How do you make your own painting?

[Mackiiboy]

Hello!
I want to make my own painting to put up on a wall in my custom story. The problem is that I'm new to how models, entities and things like that works and have no idea what to do.

I can tell ya what I tried to do earlier so you understand what I want to do:
In the folder "The Dark Descent\redist\entities\ornament\paintings"
I tried to open a file called "painting_image_portrait.dds". I removed one of the images in that file and replaced it with an own image I wanted to have in the game. It worked perfectly!
The image appeared in my custom story. Then I realized that it was not a smart idea. I want to use my custom story folder and put in the right files in there, instead of replacing the regular game files.

The thing is that nothing happens when I create an entities\ornament\paintings-folder in my custom story and put in the edited "painting_image_portrait.dds"-file in there instead of replacing the main file. I will probably have to put in more files like (.mat ; .ent ; .dae ; .msh)-files before it will work.
Problem is that I have no idea how these files works, what the connection between them are and etc.

If you know an easy method to make your own painting, or know what steps that is needed to be done after you have fixed your own .dds-file, please make a comment!

[Your Computer]

Custom story files are always secondary. Meaning, if the game finds two files with the same name, it'll always pick the file it found first. Therefore simply placing an edited version of an image file in your custom story that bears the same name as the original file won't work. You're going to need to create your own object.

[Mackiiboy]

Custom story files are always secondary. Meaning, if the game finds two files with the same name, it'll always pick the file it found first. Therefore simply placing an edited version of an image file in your custom story that bears the same name as the original file won't work. You're going to need to create your own object.

Thanks for that information! Do you think I can use the painting-files to make my own object in an easy way, and if, any idea how?

[Your Computer]

Thanks for that information! Do you think I can you use the painting-files to make my own object in an easy way, and if, any idea how?

What way would you prefer: Editing files in a text editor or using a 3D modelling program to create a new painting?

[Mackiiboy]

Thanks for that information! Do you think I can you use the painting-files to make my own object in an easy way, and if, any idea how?

What way would you prefer: Editing files in a text editor or using a 3D modelling program to create a new painting?

If you're gonna explain, explain that method that you think is the best one. Which method does not matter for me, I think I can handle text-editing and modelling if it's not too complex.

[palistov]

1) Open up the image you want as your painting in Photoshop, GIMP or some other image editing program.
2) Export it as .dds (DirectDraw surface)
3) Open it in the MaterialEditor tool from HPL2
4) In the middle section, tick the Diffuse box
5) To the right, browse for that bitmap you exported from PS/GIMP
6) Save the material
7) In the LevelEditor create a plane and change it to your image
8) Select your plane and orient it so it covers the painting's canvas and fits the frame well. Then go to the second tab
9) You'll see 6 fields. The top three control tile size. The float value you input is the number of tiles per meter squared. Values of 0 through 1 will make your tile size large, while values above 1 will make it smaller. The bottom three control tile offset. The first value is X offset, the second is Y offset. Since we're dealing with planes here, disregard the middle field for both lines; it does nothing.
10) Tweak these values until the painting looks good.

This is the method I would prefer. I do this kind of thing a lot, actually. Using planes to compensate for a missing part of a model, or to cover up another part.

[Mackiiboy]

1) Open up the image you want as your painting in Photoshop, GIMP or some other image editing program.
2) Export it as .dds (DirectDraw surface)
3) Open it in the MaterialEditor tool from HPL2
4) In the middle section, tick the Diffuse box
5) To the right, browse for that bitmap you exported from PS/GIMP
6) Save the material
7) In the LevelEditor create a plane and change it to your image
8) Select your plane and orient it so it covers the painting's canvas and fits the frame well. Then go to the second tab
9) You'll see 6 fields. The top three control tile size. The float value you input is the number of tiles per meter squared. Values of 0 through 1 will make your tile size large, while values above 1 will make it smaller. The bottom three control tile offset. The first value is X offset, the second is Y offset. Since we're dealing with planes here, disregard the middle field for both lines; it does nothing.
10) Tweak these values until the painting looks good.

This is the method I would prefer. I do this kind of thing a lot, actually. Using planes to compensate for a missing part of a model, or to cover up another part.

Great method I must say. Thanks a lot that you took your time, wrote this and explained it in an easy way!

[Your Computer]

If you're going to use his method, be sure to enable static physics to the painting entity.

[Mackiiboy]

If you're going to use his method, be sure to enable static physics to the painting entity.

I just have one problem. My image is a bit transparent in Level Editor and in game, do ya have any idea why?

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EDIT:
I figured it out, I screwed up a thing in the material editor. Needed to tick another box.

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New Questions:
After closing and reopening level editor + save, the image disappears. Is there any smart method to fix this?
What about putting a new folder in the main-folder named something like "material" with my .mat file, and put a copy of that one in my custom story?
Will the game find that .mat-file if someone else will play my map in the future?

[Your Computer]

After closing and reopening level editor + save, the image disappears. Is there any smart method to fix this?

Follow step 8: http://wiki.frictionalgames.com/hpl2/amn...evenvguide