Gray-boxing?
polycounter lvl 18
I'm reading the latest issue of Game Developer and there's an article about Deadly Creatures.
http://gamedeveloper.texterity.com/gamedeveloper/200905/?sub_id=CaWERAuv3UCqI
A whole chapter talks about something called "gray-boxing". Can anyone please explain what this means? Google tells me nothing.
thanks!
http://gamedeveloper.texterity.com/gamedeveloper/200905/?sub_id=CaWERAuv3UCqI
A whole chapter talks about something called "gray-boxing". Can anyone please explain what this means? Google tells me nothing.
thanks!
Replies
Basically its just blocking out a level/environment with primitives with a grey grid texture applied to it, and you end up getting a bunch of grey boxes around the place, thus the name. Its a quick way to prototype a level and get it into the game for play testing. You can quickly determine if the level is going to be fun, if the scale is right, will it be balanced well, that sort of thing. Its great for blocking out geometry to see what shapes will work really well. Think of it as a 3D sketch for an environment.
I hope that helps.
www.instantrimshot.com
http://blog.duber.cz/misc/custom-uv-and-tracking-maps-for-vfx-professionals
closer related,- the unit maps of Zelda the Windwaker:
!!!1111
ok that was easy
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=windwaker+beta&aq=f
http://www.destructoid.com/zelda-the-s-lost-s-found-beta-wind-waker-levels-26389.phtml
(maybe some auto script that assigns grey to z-axis faces , and orange to the rest,. hmm...)
This dev pack has .psd templates for grid, wall and player height ref. You can drop whatever color you want.
It would be kind of cool if the grid and lettering where on a opacity mapped composite map layer, and a procedural color could be picked for the main underlying color... hint hint... =P
In Source (where that texture comes from):
1 source unit = 1 max unit = 1px
Walls are 128h
Characters are 72h x 32w
512px X 512px are most common and they are scaled from 1.0 to .25 to pick up greater pixel density.
online still available:
http://www.renderhjs.net/bbs/doom3/unit_tool/
(you can draw rectangles in the view)
kind of a neat tool back then to convert CAD metric values to the closest snapping values on a certain grid.
I just remembered this because as I downloaded the TF2 unit textures a character height of 72 was still used. Thats a quite nostalgic number that I even remember back from Unreal 1.
http://www.robdavispe.com/free2/software-qa-testing-test-tester-2210.html