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Thornes Sandbox Diary

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thorneakavar
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Thornes Sandbox Diary

Post by thorneakavar »

This may be a little conceited, and I hope its not, but I just made a huge hurtle in sandbox and this ideal hit me. I have noticed that tutorials and support have been mentioned to be left for wanting a little bit. I figure a innovative way for me to help other sandboxers learn would be to teach what I know. So I am starting a bit of a design diary. I will update this post with each milestone I accomplish in sandbox. The Milestones will be added in a clear easy to read format so that if another reader wishes to learn the step I can explain how it was accomplished. So in a sense this post provides the following information and accomplishes the following goals:

What a beginner in Sandbox can do without major knowledge of the program.

What sandbox is capable of.

A guide on how to accomplish aspects of Sandbox that may not have a tutorial written.

Alerts a more experienced member where a tutorial may be needed where one is absent.

Provides the oppurtunity for myself as well as others to exchange better methods of performing tasks.



This post will be edited to update new information as needed.

(Dear Mod, if I have posted this in the wrong thread, please forgive me, and please move)



MILESTONE 1:

Learned to operate various menus.

Learned how to control the camera, move around the world space.

Learned how to change the gridsize.

Learned how to change the angle of an object.
Learned how to make smoother inclines and circles.

Here are some examples of what I learned: "Changed angles of a cube to create a smooth inclined driveway"


Image

As you can see, the driveway smoothly bevels into an incline with flat ground, creating the illusion of a smooth driveway

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Image
Image

Learned how to expand and contract an object (Push with F key).

Learned how to add models.

Learned how to change textures.

Learned how to adjust the hieghtmap.
Learned how to adjust hieghtmap options.

Learned how to cut out parts of objects to create doorways and window spaces.
Learned how to angle corners to create arched doorways.


MILESTONE 2

Learned how to change the gridsize in order to create features such as staircases and other permanent models such as shelves, closets
and other objects that will remain active and in place through the game, thus eliminating the need for outside models.

Learned to model a map more efficiently by removing any excess cubes. By removing cubes that wont be seen by the player (ever), I am, in theory speeding up the loading times of a map, and making it easier to build additions to structures (such as basements) or maps without having completely tear a map apart to find joining zones.

Learned it is much easier design wise to texture an object before modeling, than apply a texture after modeling (when possible). Its difficult sometimes to texture a face you have pushed or angled when working in small spaces.


MILESTONE 3

With the help of members of this forum I learnt that textures could be made larger or smaller by pressing the ` (tilde key) and typing vscale N (n equals size)



MILESTONE 4

I have learnt how to add custom textures to sandbox by making a new folder in the package folders, building a package.ctf to call the texture, and executing the package.ctf file inside sandbox.

I learnt how to make a package.ctf file by using notepad

learnt how to comment my code in notepad using the following // "Comment text here"

I learnt how to change the default cursor in 1st Person mode with a custom one.
Last edited by thorneakavar on April 5th, 2011, 2:17 pm, edited 4 times in total.
arcones
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Re: Thornes Sandbox Diary

Post by arcones »

Actually this is a really good idea. The pictures definitely help exemplifying what you've learned thus far.
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chocolatepie33
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Re: Thornes Sandbox Diary

Post by chocolatepie33 »

this a) would make a good eyecandy kind of thing, b) check your spelling, and c), you said something about explaining these things, I don't see a lot of explanations on how to do these things, like the inclining.
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thorneakavar
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Re: Thornes Sandbox Diary

Post by thorneakavar »

Lol. Well Im not sure what people may already have tutorials for, can pick up just as easy, or is common knowledge, so I set this up in a format so that if people want to know how to accomplish a certain milestone, then I (or anyone following this thread with the knowledge) can write out a tutorial. I will probably go back and arrange the milestones and number then in a way that more reflects the difficulty of each step. At the moment I am currently just editing this post as I learn a new idea, concept, or step as I learn. I wish I would have started this day 1 of sandbox as I am sure I have left out a few small things. I am in a tutorial mood today so I might do a tutorial on something today. As far as my spelling, my town still speaks Elizabethan and Victorian English as well as "Modern" English (Some parts of the community as well as I, practice Spanglish and AAVE or Ebonics) so most of the words appear correct to me, but if you see something that needs corrected that I miss, feel free to quote it and I will change it. I also use an autospell check sometimes that will change the context of my words.

Oh... where you wanting to know how to do the smooth inclines?
chocolatepie33
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Re: Thornes Sandbox Diary

Post by chocolatepie33 »

kind of, I'm more looking at what noobs would be looking for. There's a lot of tutorials on the wiki here, if you didn't notice.
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thorneakavar
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Re: Thornes Sandbox Diary

Post by thorneakavar »

I havent really looked at the wiki. I tend to avoid it, they are hard to navigate, and during college they program you to avoid wiki's rofl
thorneakavar
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Re: Thornes Sandbox Diary

Post by thorneakavar »

In order to alert any followers of this post when I update a new milestone, I will provide a commentary post explaining the new milestone. Eventually I will turn this into a tutorial. I will start with the third milestone since the first should be common knowledge (except for the smooth inclines). So milestone 3.

Changing the scale of a texture:

To change the scale of a texture, first highlight and select the area you wish to change the scaling.
Image

Next open up the console by pressing the ` key (tilde key, its above tab) when the console is open you will see >/ appear in the lower left corner


with the console open, type
vscale N
N = The amount you wish to scale so in this case the texture scaling is set to 1.0 we are going to reduce it by half by typing vscale .5

Image

so after typing the command
vscale .5
press enter

you should have something that looks like this.

Image

here is the same steps on a different texture so you can see what it does better!

Image

Thanks to the members who responded to my question for this! (I will add your names after I look them up again sorry :) )
thorneakavar
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Re: Thornes Sandbox Diary

Post by thorneakavar »

Been away for awhile but I am popping in to update this post with my 4th milestone which covers my learning of loading custom textures and packages. I am going to be making a PDF style tutorial for sandbox soon. One of the studios I work for is excited to use Sandbox for our products and its going to be A Beginner to Pro in X days style tutorial. If anyone has any suggestions as to which tutorials, or features, or sandbox related things I should learn let me know.
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