Guide Texturing In Ue2E

[ALEX2008GR]

This is a brief tutorial on using the UnrealEngine2 Editor (UE2E), aimed at describing several raw texture types that are commonly used in L2. It will not describe each and every raw texture type, as there are simply too many, but it should provide enough info to get your feet wet in producing various interesting effects.

 

Alright, so you have your UE2E open, with the Texture Browser in view (if not, click on View -> Show Texture Browser).

 

I presume you have a bunch of nifty .dds files prepared for abuse. If you don't and have no idea what they are, there's a lot of tutorials on this topic floating around the web already. I won't describe this process here, because there are several ways to go about getting your .dds files ready, all of them equally good. So import the .dds'es, choose a name of your new package and we're ready to go. For the sake of example, I loaded up my pixiewings utx.

 

Anyways, in your Texture Browser click on File -> New. Make sure the Class field is set to "Raw Material". Now, the part of the window that interests us is "Properties". By default, it'll have Class'Engine.Shader' selected. Before we dissect shaders, however, let's see what else there is.

 

 

Click where it says Class'Engine.Shader' and hit the arrow to the right to see a drop-down menu.

 

FadeColor

 

Select this, enter a name and click "New" in the upper right corner of the window. (This step is the same for each material type, so I won't repeat this.)

 

This is a very simple and infrequently used material, which can nevertheless create striking effects. What it does is oscillate between two colors continuously. It got spammed a lot in Giants Caves.

 

http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/387/img2fc1.jpg[/img]

 

Click on Color 1, click on the three dot button to the right, pick the color. Same for Color 2. It'll appear black until you pick a FadePeriod, which is the time it'll take to change between the colors. I couldn't figure out what FadePhase is supposed to do - it doesn't seem to have a whole lot of visual effect no matter what you put there. ColorFadeType well determine how it changes between the colors - try them both and see what you like better.

 

Alright, let's close this one. You'll notice that when you close a material, it will stay in the Texture Browser. If you messed up and don't feel like editing it (done by rightclicking it and then picking 'Properties'), just rightclick and pick 'Delete'.

 

Moving on!

 

Material Sequence

 

This material type is fun, easy to use and likely to tempt you into making giant utx files. What it does is let you create an animation from the sequence materials that you tell it to use. It is often used to depict fire in L2.

 

http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/9356/img3in2.jpg[/img]

 

In the properties window of this material, click on SequenceItems. At first you'll only have 0 in there. Pick that and enter a name of a material (which you've imported into your package, haven't you?). Below it'll say Time, set to 0 by default. Set the time for this frame (in seconds) to whatever you deem appropriate. Since you only have one material, nothing much is going to appear at this point.

 

Now, to the right of "SequenceItems", click on "Add". It'll add [1] below your [0] frame. Repeat the same steps above.

 

Set the Loop to True, TriggerAction to MSTA_Ignored (should be that by default), Paused to False (default). And tadah - you have your first super blinky two frame animation! Add more frames by clicking on 'Add' in the 'SequenceItems' line and repeating the steps above.

 

Fascinating, let's move on.

 

TexEnvMap

 

This material type gets used left, right and sideways in L2. What it does is create a sheen over the surface of the mesh that changes depending on the angle that you're viewing it at.

 

http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/7329/img4jv3.jpg[/img]

 

All you'll really want to do here is click on Material, enter a name of a texture you've prepared and click somewhere else so that it saves the name. Simple, easy, and very useful.

 

TexOscillator

 

Again a fairly infrequently used material type, but what the hell, right? What it does is take the texture of your choice and, you guessed it, oscillate it.

 

http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/7420/img5jq5.jpg[/img]

 

UOscillationRate and VOscillationRate will determine how the texture moves on the U/V axis (or horizontally and vertically, for as far as the preview window is concerned). Enter different values for interesting wiggly effects.

 

Once again I'm not sure what the Phase fields are for, nor do I want to know 'cause it's a pain to stare at for any length of time as it is.

 

The Amplitude fields determine the speed at which it'll oscillate. The higher you make it, the more spazm-inducing it'll become.

 

Then we have OscillationgTypes, which are pretty self-explanatory - they'll determine how it'll go about, well, oscillating the texture. Pan just moves the texture around, Stretch stretches it, Jitter just flickers between the two "points", and StretchRepeat is a crime against humanity and should never be used.

 

The Offset values are for telling it where to pick the starting coordinates for the oscillation.

 

Got it? Good. Now let's close this horror asap and move on to something less epileptic.

 

TexPanner

 

TexPanner is totally underrated. It can be used to create all kinds of awesome lava effects or make your hot pink pixie wings look like they're snowing pink sparklies. If you want to see texture panner in action, Forge of Gods is a good place to go.

 

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/570/img6zq5.jpg[/img]

 

This is fairly straight forward. You set the texture that'll be panned in the Material field. Then in Pan Direction Pitch and Roll will determine how the texture moves "out of the canvas" (which really isn't very evident for this material type, so just leave those alone) and Yaw will determine the direction it'll be panning across the material (in a way that you can actually clearly see). PanRate is the speed at which it's panning.

 

TexRotator

 

TexRotator rotates stuff. It can be used to create some pretty neat effects. For example, the mane of Unicorn Merrow is made using TexRotator. Same for the shiny gatekeeper effects in Ivory Tower.

 

http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/6223/img6avr1.jpg[/img]

 

In the Material field, pick a material.

 

There are several kinds of oscillation, that you can choose from in the TexRotationType field.

 

First, pick TR_OscillatingRotation. Then pick Oscillation Rate (Pitch/Yaw/Roll are the same as in TextPanner, except that this time there's actually a point to Pitch and Roll). This will determine the speed at which it oscillates. OscillationAmplitude will determine how far it will oscillate in each direction. OscillationPhase fails to matter.

 

Now, let's get rid of those and go back to TexRotationType. This time, pick TR_ConstantlyRotating. Instead of oscillating, it will now rotate constantly. Now the Rotation field right below it will be what determines the movement of the texture.

 

The third type is TR_FixedRotation. It is extremely boring and will simply turn the texture for you according to the values you put into the Rotation tab. No animation to see here, move along.

 

-----

 

This covers the more interesting material types. Now, let's see about putting them together.

 

Shader

 

Shader is the main way to piece your textures and materials together into something L2 can use.

 

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/1725/img7ny7.jpg[/img]

 

Diffuse is where you usually find stuff ending with _ori. It is the main, basic material of your texture, the drawing on the surface. A good place for your MaterialSequence as well.

 

Opacity will determine what mask will be applied to the texture in the Diffuse field. When you put something in here, the engine will read its alphamap and apply it accordingly.

 

Specular is where the "shinies" come from. You'll usually want to put your TexEnvMap here. However you can also put other interesting things such as TexPanners, TexRotators and TexOscillators in it to create different, interesting effects. Note that specular can appear in areas that are masked away in the Diffuse level.

 

SpecularityMask is to Specular what Opacity is to Diffuse.

 

SelfIllumination will go over Diffuse. This is a good place for stuff like FadeColor, TexPanner etc. Unlike Specular, it can not appear in areas that are masked away in the Diffuse field.

 

SelfIlluminationMask should be self-explanatory by now.

 

OutputBlending will determine how your mesh will appear in the world, play with the settings to find the best one for the occasion. (You can see unusual output blending setting in action in Unicorn Seraphim, for example.) OB_Normal is the default and most common setting.

 

TwoSided determines whether or not the material is two sided. Usually you'll want this set to True.

 

FinalBlend

 

I have yet to determine what makes FinalBlend totally special and awesome, since most of its settings are something you'll already find in the Shader, and the other ones sound more cryptic than a textbook on stork migration mechanics in Chinese. However, complex materials, particularly of the TwoSided variety, seem to enjoy having a FinalBlend. In FrameBufferBlending you'll usually want to pick FB_AlphaBlend (unless you're using more exotic blending methods). The next four settings below it should be true, and in the material field you should put the shader.

 

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Now this has all been awfully theoretical so far, so let's examine and dissect the Hot Pink Pixie Wings that I've been referring to here and there.

 

The wings use three .dds textures: pixie_ori, pixie_sp and pixie_sp_mask. pixie_ori is the main texture of the wing and the tendril. In its properties, its surface is modified so that bMasked is True and bTwoSided is True. pixie_sp is the little pink sparklies that appear to be falling from the wing. The surface settings are the same as those of pixie_ori. pixie_sp_mask is the mask that will determine the overall area where the sparklies are allowed to go, which is on the little pink dewdrops on the wing and an area below the wing. The wing itself is masked off here, because I want the sparkles to be falling down from it, not across its surface. The mask fades at the bottom, so that it will look like the sparklies fade away.

 

Next, there's a panner that uses pixie_sp as material, set to pan downwards. This is what makes the sparklies fall down.

 

Then, in the shader diffuse is pixie_ori, opacity is pixie_ori (here it will use its alphamap), specular is sp_panner and specularitymask is pixie_sp_mask. As a result, we have the sparklies falling down (as set in the panner) in the "empty" space (as set in opacity), while being restricted to that particular area below the wing (as set in specularitymask). There is no selfillumination. Output blending is OB_Normal, TwoSided is set to true.

 

And just to make sure nothing goes funny and 'cause it takes less time to make a finalblend than it takes to preview the whole thing, there's a finalblend with FrameBufferBlending set to FB_AlphaBlend, the next options set to True and material to pixie_sh.

 

Well that's about it. This tutorial skims the very surface of what you can do with textures using this program, but I hope it shed some light on the matter. Have fun and good luck with your textures!

 

Special Thanks To My Friend RavenSpirit For Helping Me To Create This Guide

 

 

Download The Program From Here:

 

http://www.sexyracing.com/lineage/l2howto/UE2Runtime-22261903.exe

 

Thanks Exofil for the link

[fdLP.]

Nice Guide ALEX2008GR ! Thx for that !

[BlackDragonX]

thx but where i can get this programm?

[Feelmyspells]

Vey Nice guide....

 

Can you put a link to download this programme???

[Exofil]

here is a link http://www.sexyracing.com/lineage/l2howto/UE2Runtime-22261903.exe

;)

[RammS]

i have try this program with Ct1 texture but i  get a critical error when i select to open the texture,

 

any one can explain..

 

ty

[Th3oneGandalF]

Very Nice

Gj alex :P

[Stealth]

Well I get an error but I will find the solution with Unreal Editor Anyway ThX For the Share Man :D

[Stefoulis15]

Thx For The Guide m8 Its Nice ^^

[xXxExosoulerxXx]

thx for guide nice share!!!

[woen]

i have try this program with Ct1 texture but i  get a critical error when i select to open the texture,

 

any one can explain..

 

ty

 

U has find the solution for this problem?pls tell me.

 

PD:sorry for my english

[lion2486]

thx