Decoration Tips and Techniques
Hi fellow sackthings. This is one of my first tutorials, so hopefully what I'm trying to show and explain to everyone will come across clearly and make at least a little sense to someone. My goal in this tutorial is to show different tips and techniques that I've used to make some objects that don’t look like they were made in LBP. I know each of us have his or her own way of doing things, so it’s nice to see other’s perspectives; especially when it comes to LBP.
Here are the tips and techniques that I have used and some pictures to go along with what I’m trying to explain. (Some of these techniques will become obsolete when the Move Pack comes out, but I'll be more than ok with that.)
Number one tip... be creative. Nothing beats playing a level and being amused when you figure out what the creator used to create his or her props and objects.
Simple but effective... place decorations and stickers on the sides of materials.
Create and use custom stickers. (Sticker Studio... or whatever it’s going to be called will take custom stickers to a whole new level. This will probably be my favorite addition to the game)
http://db.tt/sCnU9Qr
When decorations are placed on darkmatter, it's possible to get the decorations on varying angles. (thinkness from left to right: thick, thack, theck, thin ( this will apply in the next tips))
http://db.tt/FSX6qAM
Use the material changer to change the darkmatter to hologram material. The decorations will keep their position and angle.
http://db.tt/UEgcZnm
The different thickness allow the decorations to be inside other materials and the placement can make all or some part of the decoration hidden. (turn the brightness of the hologram material to 0% brightness; only the decoration will be visible in Play Mode)
Decoration’s undersides can be used to get surprising results. Place any decoration on the side of hologram material (tweaked to 0% brightness) and rotate it according so the bottom of the decoration is shown. (We will see this technique later when I show how my portal button is made)
Black stickers on hologram material make it invisibile, even when the brightness is turned all the way up. Now stickers that are lighter than black will show through. (Obsolete when the Sticker Panel Material and Sticker Paint Studio comes out)
Use invisible rubber or invisible darkmatter for collisions with decorations. (I think everyone knows this glitch but haven’t applied it like this)
Layer decorations to get desired effects. (I used this technique quite a bit on my elevator)
http://db.tt/7Qr9wik
Now, to see how all these techniques put together, I’ll take apart my portal button.
http://db.tt/iJhn3E0
Lets turn down the lights so we can see the custom sticker for the surface of the button. The custom sticker I made for the button is actually white. I tweaked the hologram material to red; now the sticker shows the hologram’s color.
http://db.tt/64g7kFX
Here’s the button’s decoration turned right-side up... Lol, you would’ve never guessed.
http://db.tt/hfOE6lE
Here are all the pieces taken apart.
http://db.tt/UTHlGK1
From another angle
http://db.tt/TNfjmRy
I talked eariler about using invisible rubber for collisions; my button has a layer of it so sackboy and other things can interact with it.
Here are some pictures of other objects I’ve been working on.
http://db.tt/CRPk2yl
http://db.tt/dT8KVgZ
http://db.tt/3bMU5Uv
http://db.tt/AfY8lMD
http://db.tt/60R2Wq6
http://db.tt/FB957Mu
http://db.tt/OZGoTKU
http://db.tt/Zexnre5
Here is the decoration layering technique I was talking about.
As you can see in these examples, it only takes a little creativity and a little more time to get things looking pretty good. Most of the time spent when creating like this is lining up and getting all of the decorations in the right spot. To aid in this intricate process, I created a Create Mode tool called the L2 Camera Tool. I have a tutorial explaining how and what it is here http://www.lbpcentral.com/forums/sho...L2-Camera-Tool
Hopefully you could take something from what I have learned and make your levels look even more awesome. :)
