verdite, need your gimp skills.

[Madison Lastrega]

Hello Mr verdite, my intelligent , friend.... I need your gimp skills for a few.... One of my new floor sets is kicking my butt, and I need your help.      I need to know if I can take a picture(high res). And split it into pieces..... What I am doing is, in my earthworld central chamber I want a huge zodiac amaulet... On the floor . sounds easy right. WRONG.... 

So for the floor, it is made of 9 pieces.... Each piece is 3x3. Making the total size of the piece of 81 total tiles. On each 3x3 tile there is 9 individual 256x256 textures, to make a photorealistic, non blurry effect.  So what I need to do is take my hand drawn zodiac picture is split it in to 81 parts at 256x256 image size...... Since your the resident gimper     I thought you would know , or if this can be done.... I know my adobe cs4 package can, but I was not going to install it on my som machine.... Because gimp is 1 free, and smaller in install size...... So my gimp master.... Can I take a huge picture and split it into 81 equal 256x256 parts.  :-)    thanks in advance for your time good sir........ML

[Verdite]

First and foremost before we progress on this :) we have found a way to use high resolution textures. While some may not agree that this is an ethical process  it can and has saved me tons of time. I'm pretty sure the limit is 4096x4096.

I'd be more than glad to split up the image for you and there are multiple GIMP methods to achieve this.

To save time for you, you can try this method.
Open your file go to new, and assuming your texture is 2304x2304 already, GIMP will offer this size. Click ok.
Go to filters > render > pattern > checkerboard and where it says size hit 256 and the box beside it you need to click on px.
Go to new and create a 257x257 (yes I got the dimensions right  )
Ok now go to your original file. Copy it, then go back to the checkerboard. Use the wand tool, click the top left checkerboard box and go to edit> 'paste into' now you should have a piece mapped to 257x257 so right click and copy it. Go into your 257x257 file, go to new and create a new 257x257. Now, in your new 257x257 paste the 'piece' into it. Then go to image > scale image and knock it down by 1 pixel to have 256x256.
Now save it!
Go back to your checkerboard. Click ctrl+z until your pasted image isnt there anymore. Now, go to your palette and find a red colour. Fill the squares that youve done so your first is the top left. Now fuzzy select the next square, either on the right or directly below, and copy your 2304x2304 image and paste it into it.
Repeat the process shown above in bold, and when youve finished with that square, make it blue. This way you know which parts of the image you have segmented.
For some reason the checkerboard wont create 256x256 for the dimension of 2304x2304.

Obviously you want to do a block of 3x3 in the checkerboard first, and name them something like eye3x3TopLEFT01 eye3x3TopMID01 etc up to 9 different files for each 3x3, to distinguish your files as there will be a 81 files. It will be very easy to lose track if you dont do it this way.

Let me know how you do.

[Madison Lastrega]

Thanks Ben your the best.... Works well but is soooo tedious, and the object of this project is to keep moving , so I am going with another method.... Well I made this huge 3d model of my center floor piece and made it an MDO. Works like a charm but still disapears at more 76 degrees of  Straight view any suggestion on that ..... Maybe Holy can write an extension to fix that but if not oh well, I will call it one of SoMs many bugs that mke it reconizable as a SoM title :)   

Still need to work my textures out but what do you think as a start :) ?..................ML

[Verdite]

Looks great Joe, youve spent a good deal of time on that! I thought of another method, cut your model into 4 and have each section as a seperate object, have 4 3x3 map pieces with each piece attached to it.

[HwitVlf]

Very nice. I'm already curious what puzzle it goes along with!

Ben, doesn't SomEx already change SoM's culling practices that make the blink-out for Objects? Personally, that blink-out never bothered me.  Also keep in mind Joe, you can always go back and fine tune stuff like that AFTER the game is complete, so I think you have the right idea to keep moving

[Madison Lastrega]

Thanks guys for the compliments:-)  and yes I think I will tweak the textures, cut it to fours and move on, :-) that should rid the disappearing act, thanks ben good idea......    ML.

[Madison Lastrega]

Alright I tweaked the textures went with a brown.... havn't cutinto 4 yet, by the way anyone know an easy easy way to divide this huge puppy in meta short of tediously removing faces? becauce ofthe detail in my zodiac symbols Maya cuts it but messes up the zodiacs........  this is really annoying.... I hate how I am never happy with my work..... dam perfectionist :)       anyway might just let it disapear screw it..... least then everyone will know it was made on SoM     ............   oh yeah is the texture ok I went with a contrasting brown for the inlays...... thought hell this is "Earth World " after all.......Does it look ok or should I stick with the same texture as on the colums?...........ML

oh yeah the origanal entry looked like this, i thought my floor was more modern.....

[Madison Lastrega]

1982 earthworld entry   ML

[Verdite]

send it to me joe and ill cut it into 4, it'l save you time and ill be glad to help.

[HwitVlf]

I think that's why pro game companies have teams; it's hard to keep shifting gears between art design, map layout, event programming etc. It can break the flow of production.

Is the seal in the comic the inspiration for your design? I like yours better. It looks more intriguing and significant.