPE, then open in UNWRAP 3D, this is where I'm gonna texture map it! So right click on FLOOR to bring up the menu, check AUTOHIDE and rightclick again to bring it up again and click SELECT, as you can see the floor is selected, I will just refer to this as select FLOOR, or select WALL from now on.


PLANAR MAPPINGBasically for the floor I want one sided PLANAR mapping, so click TOOLS>UVMAPPING>PLANAR>ONESIDED and choose y-TOP and apply it, as you can see I get a top view in the UV mappin space, Use EDIT>SCALE>CORNER FREE (I assigned it to "S" for quick use) and scale it to fill the square. The floor is now getting the whole image mapped onto it....WHAT IMAGE? see next......



SIMPLE TEXTUREI made a simple 256x256 texture with a gradient and a white strip just to illustrate how the mapping looks in the next few steps.



MATERIALI added a new material and chose BITMAP and found my gradient image, I then selected the FLOOR and right clicked on the gradient material in the righthand sidebar and chose ASSIGN, as you can see the floor now has this texture stretched over the whole floor!!!! the next step shows how to TILE it.


TILINGNow I selected the FLOOR again, and clicked EDIT>SCALE>ARBITRARY and I get the options box pop up as shown. A lot of people dont realise that if you scale the UV's larger than the projection square you get Tiling as shown, X2 gives twice as big, press it a couple more times and apply, I now have this UV mapping tiled over the FLOOR, I'll change the texture later...


THE CEILINGMAKE sure you have already rightclicked the preview window and UNchecked SHOW>SOLID BACKFACES. I moved down below so the floor disappears and the ceiling is Visible, click CEILING in the righthand sidebar and assign the texture to it, I used EDIT>SCALE>ARBITRARY again to tile it like the FLOOR.


OK NOW THE HARD PARTSelect the WALLS, Assign the texture to em, and click TOOLS>UV MAPPING>FACE as shown, the next step shows the details......


FACE MAPPINGSet it to SEPERATE BY NORMAL, DEGREES=1 (experiment with this :)), OVERLAPPING and you should see something like the above, all the wall faces are mapped in a line over the top of each other....



SCALE em UPNow CORNERFREESCALE em up to fit the whole UV space/texture map and as you can see all the walls in the 3D preview have the texture running around em! The heights OK, but the width is getting stretched along the long walls, see next step for horizontal tiling.....


HORIZONTAL TILINGclick SCALE ARBITRARY again and set U=2(horizontal) and V=1(vertical) and apply and you can see it is twice as wide but the height has stayed the same, we now have tiling, check the next step for a close up after APPLYING it a few more times!!!!



THE TILINGThis texture doesn't show it that well but you can see the tiling on the walls, follow the red lines :) Now I can look at ASSIGNING some new textures.


MORE TEXTURESI made a simple checker to show this point. Click WALLS (so it knows what your trying to select) and CLICK the 3d preview window to make sure its ACTIVE, now press "S" to toggle FACE SELECTION MODE, using SHIFT to add to face selections and CTRL to remove from slections. I SELECTED some faces as shown and assigned a check to em just to show you how it works really!


PROPER TEXTURESOK, I added a couple of new materials and chose wall.jpg and floor.jpg, I right click WALLS and clicked SELECT to select all the walls, I assigned the wall texture, I then did the same for the floor with the FLOOR texture, as you can see its starting to look like something :) Its a good time now to have a good look over the model to se if all the mapping is OK, if its wrong, press "S" select the faces and UV map with planar...this bit is hard to explain but you'll figure it out :)


ASSIGNING AGAINNow I added a few other materials and I can select walls/floors,ceiling FACES, assign textures easily. This is a simple model but the idea could be used on far more complex geometry, building a level in stages and joining it together in Milkshape later, adding scenery elements made seperately, dummy OBJECTS that you search and replace in BLITZ BASIC 3D (or whatever you use) for lights,doors, enemies, effects etc etc...........


UPSIDE DOWN UV'sSometimes you get UV's that are upside down, press "S" to select the faces, then click FLIP VERTICALLY as shown, check the next step to see it flipped......


FLIPPEDAs you can see its flipped to match the others around it (if thats what you want) you can also flip horizontally, rotate, scale, move etc!!!! This allows quite a bit of tweaking and variations.



INSIDEI switched on SHOW SOLID FACES again and zoomed inside it and I can move around inside to check how it looks while still in UNWRAP 3D!!!!! Save it Often as well as you go through just in case!!!! :)


FINISHEDSOLID FACES are still on but I right clicked in the 3d view and clicked HIDE>CEILING so it doesn't block the view and heres the finished simple level!!!!!! Also pressing "V" toggles between normal shading and Vertex shading which is usally brighter! SAVE it and you can open it up in Milkshape and export to B3D format (if thats what your using) Hope you guys found this useful, as I learn more I'll write more :) Cya's
Psionic