Tutorial adressing custom texturing

tga_sortto : F:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\******\sourcesdk_content\hl2mp\materialsrc\\

Maybe want to remove or not add the \ at the end if one is there already?

Still nice, and as far as I can tell, bug free. :thumbs:
 
Yes i still have the jpegs, so your proggy just eliminates the need for wad's.. ic.. i extracted it to desktop.. how does it work? it terminates as soon as i open it.?
 
genocide604 said:
Yes i still have the jpegs, so your proggy just eliminates the need for wad's.. ic.. i extracted it to desktop.. how does it work? it terminates as soon as i open it.?
Click to expand...

Do you have Framework 1.1? Cuz it's not supposed to close like that, it should load the default settings if you don't have vtexgui.cfg.

Thanks Limpet for the info, I was doing it with location of source_sdk but I didn't think to do it with the folder to sort texture texbox. It now removes special characters and spaces.
 
So you can use %sourcesdk%? That beats using the whole path :p
 
Thanks alot Limpet, this is a nice idea. So there you go, this is VtexGUI version 0.3.

ChangesLog:
-Added a validation on the folder to sort texture into (It now removes any special characters and spaces)
-Added a browse button to the 3 folder paths
-Added a use %sourcesdk% variable button that finds the right path to the sourcesdk_content folder.
 
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Nice work :thumbs:
lol I just found the easter egg

I got a question for anyone reading this thread still.

I'm working on a sort of a GUI to compile .vmf file outside of hammer and without dropping them onto each .exe. So my question is, would anyone use it?
 
I think i might, Im still stuck on this new gui unit bob made... i extract it to desktop and try to open it.. but it terminates.. do i need to put it in a certain folder?
 
You can check to see if you already have the .NET Framework 1.1 installed by clicking Start on your Windows desktop, selecting Control Panel, and then double-clicking the Add or Remove Programs icon. When that window appears, scroll through the list of applications. If you see Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 listed, the latest version is already installed and you do not need to install it again.
Click to expand...

Do what that says, if you do not have Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 listed then you need to go to windows update and update from there.

Now if you do and its not working then, I don't know. Its probably you not having the .net framework though

Oh and I'm not making another program to handel texutures. I think there are enough of those in the works now. I'm talking about maps.
 
Ok that was it, i got it too work.. But my understanding was it converts tga's into vtf's that i can use in the sdk... but all it does is copy tga's? Im confused?

edit: it just copies the tga into the sdk src folder and a readme as well.. there is no vtf present?

editedit: nm, i just threw my image into the src folder, and vtex it from there.. it was not until then it told me my image dimension were not from the power of 2..
 
VTEXGUI actually compile tga files to vtf and vmt files. But it also copies your image automaticaly to the right directory if you wish to.

I'll try to explain what it does in order.
1. If the Don't copy .tga checkbox is not checked (this is the default setting), VTEXGUI will copy the tga specified in the "Location of TGA" textbox to the directory [email protected]/sourcesdk_content/(hl2 or hl2dm etc.. depending of what is selected in the Game combobox)/materialsrc/(folder to sort texture into)

2. It will execute vtex by using the sourcesdk_content settings so if the path to the sourcesdk_content is not correct, Vtex cannot be found and executed. To get the good path, there is an easy solution, press the "Use %sourcesdk% path" button. The last important option to set is the folder to sort texture into. Just enter any word there.

When you'll press the make texture button, VTEXGUI will look if this directory exists in the materialsrc folder (the directory i'm refering to is the name of the folder you specified in the "folder to sort texture into" option. If it doesn't exist, it will create it. Then, as I said, it will copy the tga file in it and then execute vtex, wich will create the vtf and vmt files and place them in your half-life 2/hl2/materials/folder automaticaly. You'll now have a working texture for HL2. You must have a good tga file though, I mean, it size should be a power of 2 (like 256x256 or 512x512 pixels) and 32bits. Oh and you need to have Steam opened.
 
Cuz vtex needs Steam to be opened, I guess it's to be sure that you have the rights to use Vtex, otherwise anybody could use vtex even if they don't have a steam account. Unfortunatly, VTEXGUI is only a GUI and i can't change how vtex works, well I could to a certain extend with the SDK but that's another story, and I'm not sure someone has the rights to bypass the Steam check, you'd have to ask Valve about that :)
 
Hmm, didn't know that. Oh and how do you surpress that window that pops up when you convert.
I don't mean "what do i click" but I'm assuming you used some form of VB, so what did you code to do it? If you didn't use VB well then, I probably wouldn't know what your talking about.
 
Yea I used VB .NET to make VTEXGUI. I used the Shell command to execute vtex (wich is that window you are talking about). I chose to display the vtex window to give better feedback about what's going on because as I said in the last post, I don't edit vtex.exe, I just made a GUI for it so when the vtex window pop-up, my program stands by in the background and it cannot know if the command is correct or if the file have been converted successfully. If you don't want to see any text in the window you can check the "Quiet" and "No Pause" options, but you already know that.
 
Right, see I ask becuase I'm making a GUI to kind of tie together the vbsp, vvis and vrad programs so that you can compile outside of Hammer. You'll get a bit of a performance boost becuase of this.
Some features I'll have in it is:
Quick compiling, Expert compiling (both very similar to how hammer looks and behaves, including editable and saveable configurations), make a list of maps you want to compile, and then the "no pause" and "quiet" options to affect the shell behavior.
Im using VB6 to do this and I don't know a whole lot on VB programming. I could always google it but I thought it'd be faster to ask you about it. :p
 
Ok, I'm also doing that kind of prog as I mentioned in another thread lol :) Basically it's a clone of Batch Compiler. Too bad you use VB6, I could have send it to you. Do you have MSN?
 
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Ti133700N said:
Cuz vtex needs Steam to be opened, I guess it's to be sure that you have the rights to use Vtex, otherwise anybody could use vtex even if they don't have a steam account. Unfortunatly, VTEXGUI is only a GUI and i can't change how vtex works, well I could to a certain extend with the SDK but that's another story, and I'm not sure someone has the rights to bypass the Steam check, you'd have to ask Valve about that :)
Click to expand...
Anyone using it is likely gonna have steam running anyway so I don't see a problem with it needing steam.

Quick question, does your GUI app allow for the vtex features for including the other images for a material, normals, reflection, spec and so on. Or can it only do general color maps only at the moment?
 
For the moment you can only change the shader name by editing the "Shader Name" option manually. If you want to add bumpmap, reflexions etc.. you'll have to edit the vmt by hands. But guess what, I plan on adding all that stuff in a near future :) For the moment, it creates the vtf and vmt files. Shaders creation is something a little different so i'll add tabs to VTEXGUI, on the first tab you'll get the same interface as it is now, that let you create the textures, and on another tab you'll get the Shaders Editor, where you'll have a list of all the shaders type and a definition of what it does, plus advanced parameters to add like $bumpmap.

I'm glad the almighty Fen is interested in VTEXGUI :) If you have suggestions on how to improve it or ideas on how to do the layout for the second tab, I'd be honored to follow those suggestions :) Oh and I corrected the bug with the browse buttons when you press Cancel it removes the entire content of the textbox, but I won't make it available now, I'll wait for another release.

I wonder if other people are interested in VTEXGUI though, I'd like to hear comments from them. I think this is a really good app that speeds up the texture creation. Thanks for you support Limpet, Geno and DarkElf :)

Edit: I just noticed that I put way too much smilies in my posts :)
 
Ti133700N said:
For the moment you can only change the shader name by editing the "Shader Name" option manually. If you want to add bumpmap, reflexions etc.. you'll have to edit the vmt by hands. But guess what, I plan on adding all that stuff in a near future :) For the moment, it creates the vtf and vmt files. Shaders creation is something a little different so i'll add tabs to VTEXGUI, on the first tab you'll get the same interface as it is now, that let you create the textures, and on another tab you'll get the Shaders Editor, where you'll have a list of all the shaders type and a definition of what it does, plus advanced parameters to add like $bumpmap.

I'm glad the almighty Fen is interested in VTEXGUI :) If you have suggestions on how to improve it or ideas on how to do the layout for the second tab, I'd be honored to follow those suggestions :) Oh and I corrected the bug with the browse buttons when you press Cancel it removes the entire content of the textbox, but I won't make it available now, I'll wait for another release.

I wonder if other people are interested in VTEXGUI though, I'd like to hear comments from them. I think this is a really good app that speeds up the texture creation. Thanks for you support Limpet, Geno and DarkElf :)

Edit: I just noticed that I put way too much smilies in my posts :)
Click to expand...
No worries, it looks pretty useful to me, had a fiddle with it and it seems nice and simple.

Some suggestions
-----------------

Wizard mode. So people who've never made one before can just jump straight in and have a step by step hand held through it.

Normal mode. like now basically

Advanced mode. Edit names of output files, add things like incremental file names. Edit the files, well the text parts

Help, put in an in depth help file so people know what everything does and its handy to get to.

preview mode. preview the material files, though you'll maybe have to do this before its converted, that way you can use opensource code for previewing a simple flat plane in a openGL or DX window with the settings they applied, kinda like the nVidia Photoshop preview only it would show the effect all the parts would create before its turned into a vtf/vmt. Could be handy for quickly checking things

thumbnail library, so people can see at a glance what texture is what (ok can always use the thumbnail filemenu method in Windows2k and up but it would be better if there was something within the app to do it.

rename all files quickly, kinda part of the advanced mode. so you could quickly organise images by renaming them all to have prefixes to them, eg: tiles002, tiles019 and so on could become fl_tiles002, fl_tiles019 so they'd be easier to see as floor materials. incase they weren't named correctly to begin with.
 
and please put banner ads all over the GUI, because I love seeing advertisements!
 
Woa those are really good suggestions!

I'll start by making the Wizard mode. The first time you'll open the app, a wizard will pop up and will guide you step by step to make a texture, there will be a "Don't display the wizard again" checkbox and a Skip Wizard button.

I think I won't make a power mode though, only a wizard and a normal mode. I'll leave the controls how they are and add tabs and more features but i'll keep things organised so that newbies could still use it easily and advanced users could have more control on what they do.

For the preview mode, it might require alot of work but I think it's a really good idea and I already made a 3d file viewer in DX8 last year so I guess I could do it. I could even make a bumpmap preview.

The batch rename tool is also a great idea, i'll look at how irfan viewer do it presently and do the same.

This was the kind of stuff I wanted to know so thanks alot for the suggestions!
 
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Ti133700N said:
Woa those are really good suggestions!

I'll start by making the Wizard mode. The first time you'll open the app, a wizard will pop up and will guide you step by step to make a texture, there will be a "Don't display the wizard again" checkbox and a Skip Wizard button.

The problem with the help i'd have to build is that english is not my mother tongue so I'm not really good at explaining things in english, maybe someone could help me with this.

I think I won't make a power mode though, only a wizard and a normal mode. I'll leave the controls how they are and add tabs and more features but i'll keep things organised so that newbies could still use it easily and advanced users could have more control on what they do.

For the preview mode, it might require alot of work but I think it's a really good idea and I already made a 3d file viewer in DX8 last year so I guess I could do it. I could even make a bumpmap preview.

The batch rename tool is also a great idea, i'll look at how irfan viewer do it presently and do the same.

This was the kind of stuff I wanted to know so thanks alot for the suggestions!
Click to expand...
no worries :) hope their all doable :D

as for the help file, im sure if you ask on the help section you'll get people offering to fix up the english or even convert it to other languages (which might be a good idea, there's a lot of people modding who's first language isn't english)
 
New skin

For those who are interested in VTEXGUI, here is a small update :
 
is there any prrogress on vtexgui?

sorry if i have done a bump of an unsticky
 
Yea there is progress, i'm doing the Wizard right now, I'll post something in the Help Wanted forums because I need help with the text. Maybe you could help me, is your english good? Have you done tutorials before?
 
my english is wonderful, but for some reason i type in broken english
 
Ok then, I'd like to have suggestions on the steps for the Wizard. There is an introduction to the Wizard, with a ... hum.. wait I'll make a print screen so It'll be easier to explain what I have done.

So the first screen is the new main interface. But when the program starts, the first screen that appears is the intro to the Wizard, not the main screen (unless it's the second time you run VTEXGUI and you checked "Don't display the wizard again").

The second is the first screen of the wizard, I need help for the text that will be in the square. It should explain that this wizard will guide the user through the creation of the vtf and vmt file (The last sentence should be something like: Click on Next to continue. (And yea the text is a copy of a news on hl2.net I just wanted to test how it would look :)
And I'll add the photoshop stuff later (well the graphical stuff like the borders) when I'll be sure about the dimensions of the window.

For the next steps I'll put the controls that are on the main screen almost one by one and explain exactly what they have to put in the textbox.

So we should have :
- Intro
- Location of sourcesdk_content
- Location of tga (I might put an option to select more than one tga file here)
- Folder to sort texture into
- Shader name
- Additionnal Parameters
- Game

(Not sure about the order, maybe we could put the Game selection first, the rest seems logical.)

Then we could add optionnal steps like advanced compiling options and material properties...

I need advices on the Wizard and the texts for each step.

Thanks for the help.
 
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-Intro:
Welcome to the VtexGui wizard. This wizard is designed to help you make your .vmt and .vtf files.

Click on the checkbox below if you do not want to see this wizard again next time you open VtexGui. Click on the Skip button to go directly to the main window.

Click on Next to continue

-Location of sourcesdk_content:
This step will determine the location of the sourcesdk_content folder. You can type in the path yourself in the textbox below, click on the "..." button to browse for it, or click on the "Use %sourcesdk% path" button to have this wizard find it for you. You can click on the folder icon to open that path and check if it is the correct path.

Click Next to continue.

-Location of tga: (assuming same setup as the previous step)
This still will determine the location of you .tga file you wish to use. You can type the path of the file in the textbox below, or click on the "..." button to browse for it.

Click Next to continue.
(I don't know how your option of selecting multiple files will looks so I can't offer much more than that)

-Folder to sort texture into:
This step will determine the name of the folder you want your .vmt and .vtf files to go into. Type it in the textbox below.

Click Next to continue.

-Shader name:
This step will determine the name of the shader your texture will use. For example: LightmappedGeneric
Type it in the textbox below.

Click Next to continue.

-Additionnal Parameters:
This step will allow you to choose any additional parameters for you texture.

Click Next to continue.

-Game:
This step will determine the game that this texture will be used in. The .vtf and .vmt files will be placed in the appropriate directory.

Click Finish to exit this wizard.


So those are my suggestions. Im sure they can use some work, but that should give you a good idea to build off of.
 
Ti133700N your genius

Ti133700N said:
Yea there is progress, i'm doing the Wizard right now, I'll post something in the Help Wanted forums because I need help with the text. Maybe you could help me, is your english good? Have you done tutorials before?
Click to expand...

i would just like to say, that what you have done, is pure genius Dude. :smoking:
i have about a 1000 tga's to convert, and you my man are a God send, no messing. :cheers:
thanks, and more power to you. :thumbs:
 
Thanks, that's the kind of reply I like to see before going to work :) A new version of VtexGUI will be available this weekend. It will include the new Skin and a Wizard. If you use the wizard, it asks you if you want to copy ony one tga or many, you don't even have to copy them manually, just specify the directory where they are located and VtexGUI will do the rest :).
 
Ti133700N said:
Thanks, that's the kind of reply I like to see before going to work :) A new version of VtexGUI will be available this weekend. It will include the new Skin and a Wizard. If you use the wizard, it asks you if you want to copy ony one tga or many, you don't even have to copy them manually, just specify the directory where they are located and VtexGUI will do the rest :).
Click to expand...
waiting impatiently for the new one to play with :D:D
 
new version of VtexGUI

Ti133700N said:
Thanks, that's the kind of reply I like to see before going to work :) A new version of VtexGUI will be available this weekend. It will include the new Skin and a Wizard. If you use the wizard, it asks you if you want to copy ony one tga or many, you don't even have to copy them manually, just specify the directory where they are located and VtexGUI will do the rest :).
Click to expand...

cool, fantastic....
no, sorry, words cannot describe how i feel about this.
ROCK ON :bounce: :LOL:

i think i'll wait for the new one, before i do any more.
Yippy.......... :cheese:

PS thanks ever so much Ti133700N
 
Ok, there you go:

*Fixed a bug that the path and filename of the tga wasn't shown in the texbox when you browse for it.

Changes:
- New Steamed GUI
- Added a complete Wizard
- Corrected a bug with the folder browser/file browser
- VtexGUI now inform you if the sourcesdk environment variable is not set when you click on the "Use %sourcesdk" button
- The settings are now handled by the registry (no more files)
- Added a loading screen (that loads the settings and the forms)
- You can now copy all tga (yes only the tga files will be copied) from a directory or up to 4 different directories

I've worked very hard on this release but it might still contains bugs so I'd be really gratefull if you post comments and bugs in this thread or send me an email.

This is still a beta...

Features to be added in future releases:
- 3D preview of the texture you want to convert
- Batch rename of your texture's names
- Help
- vmt editing options (shaders/parameters)

Thanks alot for your support :)
 
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Good work, the wizard, and folder conversion is wonderful!

I'll be pimping it on your behalf!

amckern
 
I've been mapping for quite a while and I never had any problems creating my own textures and making a .WAD for them in HL1. Then HL2 came out, I followed the tutorials to make my .TGA and bring them into Hammer, but I could never get it to work, that is until tonight. Your program finally made it work and now I can get started making textures and creating my map. Thanks a million for your hard work Ti133700N! I think you should get some kind of an award for this beautiful GUI you've made. I think you'll be famous in the mapping community over the next few months. :thumbs:
 
The One And Only VtexGUI v0.4 Beta 2

Ti133700N said:
Ok, there you go:

The One And Only VtexGUI v0.4 Beta 2

(By the way, don't email at the address on syxenz, it's not my personnal WebPage), if you want to send me a mail, [email protected]

Screenshot of the main interface:
VtexGui04Screen.jpg


Changes:
- New Steamed GUI
- Added a complete Wizard
- Corrected a bug with the folder browser/file browser
- VtexGUI now inform you if the sourcesdk environment variable is not set when you click on the "Use %sourcesdk" button
- The settings are now handled by the registry (no more files)
- Added a loading screen (that loads the settings and the forms)
- You can now copy all tga (yes only the tga files will be copied) from a directory or up to 4 different directories

I've worked very hard on this release but it might still contains bugs so I'd be really gratefull if you post comments and bugs in this thread or send me an email.

This is still a beta...

Features to be added in future releases:
- 3D preview of the texture you want to convert
- Batch rename of your texture's names
- Help
- vmt editing options (shaders/parameters)

Thanks alot for your support :)
Click to expand...


Ti133700N/Prowler :thumbs:
I'll quote amckern
"I'll be pimping it on your behalf!"
apart from that, i only wish i could do something more for you. :eek:
the fact that i have only two brain cells, (which by the way are in constant conflict), hinders me some what. :rolling:
thank you. :bounce:
I'll be keeping an eye on you, i can do that, cause it only requires one cell to work it. ;)

PS of cause I'll give you feed back, as to any, if any, problems or bugs i find. (if i can get them cells to stop fighting for one minuet!)
:cheers:
 
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