Creating Custom Wallsets that are not rectangular

[trinsic]

Im looking at the documentation for making a custom dungeon for a project Im working on and I was wondering if anyone knew if the LOG engine will work with wall sets that are circular in design. I want to make caves that are circular tunnels. And how hard is it to load custom wall sets into your created dungeon after the models and textures are created? do you just need to create a 1024x1024 block model with textures? Im kind of new to this but I have done some 3d modeling in the past. whats a good program to model wall sets in if any one knows would be a help too.

[Neikun]

Blender is free, so we typically use that.
Round wallsets.. there's an interesting idea.

[Skuggasveinn]

Hi trinsic and welcome to LoG modding.

What your are asking can't be done in the way you are probably hoping for, but it can be done with workarounds and limitations

When you open up the LoG editor you will see that its grid based,

and everything in the game is based around squared grids, the tileset, the movement of the party, the animations of monsters etc etc.

If we take a closer look at the tilesets and how they are done, you will find out that they have 4 basic parts.

you got the ceiling


you also have walls and floors


and then you have pillars


This is what the engine uses to create the basics of a dungeon layout, and when you are drawing the dungeon in the editor these are the models that get stitched together (there are many more models, I'm just talking about the basic ones)


There is nothing stopping you from creating something outside the box, like making a 45° turn,

but remember that everything in the engine is based of 2 axis movement, so that the party or monsters can't make this movement


This is where workarounds and limitations come into play
You can make a circular wall, that is just a decoration in front of the tileset, you can block the party and monsters from moving into that circular wall.

you can use this same method to create circular tunnels, but remember that movement through that tunnel will always have to by zigzag in nature, and therefore spells and projectiles can't be shoot down a circular tunnel.
You would also be taking up a lot of space inside the map just for your curves, every level is limited to the available grids you have per floor.

Regarding the programs, you will need to have a look at the Grimrock Model Toolkit (GMT) and just for tilesets you can use any program you like to create the models themselfs, the GMT can import obj and convert them into the model format the game uses so any program that can export to obj should do, I use Blender myself.

What you are asking is a tall order for sure
But making something thats outside the normal for a game engine is what modding is all about in my books

good luck.
Skuggasveinn.

[Neikun]

Whoa. Good post, Skugg.
You accidentally gave me an idea. It'll be up in my workshop if it comes to fruition.

[Phitt]

I'm not sure, but I think the OP meant a natural cave without hard edges when he said 'not rectangular'. And not a square shaped tileset like the default sets where you have a floor, walls on each side and a ceiling on top. Like this:

SpoilerShow

That's possible (there will still be some limitations to avoid clipping though), but you would need to fake the tileset. What I mean is that you would have to set up a wallset with invisible models and then make a regular tileset like for Skyrim which you put on top of it as 'decoration'. You would still have to pay attention to make sure nothing clips and it is more work than making a standard tileset, but it should be possible.

What Skugs posted can be done, but I think you will get terrible clipping issues. Items will vanish into walls when you throw/place them, monsters will be stuck half in a wall since collision is not defined by the model, but by the game engine. I fear you will have to use the square layout as a base or you will run into tons of problems.

[Kuningas]

If we could adjust the camera using scripts, a driving-shoot and a teleport would enable movement in angles. (that is, if the camera is separate from the party entity)

I was going to suggest camera controls in the glögg-programming session, but was a bit late.

[trinsic]

I see, thank you for all the replies, both ideas are helpful even though I did mean a cave tunnel that is not square but round. It sound like I would have to put heavy decorations where the walls meet to give it that concave look. then items would possibly clip into the decorations you are saying? or was that for if there were angles in your map design?. Im not so worried about trying to make angled corridors, that would be kind of annoying but the tunnels themselves just need to look like cave tunnels.

[flatline]

Regarding a tunnel that is round rather than rectangular: No problem, if you mean a circular hole.

Just need a single tunnel-shaped entity created or alternatively create ordinary wall pices that tilt inwards towards the dfloor and ceiling

Meanwhile, have a laugh at my epic drawing skills:

Tunnel Wall Model Example 1: (benefits: can be used as a regular wall set)

SpoilerShow

Tunnel Single Model Example 2: (can be used as a single item inserted in a regular tunnel)

SpoilerShow

EDIT

OK, I fooled around to see if I could use regular assets but there aren't that many suitably curved objects to use as a base.
Here's what I got: (ignore the rock floor below)

SpoilerShow

Edit #2
So now I'm using Blender to create a tunnel object. I'm a complete noob at Blender so help would be appreciated. Here is what I have so far, as new models go:

SpoilerShow

I defined the obsidian texture from the assets folder but it won't work in GMT for some reason. Probably missed some step. Help appreciated.

[flatline]

I made a test wallset of a more circular cave tunnel here: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4487

[trinsic]

Sweet looks like a great start. so you cant put wall buttons or anything over the top of the decorative wall portion?