Texture
Selection · Actions · Alignment · Projection · Lights · Special behaviors
Textures can only be applied to closed sides (sides not connected to another segment) or walls.
| Text | Description |
|---|---|
| light | This controls the light levels for this particular face in each of the four corners. The values range from 0 (all but dark) to 100 (very bright). It is advisable to use the Light Tool instead to automatically compute these, but manual adjustment may be required from time to time. |
| 1st 2nd |
Textures in Descent have two layers; the first and the second layer. The first layer is the "base" texture that should not contain transparency, unless the wall supports it. The second texture, which is used for overlays, etc. can contain two kinds of transparency; normal transparency that will pass through to the first layer texture, and super-transparency ("see through") that will pass through the wall entirely; using the latter also requires a wall type that supports transparency. If a texture has special properties on touch, like water or lava, or has a movement-based animation (Descent 2 only), it must be placed on the first layer. Lights and other animations may also be placed on the second layer. |
| show frames | Controls whether individual frames for animated textures should be shown separately in the texture list. Useful if you want to use a specific frame of an animated texture as opposed to the animation itself. |
| Text | Description |
|---|---|
| edit... | Opens the PIG/POG editor which allows adding custom textures to levels through the use of POG files (Descent 2) or modifying the PIG file that applies to all levels (Descent 1). It will also open the currently selected texture (only one; if both use 1st and 2nd are checked, only the 1st texture) into the editor, allowing it to be edited more quickly. |
| copy | Copies the current texture to a separate texture clipboard, a separate clipboard that can store a single texture (with two layers, from which it can be pasted. |
| paste | Pastes the texture from the texture clipboard onto the current side. |
| paste touching | Pastes the texture from the texture clipboard onto the current side and any side that is considered "touching"; that is, any neighboring sides that have the same side number and the same texture as the current side. |
| replace | Replaces the currently selected texture with that currently stored on the texture clipboard. The operation will only apply to marked sides, or if none, to the entire mine, and will only replace if the texture matches that of the current side. |
| mark plane | Marks all sides on the current plane, i.e. the current side and all neighboring sides that share the same side number. |
| mark textures | Marks all sides that share the same texture as the current side and are all connected by at least one edge (the side number need not match). |
| brightness | Controls the "brightness" of this texture; that is, the light level it applies when new light levels are computed. The brightness affects the currently selected texture throughout the mine. Will only apply to one texture at a time; if both use 1st and 2nd are selected, this will only apply to the 1st texture. |
| use 1st use 2nd |
Whether to apply the actions to the first or second layer, respectively. For operations such as "replace" and "mark textures", this also controls which texture layers need to match. |
The alignment tool features an alignment view that shows the alignment of the texture. Each of the four corners of the texture will be stretched to the four corners of the current side, With the default orientation, this corresponds to point 1 for the top-right corner and proceeding clockwise.
Note that since the texture is stretched to all four corners, the texture is "naturally" aligned without any stretching when the shape of the texture on the alignment view matches the shape of the side itself. A square will cause the entire texture or a part of it to stretch as-is to match the shape of the side.
| Text | Description | |
|---|---|---|
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zoom out | Zooms the alignment view out. |
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zoom in | Zooms the alignment view in. |
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flip texture horizontally | Flips the texture horizontally by flipping every point around the center of the texture as it is currently aligned. On sides that are not shaped like rectangles, the flipped texture may be stretched as a result. |
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flip texture vertically | Flips the texture vertically in the same manner as above. |
| movement controls | Moves the point, line or side (depending on the currently active selection mode) of the "texture window" on the alignment view around in the given direction, which will cause the corresponding texture point/line/side to move in the direction. The speed of movement is the same as the mine move rate under the settings. The text boxes next to the movement buttons detail the X and Y coordinates of the current point, line or side respectively within the coordinate system of the alignment grid. Values can be changed by typing in a new number and pressing enter or space. |
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| rotation controls | Rotates the line or side (depending on the currently active selection mode) on the alignment view around in the given direction, which will cause the texture on the side itself to rotate in the direction. The speed of rotation is the same as the rotate rate under the settings. The text box next to the rotation buttons details the current clockwise rotation angle in degrees of the line or side respectively. Values can be changed by typing in a new number and pressing enter or space. |
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reset texture | Resets the alignment of the texture on this side back to default, such that it appears without any stretching or squeezing (provided the geometry of the side allows for unstretched rendering of textures). |
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reset marked textures | Applies the above reset operation to all marked sides. |
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stretch texture to fit to side | Resets the alignment of the current texture back into a square, causing it to be stretched or squeezed across the entire side such that the corners of the texture match the corner points of the side. |
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align textures on child sides | Aligns the textures on all child sides. If "align all sides" is not checked, this will align all sides that share the same texture and the same side number, i.e. the side must be co-planar (similar to how "mark plane" works). If "align all sides" is checked, this will align all sides that share the same texture and are directly or indirectly connected by at least one edge to the current side (similar to how "mark textures" works). After the alignment operation, if there are no loops, there will be no seams or discontinuities in the texture alignment from one side to another for the entire set of sides that were aligned, assuming that the textures on all sides have been reset beforehand. The alignment operation will preserve stretching on all aligned sides, which may lead to texture discontinuities if the length of the edge on one side does not match the length of the edge on the connected side. If there are loops in the set of connected alignable sides, one of the edges may end up having a discontinuity after the alignment operation. Such an edge is not well-defined and will depend on the exact structure of the sides. |
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align textures on marked sides | Aligns the textures on all marked sides, or if none are marked, in the entire mine. The operation is similar to that of above. |
| align all sides | Changes the behavior of "align textures on child sides". | |
TODO: Help to be written here
| Text | Description | |
|---|---|---|
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planar projection | Starts the setup of a planar projection. |
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cylindrical projection | Starts the setup of a cylindrical projection. |
This tool is used to control variable lights (Descent 2 only), as well as the color of the light produced by either the texture or the variable light (D2X-XL only). In order to add a variable light to a side, it must have a texture that produces light (i.e. has brightness greater than 0%).
Variable lights are mostly used to add animations to lights, such as flickering or lights that turn on and off in a row, causing the lights to "move".
| Text | Description | |
|---|---|---|
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add variable light | Adds a variable light to the current side. A variable light has 32 "dots" that are either on or off, and the light will move counter-clockwise (or clockwise in XL) according to the configured speed. It is possible to toggle the dots by clicking or to use the binary text box (with 0s and 1s) to control the dots themselves. |
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delete variable light | Removes the variable light from this side. |
| msec/dot | Controls the speed of the variable light. Must be greater than 0 for the variable light to work properly. The fastest speed is 50 msec/dot, which means that the every dot is 50 milliseconds long and thus a full revolution around 32 bots will complete in 1.6 seconds. The slowest speed is 1000 msec/dot, which will complete a revolution in 32 seconds. | |
| color palette | Used to change the color of the light. The effect will only be visible if the version of the game used supports colored lighting (D2X-XL is potentially the only version that does). The possible light colors are from the current palette for the level, which can be configured from the settings. In addition to the selected color, its index in the palette will be shown. In D2X-XL, it is also possible to use a custom color, which can be set with the RGB button. |
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Some textures have special behaviors that apply when they are touched.
- Lava: causes damage to the player and the ship to shake around slightly. Also plays a sound effect. Any projectiles that hit lava (except if on an illusionary wall) cause lava to splash around, which either adds a blast radius to a projectile or increases its size.
- Water (Descent 2): causes the player ship to shake around slightly, but without any damage. Also plays a sound effect. Reduces the blast radius of any projectiles that hit it (except if on an illusionary wall).
- Force fields (Descent 2): play an ambient noise and cause any players or projectiles hitting it to bounce back, with the former getting slight damage.
- Doors and blastable walls (incl. wall01): the animation will only play if properly used with a wall.
- Moving texture: Some textures in Descent 2 will move as a part of their animation. This movement is shown with an arrow when the texture is shown in the mine view or the texture list.