Ben - June 23 2015

Today was fun, had a big discussion with some of the team about how to structure our new texture file system, and I'm happy with what we came up with.

There will be 3 files, and the filenames are not set in stone. (Tell me if they suck) The first is MaterialLayers.yml, which specifies specific layers of material. A material consists of a texture, normal map, displacement map, and a texturing method as well as some other stuff.

The second file is Materials.bmat.yml, which specifies Block Materials. A Block Material can consist of 1 or 2 materials as a base and overlay, as well as a blendMode for blending between them.

The final file is BlockMaterialMappings.yml, which will apply materials to blocks using the blocks string identifiers. (we got rid of hardcoded integer IDs.)

Code:

===============================
MaterialLayers.yml
===============================
Wood:
        method: repeat
        path: "Blocks/Terrain/wood.png"
        normalMap: "Blocks/Terrain/wood_NRM.png"
        dispMap: "Blocks/Terrain/wood_DISP.png"
Wood_Crate_Trim:
        method: connect
        path: "Blocks/Terrain/wood_crate_trim.png"
        normalMap: "Blocks/Terrain/wood_crate_trim_NRM.png"
        dispMap: "Blocks/Terrain/wood_crate_trim_DISP.png"


===============================
Materials.bmat.yml
===============================
Wood:
        base: Wood
Wood_Crate:
        base: Wood
        overlay: Wood_Crate_Trim
        blendMode: alpha


===============================
BlockMaterialMappings.yml
===============================
Wood_Crate:
        top: Wood
        bottom: Wood
        sides: Wood_Crate_Trim

Texture packs will contain these three files, and will allow texture artists to apply any textures to any blocks without actually modifying the block data, and it promotes re-use of materials.

Let me know what you guys think! I spent a good portion of the day working on this as well as texturing stuff, still haven't finished transitioning our filesystem over.

Bonus pic of ruby!



HOPEFULLY tomorrow I'll have some normal mapping and displacement mapping to show, but that hinges on how many issues I run into with the new file structure transition.

Correct! In BlockData.yml you will be able to see all the string block IDs, you can simply use these.

We will probably allow you to specify custom meshes in YML, JSON, and/or LUA. Meshes are specified in the BlockData.yml, and rather than using a default mesh (block, flora, ect) you could link to a file that defines the mesh. Materials will still be created the same way, but you can choose how to use those materials in your custom script/data.

UPDATE: Were renaming the files
LayerProperties.yml, Textures.yml, BlockTextureMappings.yml.