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kuchitsu

Getting used to texture packs

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It amazes me how some people are seemingly able to take just about any texture pack and quickly adapt to it and make something good looking. I can only work with the same one I've compiled over time, plus I keep returning to same texture choices again and again because I feel comfortable with them. Are there any tricks for getting used to new texture packs or do you just need to be talented and have a certain feel for things like this?

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Make a map using textures that you're familiar with, then retexture it with the new textures, partly automatically (by find and replace texture names) and partly manually (where you see a particular texture fitting well), then possibly tweak detailing and lighting and even design of the map to "optimize" it for the currently used textures, while still retexturing where needed. (I've planned to do exactly this, but haven't mapped at all for a while.)

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I feel I fall in the 'quickly adapts' category. The way I go about it is to drop a few 64x64 and 128x128 sectors adjacent to eachother and change the various walls and floors/ceilings into different textures that interest me; I then use this almost like a painter would use their pallette, building rooms that have architecture to match the appearance of the textures, and finding ways they would compliment each other.

Some textures are evidently intended to be used alongside another texture, an example of some WIP of mine in the screenshot below of custom textures being used, note how the bricks flow into eachother comfortably, and the combination of custom mid-textures in conjunction with other custom textures applied to 3D floors.

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scifista42 said:

Make a map using textures that you're familiar with, then retexture it with the new textures


Yes, this part is important and is something that I have overlooked before. It is definitely important, though. Otherwise your map will probably look dull.

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It usually takes me some time spent trying to figure out which parts of it will go well together, and being annoyed that it doesn't have quite the textures I'm looking for to fit the exact uses I had in mind, before it finally starts to click. Once I have the main theme textures and colors figured out it gets a bit easier because I have some defaults to fall back on for support textures and the like, but I tend to want to mix up the theming here and there in different areas of the map, so it's always somewhat in flux and I'm rarely properly comfortable with the resources.

Nowadays I tend to build rough structures floodfilled with Doom2.wad placeholder textures first, just a small handful of easy and nice-looking ones like WOOD5, METAL2, and STONE4 that are just enough to distinguish the shapes while I'm building and make the map look reasonably presentable in a minimalist classic-y way. Then I start going through one area at a time to pick out new textures while adding detail and additional architecture. Figuring out how I want to work with all the new textures is way too distracting for me to do while also making a good layout, and a lot of my texture choices are related to the kind of detailing and such that they're being used on, so it helps to save all of that for after at least most of the basics are laid out.

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Interesting way to work, Essel. I find that sometimes the textures themselves actually assist with inspiring both the layout and Architexture! For example, textures which look damaged and fit with my intended theme could tempt me to add a crack in the wall the player can go into, or a texture that would look so good as a bridge that I find a way to have a bridge in the map which could perhaps go over a main area that otherwise may not have had a bridge.

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DonnieDark said:

Im having trouble just getting a texture pack to work in gzdoombuilder

When you load the map, tell it to load the texture pack as a resource.

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Speaking of which, I'm having the damnedest time adjusting to the Quake texture pack for this year's Mayhem session. I've never played Quake before, so to me all the textures are just ... brown. That's about it - I feel like they're mostly small variations of each other, and falls into very niche mapping environments.

For example, there are a lot of egyptian themed textures, "brown base" textures, and lots of different grid tilings.

I just can't seem to do the textures justice the way I'm looking over the resources.

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@Bloodyacid, I agree about the Quake resources. There's not enough in the 128px department I'm finding. For what it's worth, the way I'm working with these resources is when making a room going 'I like that texture' and finding a way to incorporate it. An example of such:

I like the stone structures on the texture I used on the ceiling's supporting beams:

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