Tutorial: Technique to texture rotated brushes

[Moonbo]

Hey guys,

 

So in the course of building my most recent map I've run into several situations where I wanted to place a trim texture on a rotated brush. Something like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The best way to apply a trim texture to a standard brush is just to use the fit tool on the surface inspector to align the texture. However, if you try to fit a texture onto a rotated brush, you get something like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The standard solution to this would be to rotate the texture until you (hopefully) got something that looked decent. That method is both time consuming and prone to failure. Aligning a trim texture on two rotated brushes this way is also out of the question. So here's an alternative: use patches on the rotated surfaces.

 

In my example, I apply caulk to the rotated face:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then select the surface, and create a decal patch for it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unlike rotated brushes, patches can be properly aligned using the fit tool. So, just apply your texture to the patch and fit/flip accordingly (in this case I fit it 1x2):

 

 

 

 

 

 

You might want to filter caulk while doing this step so that you can see the patch more easily. Note that because the brush surface is textured with caulk, only the patch will be visible in game. Note also that occasionally when you fit a texture onto a patch it may end up looking very squished. If so, usually rotating the texture by ninety-degrees will solve the issue (I think this happens when DR gets the x and y degrees on the texture confused).

 

And there you have it. Perfectly aligned textures on rotated brushes. You can use this method to align two rotated brushes side by side quite easily as well:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 30, 2014 by Moonbo

[SteveL]

Wow, so simple! Nice work moonbo, this needs wikifying the second the wiki finishes moving server and gets unlocked

[buck28]

@Moonbo

 

What a great tip. I had no clue, and it looks so easy. Thanks a million for that time saver!

[Goldwell]

Thanks Moonbo! I've been wondering if there was an easier way to do this and here it is

[Moonbo]

No problem guys :-), it's definitely a time saver!

 

@SteveL, I never could figure out the wiki stuff, but feel free to include this on the wiki when it open up.

[DeusXIncognita]

Thanks!

I was nudged here because of a problem i had in the Newbie Question thread, and this will be the best solution for my problem it seems.

Its been there for some time, but I only saw it.

Guess I will take up my work again and try this.

Now i just have to find out what exactly I wanted to do with that knowledge ;-)