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Announcement: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=8900 Please post any comments, bug notices, etc in this thread. If you have any issues with the new forums, please try to refresh/remove your Internet browser cache. Thanks ~m2

No guarantee I'll continue with this as I don't know yet how practical it might be but thought it worth blogging progress and gettings suggestions, input from others. Basically, texture blending doesn't work on brushes and patches but it does on models. If you know how to model you can make your own custom terrain but most mappers won't so I'm seeing if it is practical to make some generic models panels that can be overlaid, eg, over the edge of a grass/stone path, snow/cobbles, ash/fireplace, to soften the edges. The panels are just flat surfaces much like patches but they behave differently to patches so you cannot just adjust them to fit where you want; they are fixed models. My idea is to make a range of lengths and curves like a model railway that you join together and overly where needed. Also planned are heaps for dirt, ash, etc. You might even need to plan your path etc by laying these down first then making your brush/patchwork later. Dunno yet. I know nothing yet. Once done, the mapper can easily duplicate the model(s) he wants and change the two textures to any pair that he wants so no need for thousands of combinations. They are also tiny files - 17K was this one) This next test is to verify if I can get the model texture scale to match the terrain texture scale, and more importantly, get them to join seamlessly. The answer is yes. I'm using the compass image as a test because I can easily detect alignment and other errors. In the first image below you see in-game a brush set into the floor with the compass texture set at default 0.5 scale 'natural'. Laid upon it is a model test panel with the same texture and scale. You might think you can see the join but that is a glitch in my model and the actual model edge is invisible - it merges seamlessly I'm glad to say and is approximately along the line that the yellow arrow is pointing. In the next image you see the same in Dark Radiant with the model highlighted. One thing I didn't tell you. As well as the glitch in the model, I also had to rotate the texture 90 degrees on the brush to align. Dunno why but I should be able to just rotate it on the model later so that won't be needed. The brush is 128 x 128. The model is 128 x 96. Reason is that I figured 32 solid grass, 32 solid stone, 32 in the middle would be gradient. Again, I have no idea if that is the best way to do it. Maybe just the 32 gradient is enough. And how wide should this overlap be anyway for general use? 32 is about a man's stride I guess.

In Texture Tool I'd like to see an anchor and scale stretch for brush surfaces similar to patches. I just textured 4 surfaces of a wooden table top. Ignore the long sides which follow the grain and can be bodged easily, the texture has to flow along the top down the short side back along underneath then back up the other short side and match the top again. Well I got through three sides, top and two vericals but then realized I was going to fall short and the underneath would not reach the far edge. I checked my table which I'd made 56 units long to fit nicely in a room. I guessed it was tiling every 64 units so I calculated if I reduced the scale of the underneath by one seventh then it would reach. (grabs calculator.) This I did but of course the texture was then repositioned in the 'texture world' so I had to drag it back but I got it there in the end. But that would have been much easier if somehow in Texture Tool I could drag one edge (the other remaining anchored) which would rescale the surface automatically. Not sure what to aim at though other than eyesight to see where the texture starts to repeat, or possibly keep on eye on the camera. Also in Texture Tool, can it be possible to drag a whole brush surface from any vertex not just the centre? When aligning two brush surfaces if you zoom in close enough to see the vertices for good alignment you can no longer see the centre to drag. Zoom out to drag and you can only see the vertices so tiny it is hard to align - probably impossible for a very large surface. If you could zoom right it on one vertex and drag it to the vertex of the other surface that would make it much easier. I mean of course it would drag the whole surface not just the vertex as with a patch. It's also hard to figure out the rotation of one surface to another. I first did the top. Copy and paste shader to edge. Clearly wrong. Rotate 90 degrees. Tried different flips and drags and eventually got it. Then the other edge seemed worse. I could actually align it in Texture Tool yet it did not seem to match in camera the texture covered in Texture Tool. More flips and rotates ans scrolls. Eventually I thought I'd got it by chance. Then I looked in Texture Tool and I had put the surface over the other surface. It aligned but they were both covering the same piece of world texture. Clearly I had kind of mirrored the texture. Back to the drawing board. My top rotation was -90. The far edge I'd already aligned was 0. So, I guessed, let's try -180. That worked and now I could align it in TT. Same with the under surface. I manually typed in rotation -270. OK, I'm saying all this because is this how it should work? When I copy and paste from a top surface to a side should it not automatically be the correction rotation?

All right, Since Texture baking is the way to go these days, and I am way behind the curve (wish I'd learned this stuff sooner) I figured a thread was in order. Most programs do this in pretty much the same manner and have same options. Basically for anyone who doesn't know what texture baking is, it is simply rendering the object/scene to get Normal maps, Diffuse maps, Ambient Occlusion Maps and baking them onto an object. This isn't a tut so I'll stop there and get on with a question I have: ------------ 3dsMax7 Working on my ground cover (leaves/ivy/whatever). First I just made a high poly leaf, cloned it a bunch to make a carpet. Exported that and a flat plane and baked some AO and normal maps from that. Then I added a basic green layer and multiplied it onto my AO map and got a decent, but nothing special texure for decals. Now I want to take it one step further. That map was just 'plain', all leaves looked alike. With hundred of leafs painting details onto them isn't an option (veins, holes, whatnot). So I have UV mapped a single leaf, baked it out for ao, painted in some details. So this one leaf now looks better and more unique. I plan on doing maybe 2-3 leafs (a bit of work). Then cloning them all and scattering them. Thus giving the patch of 100 leaves several variations, that with normal maps and in game lighting should look pretty good. But I have barely touched render to texture so I think I'm missing a step. Don't know if anyone here knows Max well enough to help either. Basically I want to bake those 100 leaves, with existing 3 textures into one texture map. (I can do it by rendering the object, then using that render as the diffuse so I'm sure it can be done through the render-tex dialog.) It would allow for more precise alignment to do it all as one step, rather than trying to overlay the render perfectly to the output normal map. Anyone have any idea?

I made a large very shallow puddle but can't get it to sound like a wet footstep - it's just normal stone. Added water to the texture but makes no difference. I'm not bothered about a visible splash just the sound. Any ideas?

Evening Well after 5 hrs and much swearing and desk bashing... I have to ask several questions at this point: # why is it so bloody convoluted and over complicated to align the texture on two faces, for example to bricks whose faces are just slight out. 1. in the texture tools the two faces always appear miles away from each other so i have to zoom out and drap one near t the other - can this be fixed..? 2. when I do have both faces next to each and I find one is oriented the wrong why or why does it then get moved miles away again so that i have to zoom out and drag it back...AAARRGGHH!! and this is the same for Horz/vert-flip or rotate.. 3. why cant the faces in texture spin or flip in place - god this would speed thing up considerably. # I know I ave this before, but christ it would be so much easer if I could just cut a hole in a patch like I can with a brush. 1. aliging two patches of a curved wall is best described as self inflicted agony.. 2. the ability to copy parts of a patch would be extremely useful.. Anyway after all the hard work see the screenies here... http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/10003-so-what-are-you-working-on-right-now/page__st__425__gopid__216653entry216653

I've just completed the upgrade from IPB 2.2.x to 2.3.6, the newest official release of IPB. This was done to stay ahead on the IPB version 3 that is currently in the beta stages. Please post any comments, bug notices, etc in this thread. PS: If you have any issues with the new forums, please try to refresh/remove your Internet browser cache. Thanks, ~m2

Recent discussion on texture submissions has me wanting to put this out there, something I've been meaning to post for a short while. I have a proposal intended to increase the quality ratio of the texture library, one of the two big problems facing this department at this time (the other being the reorg). I spoke with Gildoran about weeding the repository a bit some months ago, but we didn't get down to it yet. Also, this way it's more of a team process. I am suggesting the following system: 1. Any person finds a texture in the repository they think does not belong there. They nominate it for the Chopping Block. They present reasons for why they think it should go. Reasons can be many and varied, for example: - it's just plain ugly - it's very low in quality / resolution - wrong dimensions / violates guidelines - it's useless or has little to no practical use - it doesn't add anything new to the repository / textureXX already does this better / waste of mod size - etc 2. The team considers the texture and decides its fate. If anyone (other than the author(s)) raises an objection, the texture stays. - A texture could stay, but still need fixing. If a person raises an objection to retain the texture, they should probably be prepared (or at least willing) to have the responsibility of fixing it. So basically, it isn't a powerplay type of game where we can mass eliminate a hated enemy's textures. It is a simple system whereby we can get rid of stuff that everyone agrees doesn't really belong, while disagreement sides in favor of retaining the asset. You ask, why not just have one person / some lead decide all of this? Should any one person make such far reaching aesthetic decisions? I'd personally say definitely not. You ask, is all of this really necessary? Again, in my opinion, most definitely. Take a look at some of the (especially very old) materials in the repository and use them in maps, examine the normalmaps, etc., and compare/contrast with high quality texture games - Doom, Half-Life, FarCry - even some of today's Thief2 FMs. Thoughts on this? Remember this can also be used as a deciding process on what goes into the mod in the first place (when there is contention; though perhaps additions (as opposed to removals) should require more than one vote). I think this will be an effective way to remove slag from the repository, add true quality to it, and let everyone's eye play a role in doing so.

I really like darkradiant's texture tool. I use it a lot for patches and brushes but I find really a letdown when I realized I couldn't use it for resizing texture faces of brushes. Would it be possible to add a feature to texture tool which enables dragging of face edges/vertices in texture tool window? That would speed texturing a lot. Picture of my brush work and nigthmarish texture tool usage I have to use scale horizon and vertical buttons in surface inspector to achieve what I want. All of those corner bricks was real pain in the arse to make.

Hey, a .. missing feature here? In GTK Radiant you have an option named "CAP" for patches, which would "align" the textures as if on a normal brush. As you can see in the image below, it doesn't "align" correctly regardless of how I make the caps for the bevel.. So, is this a missing feature or am I missing something?

Hi, First of all this mod looks really awesome! I've played training mission on 1.03 had some fun messing around. I noticed that 1.05 is already out. Seeing as my internet is not so stable, nor fast, which causes large http downloads corrupt time to time I decided to go with the torrent download of 1.05 (because with torrents you can check data integrity and repair only what's missing). Ironically when I fired up 1.05 I received the following error just before the loading of the map failed: ERROR: LoadTGA( textures/darkmod/door/metal/bars_rivets_hinge_local.tga ): Only type 2 (RGB), 3 (gray), and 10 (RGB) TGA images supported Is this just me? Shouldn't everyone that used the torrents have this issue? I believe this is due to a corrupted file. I also found a whole bunch missing file complaints in the logs. I have rechecked my data according to the torrent hashes. Also I've tried running the updater hoping it would notice some of the corrupt packages, but to no avail. Downloading version info file... Downloading from Mirror KeepOfMetalAndGold: tdm_version_info.txt [=========================] 100.0% at 7 kB/sec Done downloading versions. Newest version is 1.05. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Trying to match local files to version definitions... [======= ] 28.2% Checking: tdm_ai_animals01.pk4 [GetCumulativeCRC]: Cannot go to first file: -103 [GetCumulativeCRC]: Cannot go to first file: -103 I suppose I will just have to redownload the whole thing via http. EDIT: I've attached the hashes of all my packages. pk4-hashes.txt

Hi everyone, I'd like to present you a new site dedicated to sharing textures, Thief universe-related textures in particular. I'd like it to be an independent repository, where all the textures are stored on one server, where every author has his own folder, and is able to present his own terms of using works presented there. The second reason is the ease of use. Most sites offer photo references, not tileable textures. Making such texture can take a considerable amount of time, which is obviously slowing down designer's progress. Besides, DarkRadiant, Flesh or any other modern engine use normalmaps. Those require some time and knowledge to be prepared as well, again slowing mappers down a bit. The third reason was accessibility. There's no free website giving you full control over posted images, ability to sort it by tags, authors, categories, etc. There's always some option missing. That's why I gathered some of our finest texture makers on TTLG and presented my idea - fortunately, they liked it In the beginning it was supposed to be a texture repository for T3 Editors' Guild, but such restriction would be ridiculous, right? That's why it's a site for all designers (T1, T2, T3, DarkRadiant and any other engines), as long as they respect texture authors' rights, expressly stated in appropriate section. So, without further ado, welcome to Master Builder Store, taffers!

Guys I have emailed Qarl to for permission for us to use his TP in the darkmod... I have examined the pack and all the textures are in .dds format w/normals (@1024*1024*32), so I reckon it would be easy to make them tdm compatible(convert to tga and make the reuired entires in an .mtr files etc), so if I get the nod from Qarl watch this space.

Didn't see this covered anywhere, so here we go. I installed the vc redist. Using Darkradiant 1.2.1, 32 bit, installer version. Grid size is 8 Create new map, make box (x 256, y 192, z defaults to 128) Save map Block is not visible in the camera window With this selected, I follow the instructions to apply the cobblestones - blocks_mixed_multicolour texture, right click apply. Flush the textures as per the instructions (even though I probably don't need to) Save map Open TDM, dmap tut (not in its own folder) I get a leak error, with both room and hollow options. Also get a leak without room or hollow. Is adding the texture causing these leaks? I'm pretty sure I'm following the instructions to the LETTER, and I'm not TOO retarded... why am I getting these leaks only after applying this texture?

The wiki go's out from the fact that you have made a greyscale map for your texture. ( This is a rough guide by a non-expert as I (fidcal) do it so at least there is something here. It assumes you have made a temporary greyscale image file saved as say nameGrey.tga ) How do i make that?

Is there any way to get true shadows from a two-sided foliage texture like ivy which uses alphatest? Removing noshadows and adding forceshadows just casts a rectangular shadow for the whole patch.

Does anyone know of any stone trim textures in TDM? A single line of stones that can be used to create arches/doorways etc. We've plenty of stone textures but none that I've found are suitable for trim pieces. Something like this arch - http://www.tweakguides.com/images/TDS_7s.jpg

For the nomination thread, go here: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=8991 The following is an attempt at taking a serious look at our texture repository. Hopefully it'll help us find the right balance between providing a decent offering while not being bloated with redundant or poor textures, and while keeping overall art quality in the mod high. Anyone is welcomed to join or chime in. I certainly don't want to seem like the executioner. Please keep in mind what I write here is one person's opinion made on an assembly line process, and not intended to be a criticism of anyone's work. Notes I write aren't necessarily all-inclusive or fully thought out as much as what jumped out at me in an initial impression sense. If you disagree, speak up! The system I'm using is just to update this map a half-dozen textures at a time, using the text entities, then viewing them in game with the moving lights. This is an ongoing process, a little at a time, so I (or whoever else) do not become burned out on it. Okay, on with it then... =============================== Key: 7+ Good stuff. 4-6 Ranging from pretty good to not so good, or serves a need. Consider low end for deleting or fixing. 3- Poor; this stuff should go. ----- Notes: (1) would benefit from normal map improvement ----- textures/darkmod/carpet/rugs/ornate_green_black01 5: decent 'texture' to it, unique, serves a need textures/darkmod/carpet/rugs/ornate_black_gold01 5: decent 'texture' to it, serves a need textures/darkmod/carpet/rugs/ornate_floral_checker01 4: bland and blurry, odd normalmap textures/darkmod/carpet/rugs/ornate_rectangles_brown01 4: (1), appealing in a rustic sense, but is blurry textures/darkmod/carpet/rugs/ornate_red_tan02 6: (1), attractive and useful textures/darkmod/carpet/rugs/ornate_red_tan01 8: good coloring and normalmap textures/darkmod/carpet/rugs/plain_redgreen 4: (1), lack of normal and color clash with incoherency mute this one's potential textures/darkmod/carpet/rugs/plain_redgreen_design 5: (1), addition of design really helps here textures/darkmod/carpet/rugs/plain_whitey 5: (1), serves a need textures/darkmod/carpet/rugs/rug_arrow_darkbrown_mooyan 4: (1), has potential, but is currently too washed out and incoherent textures/darkmod/carpet/rugs/rug_arrow_darkbrown_old 4: (1), basically same as mooyan version textures/darkmod/carpet/rugs/rug_whitey_striped 6: (1), gaudy in a good way, and certainly useful textures/darkmod/carpet/rugs/rug_whitey_striped_design 8: (1), excellent aside from lacking normalmap textures/darkmod/carpet/runners/ornate_green_white* 6: serves a color need, though could be a better green, diffuse and subtle normalmap actually makes it appear fuzzy/sewn (awesome)! textures/darkmod/carpet/runners/geometric01_red* 6: decent normalmap, vibrant, not terribly attractive but serves a need textures/darkmod/carpet/runners/geometric02_red* 6: (1?), attractive, looks sewn textures/darkmod/carpet/runners/ornate_grey_white* 7: attractive, vibrant, looks sewn textures/darkmod/carpet/runners/ornate_black_white* 7: attractive, vibrant, looks sewn textures/darkmod/carpet/runners/ornate_blue_white* 7: attractive, vibrant, looks sewn textures/darkmod/carpet/runners/ornate_red_white* 7: attractive, vibrant, looks sewn --- end /carpet ------------------- notfound: textures/darkmod/decals/dirt/stainwallfade2 notfound: textures/darkmod/decals/dirt/drip notfound: textures/darkmod/decals/cracks/cracks01 notfound: textures/darkmod/decals/webs/web2_id notfound: textures/darkmod/decals/webs/web4_id notfound: textures/darkmod/decals/webs/webcorner_id notfound: textures/darkmod/decals/webs/webdangle_id notfound: textures/darkmod/decals/webs/webround1_id notfound: textures/darkmod/decals/webs/websquare_id notfound: textures/darkmod/decals/webs/webstrand_id notfound: textures/darkmod/decals/webs/webtile_id ----- end decals -------------------- notfound: textures/darkmod/door/metal/rusty_twopanels textures/darkmod/door/frame/arched_heavy01_frame 8: good deep normalmap, serves a need textures/darkmod/door/metal/bars_rivets_hinge 7: nice grain about it textures/darkmod/door/metal/bars_rivets_old 8: nice normalmap and speculars, a classic reinforced metal door textures/darkmod/door/metal/large_warehouse_old_green01 6: nice specs, serves a need textures/darkmod/door/metal/metal_pattern_overwood 7: interesting, decorative, multi-purpose textures/darkmod/door/metal/simple_rough01 5: (1), very basic, almost feels like a stage might be missing. Needs spec and normal improvement. textures/darkmod/door/wood/ornate/smooth_rich_ovalwindow01 5: (1), much potential, suffers from glare, slightly blurry, need better normals if to be used on brushes textures/darkmod/door/wood/ornate/smooth_rich_squarewindow01 4: (1), blurry (is this used on models?) textures/darkmod/door/wood/5panels_01_worn 9: excellent, photorealistic textures/darkmod/door/wood/9panels_01_pale_worn 8: excellent textures/darkmod/door/wood/9panels_02_brown01 8: very good, likely to be a very standard frequently used material textures/darkmod/door/wood/9panels_02_red01 8: as previous; hopefully these are just hue shift textures? textures/darkmod/door/wood/arched_heavy01 7: good normals, serves a need (paired arch) textures/darkmod/door/wood/board_metalbands01 6: bit bland? textures/darkmod/door/wood/board_metalbands_old 7: very nice wood, would benefit from having the metal lifted in the normalmap textures/darkmod/door/wood/board_oblique_nails_hinge 9: excellent, will be used often textures/darkmod/door/wood/board_plain_hinge01 5: bland, normals on hinges are good textures/darkmod/door/wood/board_plain_hinge02 6: bit bland, hinges a bit blurry, but otherwise attractive textures/darkmod/door/wood/board_plainblue_hinge01 5: as above, could use stronger normal, why blue? textures/darkmod/door/wood/board_plainblue_hinge02 6: as above, could use stronger normal, why blue? textures/darkmod/door/wood/board_uneven_ornatecorners01 7: vibrant and interesting textures/darkmod/door/wood/board_uneven_ornatecorners02 7: vibrant and interesting, color of the metal a bit unsettling textures/darkmod/door/wood/boards_2diamonds_worn 5: (1), good diffuse but needs normalmap work textures/darkmod/door/wood/boards_old_rough 5: (1), good diffuse but needs normalmap work textures/darkmod/door/wood/diamond_pattern01 5: (1), slight blur, needs normalmap work, but overall not bad textures/darkmod/door/wood/diamond_pattern02_nails 9: excellent, near photorealistic textures/darkmod/door/wood/diamond_pattern02_nails_dark 7: darker version of above, very good but not as appealing textures/darkmod/door/wood/metalbands_crisscross01 8: very attractive, will be used often, would probably be a 9 but for slight blur textures/darkmod/door/wood/old_flat_oak01 1: bland, ugly, bad glare gradient, blurry, no normals (that's just a shadow in the diffuse you're seeing); only saving grace is the specular textures/darkmod/door/wood/old_weathered_boards01 4: technical problems: normals are inverted; this is a door? Diffuse is flat, but normal gives it panels. expect that it probably has cousin in /wood textures/darkmod/door/wood/smooth_2panels_red01 6: maybe slightly blurry/bland, even "non-doory", but interesting due to normalmap textures/darkmod/door/wood/smooth_2panels_rich 5: (1), for model use perhaps? needs normalmap for brushes, but otherwise attractive textures/darkmod/door/wood/smooth_3panels01_dull01 4: (1), something wrong with normalmap, looks lumpy textures/darkmod/door/wood/smooth_3panels_red01 4: (1), for models? needs normal if to be used for brushes (perhaps move to /models?) textures/darkmod/door/wood/smooth_4panels_red01 6: a bit flat, but otherwise nice textures/darkmod/door/wood/smooth_4panels_tan01 6: a bit flat, but otherwise nice textures/darkmod/door/wood/smooth_5panels01_tall 7: attractive and sharp textures/darkmod/door/wood/smooth_5panels01_tall_red 7: attractive and sharp textures/darkmod/door/wood/smooth_5panels02 7: good normalmap textures/darkmod/door/wood/smooth_5panels02_brown 7: good normalmap textures/darkmod/door/wood/smooth_5panels02_red 7: good normalmap (hopefully these are hue shifts) textures/darkmod/door/wood/smooth_5panels03_brown 7: good normalmap textures/darkmod/door/wood/smooth_5panels03_light (hue shift) textures/darkmod/door/wood/smooth_5panels03_red (hue shift) textures/darkmod/door/wood/smooth_6panels02 7: bit flat, but good otherwise textures/darkmod/door/wood/smooth_6panels_red01 7: good normalmap, different textures/darkmod/door/wood/weathered_boards 5: flat, needs normalmap work ---- end /door ------------------------- no issues with /fabric ; these are all decent or better quality, and serve a need ---- end /fabric ------------------------ (as is evident from the first addition to the list, only a few are in question of removal) (individual evaluation maps might be coming to SVN; TBD)

One of the things that breaks the immersion of many 3d games is the over-use of repeated tiled textures. This can be mitigated with "Texture Sets" but usually only for flat geometry. Since I have come to the conclusion that this concept is a perpetual obsession of mine. I have decided to create a thread that collects my hair-brained ideas and some of the more insightful replies I've gotten about the topic. Please share your thoughts or your own workflow. Baddcog: From the Light Baking thread: AluminumHaste: STiFU Myself in TDM Missions... : From Parallax Mapped Visportal Patches: Models vs Brushes

The centre of the shield and spear tips show black. I think this is supposed to be: textures/darkmod/metal/flat/nontiling/steel_scratched01 But the above is no longer there so I think it's replaced by something. There is: textures/darkmod/metal/flat/brush_steel_scratched01 But there are some other steel scratched under tiling also. I can improvise something in my map but can the above be fixed for 1.03? Hey - maybe it already has?

This is odd. I was testing a new variation of an existing shader in the game folder but doom kept using the earlier version. It showed correct in DR. After trying many things I wondered about the file name; I had used temp.mtr. So I renamed it to grime_test.mtr and now it works. So initially it was saying 'warning: soandso in temp.mtr previously defined in soandso' but now the exact same file (all but the name) in the same path gives 'warning soandso in soandso previously defined in temp.mtr' so it is now giving a different priority.

There must be an easier way of doing this.... I'm trying to line up the textures on the curved part of this brush. The only way I've been able to approach it is manually selecting each face and trying to scroll the texture until it matches. That's extremely tedious, however, and isn't working very well. I tried the Texture Tool, but couldn't make heads or tails of it. What's the best way to handle that kind of surface?

Afternoon What the hell causes a missing texture in the following screenshots... ive had this problem before but just replacing the brush generally fixed it. But I want to know not exactly whats caucusing and how to fix it correctly. Doing a r_showtris 1 show the issue is fixating on the triangles but I haven't got a clue here...

Here is an issue I have been thinking about for a while, and on which I would like to solicit input from the team and others. Unlike Thief, where textures were stored in the form of pallettised families in discrete folders, TDM sorts them by material categories and more specific subcategories. For example, the stone category looks like this: >stone/cobblestones (for rough, uneven blocks or flagstone textures) >stone/brick (for regular, rectangular bricks of any size) >stone/natural (rock walls, cave surfaces, gravel) >stone/flat (cement, marble, ceramic tiles, anything basically flat). Polished surfaces get the prefix smooth_. >stone/sculpted (for tiles or surfaces that have been intentionally sculpted or carved) ...and there are also editor-exclusive virtual categories such as >>nontiling and >>tiling_1d. As long as we are working with the core TDM package, which mostly includes textures for general use (such as generic walls and a few trims), this setup works nicely. However, as the mod expands, and more textures are incorporated into both the core and added by individual users, this structure might become overloaded -- as is, I am already scrolling a bit too much in the "brick" and "sculpted" category to find a specific thing I am looking for. There are textures which are always good to have on hand; others are probably used judiciously in some maps and not so much in others (e.g. a nice geometric trim), while some could be so specific that you would only use them in every fifth or tenth map, and then only once or twice (e.g. the bas-relief below - looks great in game at a higher resolution, but you wouldn't plaster every mansion with it - in the texture pack I am working on, there is also a collection of shields that's pretty cool for variety, but it's already 8 textures with probably more to come). I am thinking that it would not be a bad idea to eventually introduce some further subdivisions for textures that are good to have on hand (and I certainly think these give a map much of its soul) but if your editor were a worbench, you would keep them on a top shelf and only reach for them every so often. For example, staying with >stone/sculpted , >>trims and >>panels might be an obvious addition, but could "overflow" just as easily as any other shader category. Adding special categories such as >>shields, >>reliefs or >>architecture, although the team might believe these to be too narrow or maybe even confusing. I would like to hear what people think of this -- it is not an immediately pressing issue, but could have some important repercussions on the future state of TDM editing. Remember that it is possible to store textures just fine in the base folders -- it is the arrangement of the shaders in the Media Browser that matters most, and they can be placed under virtual categories.