question Why name in material needs to include path to texture

[datiswous]

Noob question: In the following wiki page Material_Files#Create_a_new_Texture_Definition it states:

Quote

 First, specify the name of your new material. If it is not a model texture, then the name should include the path to the texture files used

Why would you need the path in the name? I see this a lot in material files, but technically this doesn't seem to be needed. If you use material name "dirty_water" for example, tdm and DR load it fine.

Edited November 27, 2025 by datiswous

[Arcturus]

It's just a convention. It can cause trouble when the name is so long it doesn't fit inside Blender's character limit. But material names can be whatever, except they should be original so they don't conflict with each other.

[HMart]

Like Arcturus said materials names do not need to be a real path to a texture.  Thou afaik Radiant (and probably DR?) uses it to display it in a virtual folder tree in the editor, meaning if is a single word, it shows up in the root of the media window.

Spoiler

idSoftware afaik used that convention because that is what they probably did since idTech1 or 2, in those days a "material" (or "shader" in Quake 3 parlance), was really a single texture in the base folder and ingame for the most part (not sure about Quake 3), so made sense for the path to point to the real texture.

Doom 3 and idTech4 changed all of that but the convention just stuck. 

 

Edited November 27, 2025 by HMart