Hotkey To Paint Whole Brush As Selected Texture

[greebo]

As far as I'm aware, we can currently use the following methods to paint a brush with a texture lifted from another brush:

1. paint each face individually with shift-MMB, or

2. select the brush, go to the Media tab, find the texture and RMB->Apply, or

3. select the brush, go to the Textures tab, click desired texture (currently broken)

 

I'm wondering if it might be nice to have a hotkey that takes the current texture in memory and simply applies it to a brush with one click. E.g., if shift-MMB paints a face, perhaps ctrl-shift-MMB paints the whole brush. A lot less cumbersome.

Just to make sure I'm getting this right: You need a hotkey or hotclick that applies a texture to the currently selected brush.

 

This will NOT include any texture projection or texture naturalise stuff, is this what you want?

I hadn't thought about alignment really.. but since the user will have lifted the texture from another face with MMB, what are your options for putting that on a whole brush? Just using that same alignment that would have been carried from face to face, but instead from face to brush, would make the most sense I guess (assuming that's simple to do).

I'll continue the discussion about that here: So basically it's well possible to introduce another mouse/modifier combination to texture brushes, but I want to discuss these three points:

• Is it really worth it to introduce another mouse/modifier combination (the risk of user-confusion may be higher)
  
• Is it a common texturing problem to texture all brush faces with the same texture that it deserves a distinct hotkey?
  
• Currently there is the Menu>Brush>Paste Face Texture command. It's working for single selected faces only. How about extending that command to affect all selected faces (i.e. all faces of a selected brush)? It's a command, hence it's possible to assign a keyboard shortcut to it.
  

[OrbWeaver]

Shouldn't selecting the brush and then choosing a texture in the texture browser apply the texture to all brush faces? I don't see what the hotkey would do in this instance -- how would you select the texture first?

[SneaksieDave]

Is it really worth it to introduce another mouse/modifier combination (the risk of user-confusion may be higher)

I dunno, if three things to remember isn't confusing, I don't see why a fourth, optional one should be.

Is it a common texturing problem to texture all brush faces with the same texture that it deserves a distinct hotkey?

In DoomEd, select a brush, and then middle click a different brush face. The whole selected brush becomes textured as the clicked brush face. By about the tenth time in DR I walked around a brush, pasting to every face one by one, I figured I should say something. All to avoid the workflow interruption of going to the Textures tab. May seem silly, but we're all subject to doing silly things when we're working on something and don't want to be distracted.

Currently there is the Menu>Brush>Paste Face Texture command. It's working for single selected faces only. How about extending that command to affect all selected faces (i.e. all faces of a selected brush)? It's a command, hence it's possible to assign a keyboard shortcut to it.

From trying that out (on a face), assuming this workflow:

 

1. MMB on some surface, which places that face texture in memory as the "active texture"

2. select some destination brush

3. press hotkey for Paste Face Texture (to brush)

 

That sounds like it might work perfectly. Once your "important" texture is memorized (with MMB), it'd just be a matter of selecting brushes and pressing a hotkey.

 

Shouldn't selecting the brush and then choosing a texture in the texture browser apply the texture to all brush faces? I don't see what the hotkey would do in this instance -- how would you select the texture first?

Yep, that's one of the viable methods, but going to the texture browser is,

1. a pain in the neck, especially when working fullscreen - it interrupts workflow, and,

2. it's very limited in ability (almost useless really) because you can't then browse the surrounding neighbors of that texture in it's family/branch/style (like you can on the media tab).

 

Texture is first selected, or memorized, with MMB.

 

Originally I imagined, where as one already existing operation is:

- MMB a surface, then shift-MMB another surface, and the texture is transferred to that face,

 

For a brush it would be:

 

- MMB a surface, then (some click combo or hotkey) another surface, and the texture is applied to the whole brush

 

But I didn't think such a basic action would cause so much controversy. What greebo suggested with paste sounds like a good tradeoff. With it requiring a hotkey, it even puts a bit of mistake prevention in there.

 

Edit: To clarify my long windedness above: I'm not seeking new functionality... just a more convenient way to access existing functionality.

[sparhawk]

Not sure if I understand this correct. In Doomedit you can click on one brush, and then with the MMB on another brush, and the texture gets copied over there and also gets properly aligned, so that it perfectly matches a common edge. Does this mean now that DR doesn't support this, or only allows selecting this functionality via a menu? It was pretty convenient in Doomedit to do this.

[greebo]

@SneaksieDave: ok, I'll look into it and see what I can do about it. I will probably implement both approaches (a mouseclick combo and the shortcut command).

 

Does this mean now that DR doesn't support this, or only allows selecting this functionality via a menu? It was pretty convenient in Doomedit to do this.

No, DarkRadiant offers the same (or even more) functionality with mouse clicks, although by holding down a modifier instead of having the source brush selected. There exists a texture clipboard that you can fill with MMB and paste from with Ctrl-MMB, Shift-MMB and Alt-MMB (of course without having the source brush selected).

[SneaksieDave]

Yeah it really is vastly improved in this, to name just one area. In DoomEd, the select-target-brush-and-MMB-another-surface is a "destination brush from many surfaces" type of relationship. Useful, but I guess the question becomes, how often do you need to repaint the same surface over and over? DR has the superior, "many surfaces from one texture" relationship setup.