- STLegacyFiles.com


			[Register] [772002 Members] [86640 Online; 409 Members, 86231 Guests]		FileFront Network General Downloads Gaming Today Game Demos Trailer Videos Game Patches Game-specific Communities Act of War Age of Empires 3 AoE 3: The Warchiefs Age of Mythology Aliens vs Predator Aliens vs Predator 2 America's Army ArmA 2 Armada Armada 2 Armed Assault Battlefield 1942 Battlefield 2 Battlefield 2142 Battlefield Vietnam Bet on Soldier Black & White 2 Breed Bridge Commander Brothers in Arms Brothers in Arms 2 Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway Call of Duty Call of Duty 2 Call of Duty: World at War Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Call of Duty 6 Civilization IV CnC: Generals CnC: Red Alert 2 CnC: Red Alert 3 CnC: Renegade CnC: Tiberian Sun CnC 3: Tiberium Wars Company of Heroes Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Counter-Strike: Source Crysis Crysis: Warhead Dark Messiah Dawn of War Dawn of War: Dark Crusade Dawn of War: Winter Assault Day of Defeat: Source Diablo 3 Deus Ex Deus Ex 2 Devastation Doom 3 Elite Force Elite Force 2 Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Fallout 3 Far Cry Far Cry 2 F.E.A.R. Flight Simulator X Frontlines: Fuel of War Gears of War Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter GTA 3 GTA San Andreas GTA Vice City Half-Life Half-Life 2 Half-Life: Counter-Strike Halo Halo 2 Jedi Knight 2 Jedi Knight 3 Joint Operations Knights of the Old Republic KotOR II: The Sith Lords Left 4 Dead Left 4 Dead 2 LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth Lord of the Rings Online Lord of the Rings: Conquest Medal of Honor MoH: Pacific Assault Neverwinter Nights 2 Operation Flashpoint Operation Flashpoint 2 Portal Prey Quake 4 Red Faction: Guerrilla Return to Castle Wolfenstein rFactor Rise of Nations 2: Rise of Legends Serious Sam 2 Silent Hunter 4 Sins of a Solar Empire Soldier of Fortune Soldier of Fortune 2 Soldier of Fortune 3 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Star Trek: Legacy Star Wars Battlefront Star Wars Battlefront 2 Star Wars Empire at War StarCraft II Starfleet Command III Stargate Worlds Supreme Commander Team Fortress 2 The Elder Scrolls III The Elder Scrolls IV The Movies The Sims The Sims 2 The Sims Online TrackMania Nations TrackMania Sunrise TrackMania United Tribes Vengeance Unreal Tournament Unreal Tournament 2003 Unreal Tournament 2004 Unreal Tournament 3 Warcraft III Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory World in Conflict World of Warcraft X3: Terran Conflict Community & Other FileFront Gaming Forums

File Search

Star Trek Legacy

» About
» Control Keys
» FAQ
» Downloads
     - Starships
     - Maps & Missions
     - Large Addons
     - Small Addons
     - Media
     - Official Releases
     - Tutorials
     - Modding/Gaming tools
     - Public Domain Meshes
» File Search
» Submit Files
» Rules for Submits

The News

» News
» News Archive
» Submit News

Picture of the Month

Tutorial Section

» Mod Tools List
» About
» Map Backgrounds

Contest Section

» CM Splash Contest
» Starship Contest

» Scripting Contest

» Mapping Contest

» Contest League table
» 2008 Contests
» 2007 Contests
» Contest News

Special Site Features

» PotM Archive
» The Mod Centre
» Developer Register

The Community

» Links
» STL Forums
     - General Discussion
     - Modding & Editing
     - Problems & Help
» Submit PotD
» PotD Archive
» Best PotD of 2006
» Best PotD of 2007
» Best PotD of 2008
» Best PotD of 2009
» Best PotD Ever

The Site

» Latest Poll
» About
» Staff / Contact

Link to us
Link to us!

This Page has been viewed 7,500 times

Map Background Tutorial
A Guide on how to create and modify Map Backgrounds

Tools Needed
Please view the Texture Tools part of the "Legacy Mod Tools"

The Layout
Backgrounds in Legacy are dds texture files that are mapped onto 6 sides of the map box. The map box is the enivronment of each map. It has boundaries which you have noticed ingame that stop you from flying past a certain point in each map, inside the 6 "walls" or sides of this box is where all map objects are placed.

The map box (with planet inside)

In order to correctly design and create and/or modify a map's background we "unfold" the "box" (map box). Similar to unfolding a carboard box in real life we get this shape when all sides (tiles) are "flattened out" as shown below.

The Map box unfolded

Now which tile (side) is what when we fold the box back up?

This is the base/bottom tile. This is positioned on the bottom on the map box.

This is one of the sides. This is to the right-hand side of the map.

If you open a map in the map editor this is positioned on the right-hand side of the map

This is the top/appex tile. This is positioned on the top of the map box.

This is the "directly-in-front" tile that is positioned towards the "front" of the map when opened in a map editor.

This is the tile located left-hand side of the map in the map editor.

This is the tile located at the back of the starting position in a map editor.. and in most deathmatch maps.

So thats cool but how do we put all this back together again and make sure it's all matching after I do a modification to the texture or add new ones for a tile? The image below shows how each tile matches up when being "reconstructed".

How each tile matches up!

The cyan coloured lines above link two matching sides together. This is very important to take into account as you do not want mismatching textures in your background

A General rule to avoid any mismatch between sides is shown below

Matching two adjacent tiles

Basically if you have a pattern or colour scheme on the edge of a tile then you must compensate or carry it over to the matching tile to make the pattern look realistic ingame. Above, the green square on one tile must have a similar pattern or another pattern to carry it over on the matching tile. It does not have to be the same pattern as the red blob indicates but the part of the red blob pattern hitting the edge of the tile must be matched on the other tile. If you do not you will most likely end up with disastrous effect as shown below

mismatched tiles!

A way to combat this is to leave all the edges of each tile as black but that doesn't look as good as continuing pattern going around the map such as the "briar Patch"

The Textures
Each map has one texture per tile, thats 6 textures. The naming system for these textures is as follows.

"mbg_backgroundname#.dds"
# signifying a number

Example: "mbg_badlands0.dds"

The textures start at 0 and end at 5 so the following below is a texture set for a map background

How each of the 6 textures in the set are named

Each of these textures are mapped onto the tiles as shown below. This doesn't deviate or change, it is how they are mapped and you should take that as gospel!

each texture mapped onto each tile

Now you have the knowledge on how the map background system works. Each one of these textures are - 1024 x 1024 in size so they are Hi - Res.... going below this dimension will make your background pixelated and/or appear stretched. When you make a new background set try to keep with the naming systems to know what is what.

The background is specified in the map itself via the map editor. Each map uses a certain background, in order to get a new background that you make to work in game you should modify the maps themselves to have the background or else just modify the original stock backgrounds.

Right let's get down to doing some examples!
I will take both the mbg_orion.dds and mbg_green.dds textures and modify them (the method of doing so is explained at the end of this tutorial in the Try it out! section). having modified both of them I will show you how the modifications shape up.

Example 1: mbg_orion.dds
Below is a picture of all the modified textures for this background placed out together.

mbg_orion set

There are deviations in the pattern and colour in some of the textures so it will not look good in game at all. It will appear to put it bluntly, crap. When we take each texture and match them up in the "unfolded" layout, we get this -

mbg_orion set matching?

As you can see incorrect modification done to mbg_orion4 and especially mbg_orion1meant that even though the pattern is the same the differentiation in the colour levels means it doesn't look matched at all (the ingame screenshot of the mismatched tiles is a product of this poor matching) This is something you must be wary off and try to avoid at all costs.

Example 2: mbg_green.dds
Below is a picture of all the modified textures for this background placed out together.

mbg_orion set

The colour and pattern is much more uniform and consistent this time round. When we take each texture and match them up in the "unfolded" layout, we get this -

mbg_green set matching?

Ah this time the texture set looks better. The colour and pattern is much more consistent and there is more congruency to the whole texture set. Mission successful!

That is basically the whole 101 on map backgrounds. Hopefully you are able to follow this and try some yourself. If you do have a go at it then maybe releasing a few for the community would be a good idea. Below is a link to the "try it out" section for this tutorial.

Try it out!

_____________________________________

User Comments

The following comments are owned by the user that posted them. STLegacyFiles is not responsible for their content.

Total comments: 5 | Last comment: 05-22-2008 at 09:09

yopyop (Staff)
From:

(Access Denied!)
Joined: February 25th, 2006
Posts: 1334

w00t!!
That rocks! Rock

GamemasterAM
From:

Joined: October 28th, 2007
Posts: 18

Very cool!

Zube1337
From:

(Singapore)
Joined: July 17th, 2007
Posts: 575

really infomative stick out tongue

SkeeterUK
Joined: March 2nd, 2008
Posts: 35

Nice guide for the layout. Cheers.

idioticfool
From:

Joined: November 14th, 2007
Posts: 25

I never knew about this. Really informative.

When posting comments, you must follow these rules:

No "Yay I got First Post!" posts, no exceptions and no matter what other content the post has!
No Pornographic Material. Any sexually oriented imagery or links to such content will not be tolerated.
No Warez or Illegal Software. This includes linking to software, posting about it, and suggesting to get it.
No Cursing or Swear words. We encourage you to use our comment sections as a forum to debate files, news, etc., but please use proper adjectives to express yourself. We will not tolerate abuse upon another member or author.
No Attacks / Retaliation of any kind against a member, or group of members.
Please do not advertise for other sites or forums here.
Maximum of 3 smileys per regular member.

The high interactivity of this site should be considered a luxury, not a right. If you cannot follow these simple rules, you can and will be warned or banned from the comments, site or the entire network for any period of time.
Now enjoy yourself and behave!

		Register: To get your own Username, click here! Forgot your password? click here! You can use UBB here!
		Username:		Password:
		Remember my username and password
		Comment Title:
		Your comments for this Document please:

Gaming News

Latest Files

» D-16 (Cha'Do'Hub.. (1.0)
» Vesta Class (4.0)
» Terran Empire: P.. (1.5)
» TNG era Adventur.. (1.0)
» Terran Empire Pu.. (1.2)
» Assimilated plan.. (1.0)
» Defiant refits p.. (2.0)
» Stxi newton type (1.0)
» Tri-sovereign re.. (2.1)
» Tri-sovereign re.. (2.0)