Texture Tool

written by Fidcal

WORK IN PROGRESS - TO BE COMPLETED..

Introduction

The Dark Radiant editor has a surface inspector for general manipulation of textures but there is also texture tool to help with alignment. Basically it displays the entire texture tiled with the selected surfaces outlined on it so you can see what texture lies beyond the sides of the surface and scroll the texture and see more clearly how to do so. With patches you can also stretch the texture to fit awkward slopes and curves while still retaining the physical profile of the patch.

Toggle display of the Texture Tool via the menu View > Texture Tool or by the default keys Ctrl+Alt+T.

Controls

The controls are the same but there are variations in what you see and what you can do whether processing a single brush surface, multiple (or complete brush,) or a patch...

Single Brush Surface

• Select a single brush surface. You can select and deselect while the texture tool is displaying.
• Toggle the texture tool (menu View > Texture Tool or default keys Ctrl+Alt+T.)
• You should see the texture displayed in the texture tool with a lighter area to show what part of the whole texture the selected surface covers. You might need to zoom in or out to see where you are, see next.
• Zoom the texture in and out and using the mouse wheel. If zoomed out beyond one texture tile then each tile is outlined.
• RMB drag to scroll the whole texture around
• You can resize the texture tool window but it seems to me it ought to remain square to give a true image so keep that in mind.
• If the texture image disappears then click in the window and it should re-appear.
• The fourth button from the left toggles the display of a grid to help with alignment similar, but not the same, as the orthoview grid.
• The first and second buttons decrease and increase the grid size (whether it is showing or not.)
• The third button should snap the texture surface texture to the grid but I found it only seemed to snap to the left grid and even then there was a little gap so you may need to adjust manually by decreasing the grid size and dragging the surface (see next.)
• You can drag the surface around the tile (effectively scrolling the texture on the brush surface by...
  • First SHIFT + LMB the CENTRE vertex (tiny green square) of the surface.
  • It should highlight the surface in orange to show its selected. (repeat or Esc to DEselect but remember Esc will also Deselect the brush surface if not selected in the texture tool.)
  • You can now LMB drag the texture around one texture tool grid square at a time (so use finest for smooth scrolling.) If you have camera view visible then you should also see the texture scroll around.
• Note that you can still use some other Dark Radiant controls while the texture tool is displayed, such as undo etc. copy/paste shader didn't seem to be effective.

Troubleshooting

• If while using the texture tool the texture image is lost and seems to scrunch up in one corner then click on the window might bring it back else try reselecting the surfaces should work.
• If you can see the main texture but your surface is not visible then it is probably off-window.