Gray-boxing?

T_Reynolds · May 2009

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!

Emil Mujanovic · May 2009

We call it "Blue Boxing" at our studio, but that's only because the grid texture we use is blue.

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.

ericdigital · May 2009

A great example would be Tabula Rasa at launch

www.instantrimshot.com

J/k I

you Ncsoft

MoP · May 2009

Blockouts, for the win.

renderhjs · May 2009

slightly related, here is an interesting read on camera tracking texture maps
http://blog.duber.cz/misc/custom-uv-and-tracking-maps-for-vfx-professionals

closer related,- the unit maps of Zelda the Windwaker:

Justin Meisse · May 2009

I like to use giant bananas to block out my work

warby · May 2009

where did you find those windwaker dev shots ? is there post mortem up somewhere ??? i MUST KNOW TELL ME NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Neox · May 2009

warby wrote: »

where did you find those windwaker dev shots ? is there post mortem up somewhere ??? i MUST KNOW TELL ME NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!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

Mark Dygert · May 2009

renderhjs · May 2009

I love that orange - can someone post me that texture as I dont have any source engine installed. Would like to abuse it for my texTools

- oh and the grey as well please.
(maybe some auto script that assigns grey to z-axis faces , and orange to the rest,. hmm...)

Mark Dygert · May 2009

http://forums.tf2maps.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=801
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.

RickFX · May 2009

oh yay that orange is awesome! ORANGE BOXING even tells the name of where it came from

renderhjs · May 2009

oh I just noticed something from my doom3 days:

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.

rooster · May 2009

not to be confused with grey box testing
http://www.robdavispe.com/free2/software-qa-testing-test-tester-2210.html

John Warner · May 2009

yeahhhh that orange is lovely.

Gray-boxing?

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