Describe how you texture throughout your map's development

Hey! I'm a relatively new mapper, and I technically have no released maps. I would like to hear from different people: how do you generally go about texturing?

I guess one way is to come up with an idea of where your place is located. For example, I've got a building with a small outdoor section, and a portion of it sunk into magma. So to start out I slapped a broad-stroke of ashwall over the outside area to make a mental mark of it's outdoorness, and lava and redstone over the sunken area similarly. The only texturing I may do during making the layout phase would be just enough to mark it for the type of environment it is I guess.

http://i.imgur.com/lEmFI63.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/qNF8Cr2.jpg

But now, in terms of location, I have the parts that I clearly know are going to be "indoor" building themed, but that's as far as I've gotten. They still have the default startan.

http://i.imgur.com/AyzpI1i.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/0x5XW2S.jpg

Now, I think my plan of attack would be to just pick (maybe somewhat randomly even) a set of two main wall textures and two main floor textures for the interior of the building that have a nice color scheme between them; then, to start barfing them around the building with some vague strategy. Then doing a couple of coats of polish after that.

I used the search-forum feature and skimmed through a few pages of results, and it didn't seem like I'm asking a repeated question (some were similar but not quite the same), but here is my question again:

How do you guys go about texturing and visually detailing your maps throughout their development?

For me, the process changes every few months. Currently I block shapes out in whatever default texture, and later on I will go in and apply textures based on dark/light. For example if I choose a light gray wall, then for the floor I will choose a dark brown so that shapes are easily discerned from afar.

I have made maps where I have textured based on material (e.g. brick staircase wall texture with brick flat), and while it looks more realistic, it also has the effect of the shapes getting lost or bleeding together with doomguy's fast paced movement.

I make a room, use some couple textures on it. Usually the first few textures become the main theme of the level. Eventually I spice it up with some couple areas with some alternate theme(s).

And I'll usually use same material/color on 2sided lines/flats. Like if I had a marbface cube, it should have marble on the top or bottom of it.

Rough details first, smaller later after the gameplay is good.

I usually advance making a map room by room and texturing each room immediately after creating the room, as I feel "it would work". I have a theme / idea thought-out before, but I almost merely "improvise" when building and texturing particular rooms. I also add detail at this early stage, but better less than more. I sometimes change texturing and detailing later if I feel it's not good and needs to be better, or needs to be altered for some gameplay purpose. This mostly happens after playtesting. I playtest really many times while just parts of the map are in progress, too.

I draw an entire layout first, and use floodfill to fill rooms with a specific texture to remind me what I intend to make the room look like when I come back to it. As I go back and detail it, I choose textures that complement the original choice.

I try to design my maps using non-busy, undetailed textures and flats like GRAYBIG and FLAT19, with something contrasting for floors and a light level of 128. I typically rough out the majority of the layout ignoring anything that doesn't affect gameplay. Even at this stage, I usually already know what I want my final texturing to look like but try not to apply them since I'll spend too much time worrying about alignment. I pretty much ignore "vertical detail" entirely at this stage unless it affects gameplay, again because of alignment. I try to avoid using 3D mode as much as possible, I find it slows down my workflow.

Once I'm content with the gameplay I'll go through texturing area by area, doing heights and lighting, adding some iwad-level detailing, and calling it done. I think I have a couple before and after pics on my webspace, but it's down right now. They're outdated anyway, back then I still worried about ceiling heights in the rough phase.

I do save myself a little work with pieces like doors, lifts and steps by giving them final texturing from the start, since I typically always use the same textures for them depending on what the map theme is.

"Needs more SUPPORT3"

Inkie said:

"Needs more SUPPORT3"

Off-topic, but well, my very favourite textures for extensive usage are SUPPORT3, METAL, BROWN1, STARGR1 and BRICK5. Too much brown is not healthy, though. :)

Jimi said:

I make a room, use some couple textures on it. Usually the first few textures become the main theme of the level. Eventually I spice it up with some couple areas with some alternate theme(s).

And I'll usually use same material/color on 2sided lines/flats. Like if I had a marbface cube, it should have marble on the top or bottom of it.

Rough details first, smaller later after the gameplay is good.

This sounds similar to my method

First I figure what kind of style i want in my map then i use basic texture to it. when things get a bit shaped, i add few details to it.
my maps are mostly very simple texture-wise so the hard work for me is to figure what kind of texture combos i want and then just apply those to the map.

I draw the map shapes, and I texture arbitrary places that need to be textured.

I work on a room-to-room basis and I make things up as I go along.

I also put on an unhealthy dosage of support textures.