Aliens vs Predator Classic Mapping Stream #6 (6 hrs, No Commentary)
Working on a remake of my old multiplayer map that I released almost 25 years ago.
This session I finish texturing the Marine Base. I end up using a number of techniques and features of Inteng to finish the job, including copying textures from module to module and using unrelated polygons as orientation planes for non axial-aligned polies.
I noticed a couple stray vertices in the marine base's garage so I decided to clean it up in Blender and reimport the module in CCAMain. Unfortunately, since the module was already textured this corrupted the texture data. This was probably because it had mismatched face / vertex indexes between the module's mesh info and the module's texture info, leading to an out of bounds exception in a loop somewhere. What was interesting is that it didn't crash Inteng until the module was within the camera's view. I think this means it doesn't actually read the texture data until it's time to render the module.
To fix it, I had to delete the module from the RIF in CCAMain, then re-add the shape from the exported 3DS file. I then had to re-link the module and re-texture it, but it came out better and more quickly the second time around, plus I was forced to learn how to add new modules to a map when I was forced to fix it. Plus I didn't have to start the map all over. Silver linings everywhere I look.
There is a brief moment where I take a break at around the 3 hour 40 minute or maybe 4 hour mark to go fetch some pizza down the street, but I doubt that will matter to anyone watching this for that long. These videos are intended not only as documentation for old game tools lost to time but also as a background stream to have on while you're working on your own projects. Whatever use you get out of these videos is valid!
I'm trying to get the map finished for a Halloween release. Less than a week to go but the Marine Base texturing was always going to be the hardest part, for a multitude of reasons, and it's only going to get easier from here.