Material editor

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Revision as of 17:48, 14 January 2010 by BryanDerksen (Talk | contribs) (relief mapping was cut. also, add a category)

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Materials are a combination of textures that can be "painted" onto surfaces in the game.

Each material can have the following texture layers:

  • diffuse - defines the color of the light that is reflected off of the surface
  • emissive - defines the color of the light that is emitted from the surface (ie, the color that the surface glows)
  • normal - the "slope" of the surface. This simulates roughness by varying how light reflects off of the surface, creating shadows and hightlights on an otherwise flat plane.
  • specular - the "shininess" of the surface
  • tint - A uniform color that can be applied to modify the shade of a material. This allows materials to be given variant appearances with very little additional work.

Root

At the root of the material project you can insert the following:

  • IconMaterialObject.png Model
  • IconMateriaLibrary.png New material library
  • IconMateriaLibrary.png New tint library
  • IconMaterialPaletteLibrary.png New palette library
  • IconMaterialPaletteLibrary.png New Heraldry library
  • IconMaterialLight.png New Light
  • IconMaterialLight.png The Sun

Libraries themselves aren't directly editable, though. Once you've created a library, you'll need to right click the library and insert an actual object to be tinkered with.

For example: right click Root > insert Tint library > right click Tint library > insert new tint object.

The 'tint object' itself can then be adjusted and manipulated. The same goes for all the above library types.

Libraries can have groups added, which are similar to subdirectories for organizational purposes.

General
Name
Buffer Effect 1
Name
Buffer Effect 2
Name
Buffer Effect 3
Name
Layout Setting
Layout
Layout Visible
Location
Position X
Position Y
Position Z
Rotation Pitch (degrees)
Rotation Roll (degrees)
Rotation Yaw (degrees)

Material Properties

General
Material Name
Material Type
Material Semantic
Name
Sound Material Type Materials of type "Prop Default" don't have a sound material type.

Material type can be:

  • Black
  • Canopy
  • Character
  • Cloth
  • Clouds
  • Diffuse Distortion
  • Distortion
  • Eye
  • Eyelash
  • Face
  • General GUI
  • Hair
  • Instancing
  • Lava
  • Prop Default
  • Sky
  • Static
  • VFX
  • Water
  • Weapon
  • Weapon Trail

Material Semantic can be:

  • Atlas
  • Default
  • Hero
  • HeroAlpha
  • HeroPunch
  • LOD1Blend
  • LOD1BlendFlat
  • LOD1Punch
  • LOD1Relief
  • LOD3(Static3)
  • LOD3Punch

Sound Material Type can be:

  • Unknown
  • Wood
  • Sand
  • Leaves
  • Grass
  • Stone
  • Dirt
  • Puddle
  • Water
  • Mud
  • Ice
  • Snow
  • Hollow wood
  • Metal
  • Gravel
  • Carpet

Diffuse

General
Enable Diffuse Map True/false
Diffuse Map A TGA or DDS file
Diffuse (Preview Texture) Pops up a window displaying a larger view of the diffuse map
Diffuse (Refresh Texture) Reloads the diffuse map from disk and rebuilds the texture
Export
ResRef

Normal

General
Enable Normal Map True/false
Normal Map A TGA or DDS file
Normal (Preview Texture) Pops up a window displaying a larger view of the normal map
Normal (Refresh Texture) Reloads the normal map from disk and rebuilds the texture
Export
ResRef


Specular

General
Enable Specular Map True/false
Specular Map A TGA or DDS file
Specular (Preview Texture) Pops up a window displaying a larger view of the specular map
Specular (Refresh Texture) Reloads the specular map from disk and rebuilds the texture
Export
ResRef

Tint

Only materials of type "Prop Default" can have a tint.

General
Enable Tint Map True/false
Tint Map A TGA or DDS file
Tint (Preview Texture) Pops up a window displaying a larger view of the diffuse map
Tint (Refresh Texture) Reloads the diffuse map from disk and rebuilds the texture
Export
ResRef
Tint Files
Tinting File

Tint properties

Tints are stored in a separate tint library within the material project.

General
For Export true/false
Import TNT file Import a TNT file for this tint
Name
Name Descriptor
Tint Type
Red Channel
Enable Tint R
Green Channel
Enable Tint G
Blue Channel
Enable Tint B
Alpha Channel
Enable Tint A

Tint type can be:

  • 3 Channel Tint
  • Makeup Lip Tint
  • Makeup Eye Tint
  • Makeup Blush Tint
  • Skin Tint
  • Tattoo Tint

For the R, G, and B channels, enabling each will enable the following properties:

Channel
Enable Tint Channel True/False
Diffuse Color
Diffuse Intensity
Diffuse Opacity
Specular Color
Specular Intensity
Specular Opacity

Models

Models can be placed in the material project's display area to allow textures to be tested and compared as work progresses.

Palette objects

Palette objects are similar to materials, but much simpler.

Heraldry

A heraldry object is a diffuse texture that's intended to overlay an existing material like a decal.