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texture tiling

robystar

robystar

Messages
5,214
Hi,

Could somebody please explain how you tile a texture in a gp polygon.
Tried a lot of things but somehow I do not have it in my fingers yet and it is all trial and error because I am afraid I do not understand the logic behind it.
This is what I tried to achieve both with polylines and with polygons but the result is the same:

tiling2.jpg


Thanks,

Roby
 
Hi George,

Yes, I know. But it is a pattern, to be used for the chevrons or what you call them. But the texture sheet is 40ft and the polygon respectively poly line is 300ft long. I understand that according to the manual when the poly is bigger than 40 ft the texture will be stretched and that is exacrly what I do not want. I would like to use the texture as it is (well almost) and have it tiled over the length of the poly. I would also like the lines in the texture to be in a different angle by rotating the texture or something of the kind.
I do not know if all that is possible and maybe I would have to make a custom texture for it, but I would still have the tiling problem because it is rather bizarre to make a texture to fit a 300 ft x 40 ft poly.
 
You could make a custom line like I did for the parking spaces. If you make the width and height zero, it will not be stretched along the length but will be tiled.



 
Roby, when a GP object is first displayed on creation, it is shown in its natural size vs the textrure. If you do nothing to move the vertices - other than to select line pattern in the case of lines, the texture will be tiled as you wish.

Textures are only stetched/compressed when you change the relative position of the vertices (on the GP Editor display) to each other.

This is all treated in detail in the manual.

Don
 
Roby,

If you look at George's GP Editor image, you can see how to tile a GP object. You simply make it bigger than the texture image! If you don't want the texture to be stretched or distorted when texturing a polygon, you:

1. Press the Reset button to get back the natural proportions of the polygon. Now the texture will display on the polygon with the same proportions as in the texture itself.

2. Use the 4 sided resize button to the resize the polygon.

a. If you make the polygon smaller, you are "zooming in" and the texture displayed on the polygon will be spread out.

b. If you make the polygon larger, then you are "zooming out" and more of the texture displayed will be displayed on the polygon.

c. If you make the polygon so large so it is larger than the image of the texture, then the texture will begin to repeat (tile) itself over the polygon.

d. If the polygon is long and thin and extends only beyond two opposite sides of the polygon, then the texture will tile itself only in those directions (this is what is done when texturing a line - see the image above).

Hope this helps,
 
Roby,

Don and Tom are the experts but they don't speak the same language as me :o

If you make a custom line texture, unlike Tom's 6 point plan, there is nothing to do except specify the width.
 
Hi all,

Thanks a bunch for all hints, clarifications and explanations.
I did not know I was dealing with Arabs though (they have a saying: "wata fikou alè anlè yata fikou" or "we have agreed to never agree"):D.
I will try out the most simple first.
Once again, thanks.

Roby

PS: Don, to explain what I am after (and I am sure you understand the picture), here is a GE screenshot:

genstu.jpg


Do you think your GP_poly editor is up to it? If so, no problem, I will have to continue finding out the possibilities. If not, do you think you will manage to get it perfectioned so as to make this possible?

PS2: This is only an example of one aiport I myself am trying to make more lifelike using your GP_poly addon, but there are hundreds of other examples even more complicated, I guess.
 
Roby, referring to the runway edge markings and taxiway markings only, I see nothing that could not be accomplished with ADE_GP. You will, however, need some custom textures. (While ADE_GP could stretch the existing textures, e.g., gp_Patterns, they would look "exaggerated".)

But, it will take the skills of an advanced user - of which you already have most of the necessary qualifications - especially after that "face on the ground" of a few days ago. However, from posts earlier today, you still don't seem to have a good appreciation of the GP Editor, and that's essential.

To get maximum use out of ADE_GP, you really must have a solid understanding of the interplay between vertex position and texture utilization. I hate to say it again, but the answers are in the manual - particlarly in the mid-to end-sections on editing and texture management. (Think Gmax Material UVW Editor. You are moving vertices relative to the displayed texture, not in space.)

I'm happy to continue to answer any questions and to assist you "along the way". But, until you fully understand how textures are used in ADE_GP, I suspect you'll often find the "hard way" to do things and be disappointed in the results.

Don
 
Good morning Don,

Well, you said you would be happy to continue answering my questions?
I am sorry, but I do have some.
By the way, I think I now understand that in the editor you are not moving the vertices physically but only adjusting the texture.
In an earlier version of the gp-editor I made this polygon with patterns:

fsxgppatternpolygon.jpg


It is about the teeth (apologize that I have to show you this ugly figure once again).
And I made it by dragging the vertices so as to cover the part of the texture I wanted to have. Like this:

adegppatternpolygon.jpg


So now I thought I could apply the same procedure to another polygon, much bigger and with more vertices, but the result is like this:


fsxgppatternpolygonnew.jpg


I also spent half an hour in trying to get all the vertices placed inside the texture (is there maybe another way?), I tried rotating 90º but all to no avail.
Am I doing something wrong or has there been a change in the editor?

Roby

PS As you can also see to the left of the FSX screenshot, a (George's) one step procedure works for tiling polylines.
 
Roby,

As a quick exercise I created a line texture for the runway edge at NSTU.

In ADE I measured the distance between the lines and their height, 28m x 7.6m.

Created a bmp with pixel dimensions of these multiplied by 10.

Drew a line at about 45 degrees.

Scaled the bmp to length 512.

Created a new bmp of size 512 x 1024 and copied the ptrvious bmp to the top of this bmp:



In DxtBmp, created an alpha channel of this bmp with the yellow changed to white.

Created another bmp of the same size filled with yellow and saved as DXT1.

Added an entry to Texture_Def.txt

gp_RwyEdge|0|0|false

and to Lines_Def.txt

Runway Edge | gp_RwyEdge | V=888 | 136 | 1024

In ADE, created a GP line between the end lines with a width of 7.6m and arranged that the left two vertices were on the left edge of the texture:



And in FSX:



It's not perfect because in real life, the lines are not equi-distant, but it isn't bad.

To draw the other side of the runway, I would define the line in the opposite direction.

To creat the other edge lines, it would be necessary to create another bmp with vertical lines and the same aspect ratio as shown in the photo-textures.

It is a lot of work, but the end result could be worth it.

Edit. Sorry, we cross posted.
 
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Thanks George,

Had not started yet on making a custom texture because first I want to figure out the ins and outs of the gp-editor, in particular how textures are showing up , say, in a banana shaped polygon for instance (no, I am not going to make a banana, it is just an example:)) more or less like the mouth of the figure I showed where you can see that the line in the middle stays in the middle and texture is distorted/rotated in function of the polygon vertices.
A straight line should no longer pose any problem. For resizing I can use Tom's way. It only needs a custom texture.
However, your way of doing would seem to imply that you would have to make a custom texture for every different length of the runway edge chevrons?
 
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robystar said:
However, your way of doing would seem to imply that you would have to make a custom texture for every different length of the runway edge chevrons?
Click to expand...

No, only for those sections which have a different aspect ratio.

However, I have run into a problem, see the thread on 0.0.58
 
Roby, in the face below, I would have made the mouth with an outlined poly; the poly contents would have been the same as you have.

George, Roby, in the airport with the distorted texture for taxiway edge stripes, if you use a multi-segment line (which would follow a curve) with a custom, dimensioned texture of the pattern:
_/__/__/__/__/__/_​
you should be able to outline the complete oval with one object. If you really wanted to get fancy, you could also vary the pitch of the lines in different segments. The texture would be specified in a similar manner as George set out, but the texture def entry would Be:

gp_RwyEdge|168|0|false (28 * 6 segment = 168) - 6, or whatever number of, segments across the texture​

Don
 
Hi,

I assume that these textures follow the rules of normal FS textures? In that case, note that their size in each dimension needs to be a power of 2. For example, 32 pixels by 512 pixels is fine, but 100 x 300 pixels is not.

Is that in the manual, Don? I can't find it.

Hope this helps,
 
Taking Don's advice, I obtained a better solution:



 
Last edited:
I assume that these textures follow the rules of normal FS textures? In that case, note that their size in each dimension needs to be a power of 2. For example, 32 pixels by 512 pixels is fine, but 100 x 300 pixels is not.

Is that in the manual, Don? I can't find it.
Click to expand...
The textures are interpreted by FlightSim and must conform to FlightSim rules - inclusing power-of-2 dimensions.

I'll note that in the manual.

Don
 
Hi Roby,

If you move the vertices individually (to try to "fit it into the texture"), then you will get distortion as you got in the image above. That's why I've been saying you must use the resize buttons instead.

Again - if you have a textured polygon and you move the vertices individually, you WILL end up with a distorted texture.

As Don says, in your case a line is a much better solution.
 
It is obvious and has been explained in the manual already if I am not mistaken.
Edit, cross posted. That was a reply to Don.
 
Hi Tom,

That is why I asked if something had changed.
I tried to have both the line-type and the polygon-type texture curve, but none worked.
Resizing the way you indicated is the way to do it for straight lines but does not work for curved ones.
Moving the vertices of a polygon individually gives me all kinds of crazy results (like Don foresaw:)).
But I do want to end up with a distorted texture for the curves.
I think I need a clear head and try to understand (what everybody is telling me) in the morning as I have been experimenting the larger part of this rainy day.
Thanks for all your help, you are a lot farther along this than I am (You must have worse weather still;)).
 
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