point10.gifGraphics - Texture defaults

 

Changes the default values for wall, floor, ceiling textures for the different type of objects and floor and ceiling heights. For HEXEN, the door and lift speeds and delays are also here, although these values are automatically updated as you change them in making a level.

 

Save these defaults to a different name by selecting the F5 menu, selecting Set Texture Group and entering a new name.

 

The value for the Floor/Ceiling increment is used when the PageUp/PageDown keys are used in the number boxes for ceiling and floor heights. The values are increased/decreased by this amount.

 

Edit these to suit your taste. When you follow a theme, you may want to make the defaults follow your main idea. For example choose stone defaults for a castle theme.

 

The textures values for DOOM are for DOOM II. Adjust the values for DOOM.

 

Any textures can be used for walls with only 1-side. For walls with 2-sides, you have to be careful if you use textures on BOTH sides.

 

Textures come in 2 flavors, single patch and multi- patch. All textures start out (of course) as a graphic. If a texture is made from only 1 graphic, it is suitable for use anywhere.

 

A texture made from a composite of other textures is called multi-patch. That means that a combination of graphics combine to make the texture you see. If you use the Picture command (end DeePsea graphic mode and enter the character mode prompt) you see ALL the raw graphic elements of DOOM/HERETIC.

 

Some of the textures look just like the walls textures, but the name is not the same. If the graphic is exactly the same, then that graphic is a single-patch for that texture.

 

If you examine the others, you'll see that by combining them, you have the other textures. These composites are multi-patch textures.

 

The texture selection box displays the number of patches for a textures to help you decide if the texture is suitable.

 

The default textures are all 1-sided to keep beginners out of trouble with textures. Bad textures cause weird colors and a slow motion freezing of action. If you run the Check option, it will tell you where you have problems automatically.

 

You can choose textures made up from a combination of other textures (patches), but you have to be careful not to use them where you have textures on both sides of a wall.

 

Ceiling

 

The ceilings for objects are only used if you are making a Room. This is an object that is not inside an existing area. If an object is made inside an existing area, the current ceiling is used.

 

F_SKY1

 

F_SKY1 / F_SKY is a special texture name results in the SKYx textures used for upper Textures and Ceilings.

 

When you create predefined Teleports objects, DeePsea looks for this name. If F_SKY1 is used, the Teleport ceiling is also set to F_SKY1, not the default value.

 

Texture Sizes

 

The floor and ceiling textures align on a 64x64 grid. Most of the time you don't care. When you make small areas, the way the texture appears is decided by how it aligns on the grid.

 

So for teleports, they look best if they align perfectly on a 64x64 grid.

 

Walls have similar guidelines. Use the X-axis (left to right) texture alignment to minimize the number of visual lines in a wall. For short walls it can make a big difference how good the walls look. Stairs are a good example.

This is a judgment call and takes some experience to decide. This is normally done when you are finishing a level. One of the detailing steps!

 

Top to bottom (Y-axis) alignment is trickier, but made a lot easier with interactive texture alignment. You can see the textures drawn with the offset directly on the screen!

 

The simplest is to try and Unpeg the upper or lower texture (see the Unpegged discussion in LineDefs).

 

For 1-sided LineDefs:

 

1. Normal textures are always drawn from the top down.

2. Unpegged textures are drawn from the bottom up.

 

For 2-sided LineDefs:

 

1. Unpegging the Upper texture draw the texture from the top down. Normally they are drawn from the bottom up.

2. Unpegging the lower texture draws the Lower texture from the bottom up. Normally they are drawn from the top down. In some situations, the DOOM engine adds its own height offset before drawing the texture. We are almost done making all this automatic too.