These tips are not going to tell you how to make a map. I'm only addressing the requirements for Zelda mapping and a few other tips I've learn. I'm going to try to make this "Beginner Friendly" as possible, so pay attention.
For people who happen to stumble upon this thread and want to learn 3D mapping, but don't have a clue what SketchUp is. Here's the download page: http://www.sketchup.com/download/all
First of all, Templates! You want to go with your Simple Template - Feet and Inches. Its easier on you in the end. If you start with Meters, well, lets just say, you start big, you end big. And you'll have to do a lot of rescaling.
Measurements!
Adult Link stands at 5 feet and 7 inches
while Child Link stands around 4 foot
Your common door stands at 5 foot by 8 foot high and 1 foot and 6 inches wide.
Boss doors are 10 foot by 13 foot by 1' 6" feet
Push Block Slots are 5 foot wide. It don't really matter how deep it is, just as long as Link can push it. But if you want to go technical on it, i would go about 6 inches deep.
Collisions with doors!
When it comes to collision the white side of the squares are solid, and gray sides are not. this is also kinda the same for rooms. If you texture something on the gray side it will not show up in-game. It has to be textured on the white side for the textures to show up in-game.
If you want a better understanding of this check out Giadrosish's video:
As you can see in pic1, I have a collision where my door is going to be. You have to have that. If you don't, Link will be-able to walk though the door. If that happens it will look something like this...
Proper Triangling!
There are 2 methods of Triangling your map.
Method 1 - by hand
Now I know what your thinking. "How is this wrong? Everything looks to be triangled?" Well, its wrong. There can not be any open end points. Just look at the next pic, it will explain everything.
Method 2 - Exporting - Importing
For this method to work you must have a licensed SketchUp. I will not be releasing any info on how to get it for free. *cough*cough* "just google" *cough*cough* "sketchup crack" *cough*cough* "download" *cough*... Man, I think I might be coming down with a cold. It is that time of the year
WANING: THIS METHOD IS FASTER, BUT YOU'LL MOST LIKELY HAVE MORE TEXTURE BUGS THAN METHOD 1!
After your done making your map (NOT triangled) Export it as a "3DS". When you do this it automatically triangles the whole map for you, and it even tells you how many triangle are in it. After that, select your whole map with the "Select Tool" in SketchUp, then press the "delete" button. After that Import your "3DS" you just Exported. It should look something like this...
When you Import it put your mouse directly on the axis, then drop it. This method is really good for those mega maps you might be making later on.(who knows) This method will also group things for you too.
Textures!
When putting textures in a Zelda map they must be one of the following "pixels by pixels" sizes.
64x64 62x32 64x16
32x64 32x32 32x16
16x32 16x16 16x8
8x16 8x8
Independent Objects! (I didn't know what else to call it)
This is some what of a trick to having less triangles in your map.
It looks like its part of the ground, but its not.
As you can see its all independent to its self. Independent Objects also work very well with "Method 2" of "Proper Triangling", because when you import your "3DS" the independent object is automatically triangled and grouped to its self.
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sairugoth
These tips are not going to tell you how to make a map. I'm only addressing the requirements for Zelda mapping and a few other tips I've learn. I'm going to try to make this "Beginner Friendly" as possible, so pay attention.
For people who happen to stumble upon this thread and want to learn 3D mapping, but don't have a clue what SketchUp is. Here's the download page: http://www.sketchup.com/download/all
First of all, Templates! You want to go with your Simple Template - Feet and Inches. Its easier on you in the end. If you start with Meters, well, lets just say, you start big, you end big. And you'll have to do a lot of rescaling.
Measurements!
Adult Link stands at 5 feet and 7 inches
while Child Link stands around 4 foot
Your common door stands at 5 foot by 8 foot high and 1 foot and 6 inches wide.
Boss doors are 10 foot by 13 foot by 1' 6" feet
Push Block Slots are 5 foot wide. It don't really matter how deep it is, just as long as Link can push it. But if you want to go technical on it, i would go about 6 inches deep.
Collisions with doors!
When it comes to collision the white side of the squares are solid, and gray sides are not. this is also kinda the same for rooms. If you texture something on the gray side it will not show up in-game. It has to be textured on the white side for the textures to show up in-game.
If you want a better understanding of this check out Giadrosish's video:
As you can see in pic1, I have a collision where my door is going to be. You have to have that. If you don't, Link will be-able to walk though the door. If that happens it will look something like this...
Proper Triangling!
There are 2 methods of Triangling your map.
Method 1 - by hand
Now I know what your thinking. "How is this wrong? Everything looks to be triangled?" Well, its wrong. There can not be any open end points. Just look at the next pic, it will explain everything.
Method 2 - Exporting - Importing
For this method to work you must have a licensed SketchUp. I will not be releasing any info on how to get it for free. *cough*cough* "just google" *cough*cough* "sketchup crack" *cough*cough* "download" *cough*... Man, I think I might be coming down with a cold. It is that time of the year
WANING: THIS METHOD IS FASTER, BUT YOU'LL MOST LIKELY HAVE MORE TEXTURE BUGS THAN METHOD 1!
After your done making your map (NOT triangled) Export it as a "3DS". When you do this it automatically triangles the whole map for you, and it even tells you how many triangle are in it. After that, select your whole map with the "Select Tool" in SketchUp, then press the "delete" button. After that Import your "3DS" you just Exported. It should look something like this...
When you Import it put your mouse directly on the axis, then drop it. This method is really good for those mega maps you might be making later on.(who knows) This method will also group things for you too.
Textures!
When putting textures in a Zelda map they must be one of the following "pixels by pixels" sizes.
64x64 62x32 64x16
32x64 32x32 32x16
16x32 16x16 16x8
8x16 8x8
Independent Objects! (I didn't know what else to call it)
This is some what of a trick to having less triangles in your map.
It looks like its part of the ground, but its not.
As you can see its all independent to its self. Independent Objects also work very well with "Method 2" of "Proper Triangling", because when you import your "3DS" the independent object is automatically triangled and grouped to its self.
Here's the Test map I used for this demonstration:http://www.mediafire.com/download/6g67gjgj6z5a13l/TESTING.skp
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