# Texture Basics This lesson will cover the basics of selecting, applying, and altering textures in QERadiant. A good habit to get into when building your levels is using only one or two textures in the early stages of construction. After you finish a room, you can go back and paint the walls, ceilings, etc. Not only will this speed up construction, but it will keep your level neat and tidy. Here is a map where a texture was selected first and then the brush made. From an outside view, it looks sloppy, and will make it hard to track down leaks.
Fig 1 – Looking from the outside of a map
Of course, you might say, "The outside is discarded during the compiling process anyway! Who cares?" It all depends on the discipline of the mapper. The more you do it, the better organized you’ll want to be. Here’s the same map, which was built using two primary textures and the sky: Keeping things neat & tidy will help later on when leaks plague your map. Radiant places textures onto brushes according to "world" coordinates, another reason that you need to apply the texture AFTER making the brush. This will ensure that the walls, floors, and ceilings are seamless. ### Method One: Selecting the Texture First & Then Applying It Make a room, using one texture for the floor and another for the walls and ceiling. (I apply a different texture to the floors to maintain some kind of orientation.) Maneuver the camera so that you’re inside the room. Select a texture for the floor by Left-Clicking once on a texture in the Texture Preview window. (Texture Preview window not showing? Check your Preferences Settings!) Holding down the LEFT CTRL key and the LEFT SHIFT key, RIGHT CLICK on the floor in the 3D Preview window. The texture will be applied to the brush face. ### Method Two: Selecting the Brush Face First and Then Selecting a Texture) This method shows how to select the brush face BEFORE selecting a texture. Hold down LEFT CTRL, LEFT SHIFT, and then LEFT CLICK on the ceiling in the 3D preview window. You’ll see how the Texture Preview window immediately jumps to the texture that is currently applied to the brush face. Notice how the ceiling has a red cast to it in the 3D preview. This means it’s been selected. Now click on an appropriate texture and the ceiling will change to the new texture. If you go outside, you’ll see that none of the outside brush faces have been changed. They should all have the same texture. If they don’t, you were holding down the wrong key combinations. ### Method Three: Applying the Same Texture to Different Brush Surfaces Select a wall texture by left-clicking on an appropriate texture. Hold down the LEFT CTRL and LEFT SHIFT keys and RIGHT CLICK on each of the wall faces in the 3D preview window. Voila! The selected texture is painted onto each wall. This is a great timesaver when you’ve got a lot of surfaces needing the same texture. It also ensures that everything will line up perfectly. If you want to apply a texture to all sides of a brush (columns, interior walls, etc), Select the brush (Left Shift + Left Click the brush in any window). The brush will turn red. Let go of the keyboard and click on a texture. The whole brush will have the texture applied to it. ### Building Crates, Boxes, etc. Remember when I said that textures are applied according to "world" coordinates? Notice the figure below:
Fig. 3: Building crates on coordinates not locking to a 0, 0 texture origin. Although the crates here are 128x128, the brushes were made on arbitrary coordinates.
For boxes, crates, and similar constructs, you have to create the brush with the TOP and LEFT corners locked to a grid consistent with the texture's size. In other words, say you want to use a texture that's 32x32 pixels. The brush should be drawn or created, with the top left corner beginning at the 32 unit grid snap. If you create the cube at the 8 or 16 snap, the texture will have to be moved 8 or 16 units to make it line up. (See Fig 3) Once you apply the texture, then you can move the brush to any location, without disturbing the texture's alignment. Figure 4 below shows the same 3 brushes created on a grid and sized to the texture’s 128x128 pixels.
Crates ready to move
### Shifting Textures Around on a Brush or Brush Face 1. We want to be able to see the texture move. Set your snap-to-grid to 16 (keyboard #5). Now make a 64x64x64 brush. Select a face (Lt Ctrl, Lt Shift, Lt Click) and apply one of Q2’s computer or crate textures. 2. Re-select the brush face with the newly applied texture and let go of the mouse. (The face should have a red tint.) 3. Hold down the LEFT SHIFT key and tap each of the cursor keys a few times. See how the texture moves around on the face? 4. Change your grid size to 32 by hitting the 6 key on the keyboard. (Don't use the numeric keypad.) 5. Move the texture around again with the Lt Shift/Cursor key combination. See how it moves in 32-unit increments? So you see that by changing the grid size, you can alter how far the texture shifts when you use the keyboard. ### Shifting Textures By Using the Surface Inspector Although there’s a separate tutorial on the Surface Inspector (SI), I want to quickly show you how to align textures using this dialogue box. When manipulating textures on odd-shapes or angular surfaces, the SI is sometimes a better way to go. 1. Select a brush face where you want to alter the texture. 2. Press S on the keyboard to bring up the SI. 3. On the left side of the SI, change the texture’s alignment, or stretch/shrink it by inputting the numbers in the appropriate boxes. (You must hit RETURN once after inputting a number to see the change in the 3D preview window.)
WARNING!
Don't shrink textures lower than .4, or you'll get a Subdivide by Face error during the QBSP3 process.
### Aligning the Same Texture on Many Brush Faces the EZ Way Radiant offers a powerful method to align textures without having to open up requesters and inputting numbers, or even dragging them with a mouse. #### Method 1: Re-Aligning Previously Applied Textures Suppose you’re not happy with the way a texture is aligned and you want to quickly change it on many brush surfaces. The figure below shows a sewage pit with several textures on the sides of the pit all needing alignment. To align each of the brush faces one at a time would become tedious. The easy way is to select one of the brush faces and align it accordingly. The next picture shows you a before and after shot. See how the screen shot on the left shows the edge of the slime touching the surface? This is how we want the other textures lined up. Once the texture is aligned, hit ESCAPE to un-select it. Now, select the brush face again. This tells Radiant to take a "snap shot" of the texture properties. De-select the texture again. Now, holding down Lt Ctrl and Lt Shift, Right Click on the rest of the textures. All brush faces will snap down to the surface of the slime, where you want them. This same "snapshot" principle will work if you want to change any property of a texture. Want to use the phong shading of ArghRad on a round object? Select a face, bring up the Surface Inspector ('s' key), add a light value, and apply it. Now un-select and re-select the texture (snap shot). De-select it once again and LtCtrl/LtShift/RtClick on the adjacent surfaces. #### Method 2: Pre-Aligning Textures The same thing can be done for brushes that have no textures applied (assuming that you created your brushes with a "default" texture. Let's say you have a row of beams that are all slanted at 45 degrees. You want to apply a texture that's also slanted at that angle. 1. Select a brush face (Lt Ctrl, Lt Shift, Lt Click) 2. Scroll through the available textures in the Texture Preview window and select one by left-clicking it. It will be applied to the selected brush face. 3. Open the Surface Inspector ('s' key). Enter 45 in the 'Rotate' field. Press RETURN twice. 4. De-select the brush face. (ESC). 5. Re-select the brush face. (This takes the snapshot) 6. De-select it again 7. Hold down Left Ctrl, Lt Shift, and RIGHT-click on all the brush faces you want to receive this same 45-degree texture. #### Method 3: Auto-Fitting Textures A great time-saver is the Auto-Fit function. This works especially well for buttons, doors, and other similar devices. 1. Apply the texture to the door or button face. 2. With the face still selected, press CTRL-F. DONE! #### Method 4: Rotating Textures Quickly In the Preferences Settings, there's a block where you can specify rotation increments. Enter '10' and close the dialogue box. Select a brush face and hold down the LEFT SHIFT key. Now tap the PAGEUP or PAGEDOWN key. The texture will "turn" plus or minus 10 degrees for each tap of the key.
Copyright 1999, by Terry DeLaney. Permission is granted to distribute this file as long as the author receives credit.