Quark 6.5 texturing&grouping questions

[ias]

Question on qroups. In QuArk, after saving the map as a .map-file and closing the Quark, the next time map is opened, there is no groups of polys that have been created. How to save them?

Textures q-n. In most cases torque either quits the mission or doesn't display the texture, just a white object, though a texture is in the same folder as a .dif-file. What can be a reason for that?

Thanks a lot!!

[Google]

[Walrii]

I haven't used Quark in a while so I had to research it a bit. A quark map tutorial says:

The last option, is to save it as a .MAP (http://holodeck.st.usm.edu/vrcomputing/vrc_t/tools/quark/online/glossary/index.html#.MAP) file. However this is not advisable when using QuArK, because you loose all the neat information that is stored in the tree-view, like; groups, duplicators, negative brushes, shared faces, etc. Only save as a .MAP file, if you want others to look at your work, and they use another map-editor than QuArK.

So in other works either save your work in a quark pack, or save it in the .qkm format.

As to why the textures don't appear hmmm... make sure that when you compile the .dif file, that Quark is told to look in the same directory as it is building the .dif file? I'm not really sure, carefully read the output as Quark does its magic and make sure everything it prints out is what you expect it to be (especially the bits about what directories it is looking in).

You could also put your textures in the directory that all the other textures are in. I noticed that in SimWorld most of the textures are in one folder and the .dif files are in their own sub folders.

I hope that helps!

[Sim9]

Welcome to the community, Ias. :)

Like Walrii said, be sure you are saving to quark map format while you iterate your level design and then exporting to .map when ready to make a .dif. You don't want to load from .map because it does not save groups and other quark-specific operations.

For your textures, are they power of 8 sized textures? I don't think Torque supports non-power of 8 dimensions.

[ias]

thank you very much for answers!

Sim9,
>are they power of 8 sized textures?
they are 256px-side squares..

the magic is that with some textures everything does work, with others-not. they are in the same folder, have the same size.. the difference, maybe unrelated... the difference is that textures that work are one-colour, plain or with simple gradient. If a texture is not just a simple color, (original quark textures work well. though) it's not gonna work. that's what i've noticed. but it may be not the point..

one more question.. is it possible to use png textures with alpha channels for torque?

[Walrii]

I'm not sure about png textures with alpha channels :(

What program are you using to make the textures? So long as its not mspaint you should be fine... hmmm...

Did you get the textures online?

[ias]

it seems that the problem indeed was in power of 8 sized textures.. 256px-side worked, all the other didn't. thank you :)

to alpha channels -- how then to make transparent surfaces, like qlass windows, or plants' leaves?

and a question on the choice of grid -- is it allowable to change it during the work on the map or it is setted up only once in the beginning?

[Walrii]

I don't really know how to work with / deal with alpha channels :(

I think that Quark can adjust the grid as you are working on it. Changing the grid doesn't move what pieces you have already made, it only affects future pieces (whether you make a new one or move an old one). If you change the grid and move a piece, it'll snap to the new grid size.

You can also turn off the grid, but that usually isn't recommended.

[Sim9]

thank you very much for answers!

You are welcome :)

it seems that the problem indeed was in power of 8 sized textures.. 256px-side worked, all the other didn't. thank you :)

Sweet! Glad to hear you got it working.

one more question.. is it possible to use png textures with alpha channels for torque?

On DTS objects (meshes like trees, cars or other small-medium sized objects) this is already built in. For DIF interiors, you need to apply a patch to the code to make this work -- see this resource (http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=4199).