Texturing for Klingon Academy
This tutorial will help you through texturing Mods for Klingon Academy. This page covers the basics of texturing, such as surface naming and texture application. Tutorials covering Transparencies, Lightmaps and Texture Animations can be found following this link.
Things you will need:
Lightwave 5.6 Modeler and Layout
A .lwo model, preferably without surfaces named.
A 24-bit .bmp texture to apply to the surface.
Although any size bmp can be used on a surface in Lightwave, Klingon Academy is rather particular as to the size of it's textures. Nothing larger than 256x256 pixels can be used. Also, it's good practice to keep the texture sizes in multiples of 4 (32, 64, 128, etc). Using oddly sized textures will often cause them to apply to surfaces skewed. Also, KA won't use textures with names more than eight charaters long.
Lightwave Modeler
The first step is defining the surfaces, of which is accomplished in Lightwave Modeler. With the model you wish to texture loaded up, hit the *Polygon* tab (#M-1) in the lower left-hand corner of the interface. Select the polygons that you wish to include in the surface, using the cursor and the Shift key to select, and the Ctrl key to deselect. Remember, a surface in Lightwave can be made up of one polygon, or many selected together.
Once you have the nescecary polygons selected, hit the *Polygon* tab (#M-2) at the top left of the screen (don't get it mixed up with the one we used previously at the bottom). Now hit the *Surface* tab (#M-3) found to the left under *Transform*. This will open the *Change Surface* box:
At the top of this will be a green flyout menu that reads *Default*, this lists surface names that may have been applied to the model previously. Assuming that you've just made the model from scratch, this should be empty. Remember in the future, whenever you create a new surface that you move this selection back to default. If it says something else cilck and hold the *Surface* bar, then select *Default*. The next field is the one we need to concern ourselves with at the moment.
This field, of which should also say *Default* is where we apply new surface names. Klingon Academy requires a certain format for surface names, so as an example we'll type something like this in:
013_D07_!SURFACENAME
The first number (013) is simply a model number, and can remain consistant throughout all the names. It's important that it is numeric rather than alpha, otherwise your ship won't take weapons damage while in-game.
The second number (D07) is used to identify the resource that that surface is tied into. These tie-ins are defined in the .SHP file, so it's a good idea to keep track of them now to avoid having to re-name them later on. More than one surface can use a single definition. For instance, say we made a warp engine with two surfaces (one port, one starboard) the surface names could look like this:
001_D05_!WARPPORT
001_D05_!WARPSTARBOARD
Any number can be assigned to a particular resource, and there's no set order the definitions have to come in.
The third part, the surface name, is your identifier as to which surface is which. There's no set convention or format for regular surface names, just that each is preceded by an exclamation point (!), and that it be identifiable to you.
That's all that's nessecary. Color, Double-Siding and Smoothing can be used, and each is self descriptive. Hit *Apply* to make the new name stick. Now de-select the surface you've just named, and select the next area of the model you want to make into a surface, and repeat what you've done for the last surface. After you've named all your surfaces, save the object.
Lightwave Layout
Open up Lightwave Layout. Hit the *Objects* tab (#L-1) in the upper left to open the Objects Pannel. Hit *Load Object* in the window that appears, locate the object you've just named the surfaces on and open it, then hit *Close Pannel* to see your object. In the upper right-hand corner (#L-2) there are *Move*, *Rotate* and *Zoom* buttons: Hold down on one of these and move the mouse to scroll and zoom to get different views of the model. If the surface you're trying to view isn't properly lit, select the *Lights* tab (#L-3) on the left, then hit the *Rotate* tab. Clicking on the viewing area and moving the mouse will rotate the light around. Do this until the surface is lit.
Hit the *Surfaces* tab (#L-4), next to where the Objects tab was to open the Surfaces Panel, this will open the *Surfaces Panel*. At the top of this you'll see a green flyout with the label "Current Surface" (#S-1). Click and hold this bar, and be given a list of the names you gave the surfaces on your model. Select one.
Futher down the left side of the panel you'll see a button that says Surface Color. To the right of this is a small button with a "T" on it (#S-2). This is where we assign the texture, so hit it. This will open the *Color Texture Panel*:
The first green flyout is the projection type used on the texture. Chances are you'll be using Planar Image Map, of which projects the texture directly onto the surface. The next flyout, labeled "Texture Image" (#T-1) is where we select the texture file. Click and hold down the *Texture Image* bar, then select *(load image)*. Locate and select the texture you've made earlier. Regardless of what folder you are storing your textures in at present, Klingon Academy only looks for it's textures in the "Textures" folder. As long as you have them there when you go to load the game up later on, it will find them.
Turn off the Width and Height Repeat, unless you need the texture to repeat itself across the surface. Next, go down to the *Texture Axis* buttons (#T-2) and select the axis you want your texture to be projected from. You may have to experiment with this to get the texture on straight, otherwise they correspond to the same directional axis in the Modeler program.
Note that X-Axis is projected from right to left on the model, so textures appearing on the left (port) side have to be reversed. Y-Axis is top to bottom (so reverse bottom textures), and Z-Axis is aft to fore (reverse textures on the front).
Each time you apply a texture, or alter it's orientation, remember to hit *Automatic Sizing* (#T-3) to have it fit itself to the surface. Hit *Use Texture* to go back to the main screen and see the preview of the texture on the surface.
Once you have all the textures applied to the appropriate surfaces, re-open the Objects Panel (#L-1 again), find the Save Object button on the left and hit Save on the dialogue box. This saves the texture positions to the object's .lwo, so that KA can place them. Saving the Scene to the .lws won't do this, and can mess the file up.
Arrange the .lwo in the proper KA folder and boot up Klingon Academy to check your handiwork.. and have fun!
If you have any questions or comments about this article, you can reach me at PXS@hotmail.com.
2003/06/11
