How to properly align textures on Patches?

[AEon]

Trying to align textures properly on Jester's patches... alas using Ctrl+N, the "good" natural alignment is 90° off in alignment. Trying to rotate the texture on the patch either via Shift+PgUp/PgDn or using the patch surface inspector (Shift+S) totally messes up the texture making them really blurry.

And using Ctrt+Shift+N, the Caps alignment also fails.

The only way I was ever able to fix this was to rotate the whole patch, 90°, then shape it the way it used to be, to ensure it stays in the rotated orientation.

I really hope there is some easier way to do this, that I have been overlooking all the years? Using Radiant v1.4.

[dONKEY]

Having the patch correctly orientated was the only way I found to align textures. Heavily edited patches are always a problem I find. I ended up exporting patches as ase models and externally re-mapping uvw maps, then reimporting in cases where it was obvioisly bad.
Q4edit's middle click patch alignment was a handy feature.

[Bliccer]

If the patch, e.g. for trims, hasn't the length in the same direction as the texture the normal/cap feature will totally mess up the texture....
Don't know why it happens, but yeah. Rotating before texturing seems to be the only solution.
In Radiant 1.5 copy/paste function of textures also works for patches as long as you don't touch them iirc.

[AEon]

Being out of mapping for several years, alas always leads to me forgetting tricks I had found out the hard way... here a few things that suddenly did work for me.

• On normal brush faces there is an issue with textures that have been rotated, e.g. 90°, and when you then try to use Fit in the Surface Inspector, that fails. E.g. had that problem with the small lights in Jester's map, fit should have trivially worked. Reset the angle field to 0 by hand in the surface inspector and fit works.
• I am not quite sure what it was, but after the above, using Ctrl+N (Natural) on a patch rotated the texture not the way I wanted but using Shift+PgUp/PgDn suddenly cleanly rotated the texture by 90°. Very weird.
• Another tip when a patch properly fits, via Natural, on e.g. the lower part on the column and you want to use that alignment mirrored on the top of the column, then clone the lower part of the column, mirror in Z-axis, and move the lower part into the upper part area. No darn hassle due to alignment already working.
• Once you have the column the way you want, alignment-wise, copy/paste or cone it for all other places, thus saving a *huge* amount of time with any further alignment.

[Theftbot]

You can basically uv map patches like models-though you have to lay them flat to match a "axial" tex matched brush then "cap" them them move control pts where you want them(its how sock did doors/frames in "edge of forever")

[AEon]

Ah... good tip... did that on the angles rectangular tubes in AEdm7 as well... align on flat patch... then vertex edit, and do not ever dare to realign anything

[sst13]

You can basically uv map patches like models-though you have to lay them flat to match a "axial" tex matched brush then "cap" them them...

In Q3Radiant202 is an uv map plugin called "Q3 Texture Tools". You can set the control points pixel-precise.



I love it.

[AEon]

I use some of the bobtooz that thankfully still work with v1.4... e.g. merge and split patches... though these commands really could use a shortcut.

[obsidian]

Ahem... you can discuss feature requests on the Radiant IRC channel or posting an issue if you want to request old plugin/tools to be ported over to the new version:

IRC:
http://webchat.quakenet.org/?channels=radiant

Issue Tracker:
https://github.com/TTimo/GtkRadiant/issues/

[AEon]

I was not aware they were missing in v1.6... since for my little tests recently I always used v1.4.

[obsidian]

Actually, you may need to double check that they are indeed missing. I'm on vacation so I can't do that myself. Just saying that you can submit issues or discuss feature requests on IRC.

[Bliccer]

I hope it's okay if I abuse your thread, Aeon? Since it's related to patches, too, I thought I could post it here...
Maybe it's a total simple dumb question... but it's weird for me and maybe someone can explain.
I added an endcap to the ceiling and capped it. Now I get several sparklies in the center. Why? I have done this several times before and never ever happened anything like this.

patch1
patch1 ingame

patch2
patch2 ingame

I guess I am having a totally common problem here :/

[obsidian]

That looks like z-fighting, not necessarily sparklies (though you may be getting them too). You tend to get z-fighting with end caps in these situations. Why the z-fighting?

• An end cap has it's middle point interpolated, it does not have a precise depth so it gets a bit of confusion.
• You didn't use caulk between brushes and patches. Always, always, always caulk unseen faces. Always. I usually build every brush and patch with caulk and then texture only the visible faces. Caulk is your friend.

Why do you get sparklies? 99% of the time, sparklies are caused by T-junctions, especially when patches are involved. Eliminate T-juncs whenever you can. Here you can see all the T-juncs caused by using a patched end cap.


Instead, use 2 bevels, cap them, then split up the surrounding brushwork to prevent T-junctions.

Patches are in blue, exploded view on the left:


Why split up brushes this way? They are properly mitred and the top brush is split into 3 pieces to prevent a T-junction where the two bevels meet in the middle.

[Bliccer]

Ah... okay cool, thx. And for the 90degree patch?
For caulking: ofc I caulk everything. In this case it's not possible, since I have some units more than the patch has. Or shouldI build a complete caulk brush beneath and add two more brushes on the left and right instead?

Can I do anything against the flickering of the map when the player runs through a areaportal? I guess not?

[roughrider]

regardless of what size the patch is versus the walls around it, should ALWAYS put caulk walls behind the patch. If you have a portion of the wall that goes above the patch, just split it right at the top of the patch and create the upper parts visible face textured while the rest which is behind the patch, caulk.

[roughrider]

Same with the side portion/walls, need to make anything behind the patch as caulk regardless. If you were to have for example, a 16 unit piece that sticks out on the sides of the patch that would carry a texture, then it would be better to create just a 16 unit piece of wall then to have the whole thing, which is going behind the patch, as textured. A lot of z-fighting happens when ppl try to cut corners only because there is a little sliver hanging out and they just say "ah what the heck, it wont hurt" then when they look at it in game, they see all kinds of uglies.