Call of Juarez 2 Part 6: Creating Roads and Rivers

Category: Call of Juarez 2

November 14, 2009

Call of Juarez 2 Level Design

Part 6 covers:

Road Tool
Road properties
How to edit roads
Creating rivers
Creating a custom material for water

CoJ2 Bound in Blood Video Notes:

Road Tool

Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood

Create New Road and Name it

Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood

Double Mouse Click on your road and open up the properties

Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood

Create a new road by placing road control points

Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood

Double Mouse Click on your road and open up the properties

Set the way you want your road to look like. Defining width, length, material etc.

Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood

Define your Road Material and your Roadside Material

Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood

With select tool active, you can move road control points around and reshape your road.

Insert a new control point on the road by select 2 control points and click on Insert New Control Point

Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood

Split the road by selecting a single control points and click on Split

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Merge the road by selecting two control points and click on Merge

Double Mouse Click on your road name and open up the properties. Check off 'align road to terrain'.

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Use the select tool to move the control points up above the terrain.

Select the road then press Adjust the Road to Terrain

Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood

Creating Rivers in ChromEd is similar to roads, with few tweaks.

Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood

Materials choose: data/shaders/master/templates/river_a.mat

You want to insert a visbox.msh that will control the way water functions when player enters it.

Model Browser --> All --> Mask: visbox

Position and Resize/Scale the visbox.msh to fit into the body of water you created

Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood

Custom water material is simple to create. Use notepad and copy/paste the following text:

import "liquid.mtt"
sub material()
{
extern float TIME;
float f_wave_0_scale = 0.125;
float f_wave_1_scale = 5.0;
mtx m_nrm_0_xfm = translate( 0.08 * TIME, 0.051 * TIME, 0.0 ) * rotate( 0.0, 0.0, 5.0 ) * scale( 16.0, 0.55, 1.0 );
mtx m_nrm_1_xfm = translate( -0.01 * TIME, -0.03 * TIME, 0.0 ) * rotate( 0.0, 0.0, -2.0 ) * scale( 16.4, 0.52, 1.3 );
mtx m_nrm_2_xfm = translate( -0.081 * TIME, 0.055 * TIME, 0.0 ) * rotate( 0.0, 0.0, -5.0 ) * scale( 14.0, 0.5, 1.2 );
mtx m_nrm_3_xfm = translate( 0.001 * TIME, 0.005 * TIME, 0.0 ) * rotate( 0.0, 0.0, -1.0) * scale( 0.4, 0.025, 0.025 );
extern string s_water_cubemap;
use mtt_liquid(
e_opq_order = or_seetrough_1,
e_nrm_order = 2,
e_trn_order = 2,
e_bdf_order = 2,
f_blend_distance = 16.0,
f_blur_distance = 500.0,
f_blur_falloff = 5000.0,
f_blur_falloff_shift = 500.0,
f_blur_fresnel_power = 1.0,
f_blur_strength = 1.0,
v_deep_color = [0.12, 0.13, 0.08],
f_deep_distance = 379.0,
f_deep_opacity = 1.0,
f_deform_distance = 100.0,
f_deform_falloff = 2500.0,
f_deform_strength = 0.25,
e_shadows = e_shadows_pp_simple,
s_env = "data/mapsextra/yourmapname_rfl.dds",
v_env_factor = [0.22, 0.2, 0.2],
f_env_fresnel_bias = 0.5,
f_env_fresnel_power = 1.0,
f_env_fresnel_scale = 1.5,
> v_liquid_clr = [1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0],
s_nrm_0 = "water_waves_n.dds",
f_nrm_0_scale = 2.0,
m_nrm_0_xfm = m_nrm_0_xfm,
s_nrm_1 = "water_waves_2_n.dds",
f_nrm_1_scale = 2.5,
m_nrm_1_xfm = m_nrm_1_xfm,
s_nrm_2 = "water_waves_n.dds",
f_nrm_2_scale = 1.5,
m_nrm_2_xfm = m_nrm_2_xfm,
s_nrm_3 = "water_waves_2_n.dds",
f_nrm_3_scale = 2.0,
m_nrm_3_xfm = m_nrm_3_xfm,
f_spc_power = 555.0
);
}

Save the water material as mapname_water.mat

Place the material file inside the map folder you are working on.

Make sure you replace a line where it says:

s_env = "data/mapsextra/yourmapname_rfl.dds", to match your _rfl.dds

Double Mouse Click on your river name and open up the properties.

Under Road Material, input the location of your mapname_water.mat by typing in manually where the mat file is stored. In my case it was

data/mapsextra/lostcollateral/lostcollateral_water.mat

Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood

Call of Juarez 2: Bound in Blood Level Design Tutorial List

Installing Tools. File Structure of Custom Maps,Support

Interface and Navigation Advanced Mode

Creating the Initial Environment

Bonus: Terrain Workflow

Adding Objects and Environment Props

Custom Objects: Maya to ChromEd

Adding Roads and Working with Terrain

Detailing and Using Brushes

AI, Waypoints, Fightnodes

AI Sensors, Action Chains

AI Scripts and Triggers

AI Behaviors and Actions Overview

Setting up Objectives

Setting up Objectives and Quests

Item Types

Optimization and Class Types

Publishing a Map and Release