Floor Trim

[mmax]

Hi all,

 

I've been asking questions about floor trim and decals through PMs and since it might be better to talk about this on an open thread I'm going to paste the latest messages here.

 

Q: "I've been messing around with DarkRadiant and the latest demo, trying to reconstruct my house, and I was wondering what would be the best approach on reproducing the trim I have at the bottom of all my walls. They're less than an inch thick and about 2.5 inches high, and I feel that making them all brushes sounds a bit much. Could I somehow have them be decals and stick them at the bottom of my walls? If so how would I go about doing that? I haven't been able to find any tutorials on decals..."

 

A: (Fidcal) "Yes, you could try a patch which is just a surface placed against the wall. It has no depth but might be OK if your texture has a good 3D effect. Try either brush or patch to see which works best for you in this situation. To create a simple patch just make a brush then select menu > patch > simple patch mesh. The textured surface will face you in the grid view. The other side is invisible so turn it if necessary. If you are new to patches you will need to experiment to get used to them."

 

 

 

Also, I think I read somewhere not to stick patches directly on walls due to Z fighting. Rather it's better to place them a fraction of an inch away. Is this true?

[HappyCheeze]

To create a decal, do a ctrl+shift left-mouse-button click on the face of a brush. Than when its highlighted, go to Brush>Create Decal Patches.

 

This will create the patch-decal of that face.

[mmax]

To create a decal, do a ctrl+shift left-mouse-button click on the face of a brush. Than when its highlighted, go to Brush>Create Decal Patches.

 

This will create the patch-decal of that face.

 

Say I Create Decal Patch for a wall, can I shrink that patch down somehow and apply a custom trim texture to it?

[Fidcal]

Yes, you can push it down with LMB the same as a brush. To change the texture you need to select the whole patch; you can't just select it as a surface. Then change the texture in the normal way in texture or media browser or surface inspector. You will probably need to click 'Natural' in surface inspector to restore its scale (not sure if this depends on whether texture lock is set.)

 

To answer your other question. It's my belief that the patch should be just clear of the brush by the tiniest grid size (which is 0.125) so there is no z-fighting.

 

Don't forget to try brush trim as well to see what is best in the situation. Some of these textures have amazing depth appearance but nevertheless a simple patch is still flat so viewed from above it might not look right. My first choice myself would have been brush trim. In a large area with a lot of trim there might be a performance gain I suppose with a patch but I'm not sure it will be significant.

[greebo]

To answer your other question. It's my belief that the patch should be just clear of the brush by the tiniest grid size (which is 0.125) so there is no z-fighting.

Note that this depends on what kind of texture you're applying to that decal patch. If you're using an actual decal texture (with filter stages) the patch should be co-planar (no offset, will not z-fight), whereas if you're using "regular" (texures with diffusemap and everything) you need to offset them by a tiny amount.

[Springheel]

If you're using an actual decal texture (with filter stages) the patch should be co-planar (no offset, will not z-fight),

 

Is there a benefit to making it co-planar rather than a very tiny offset?

[greebo]

Is there a benefit to making it co-planar rather than a very tiny offset?

Yes, the player camera is less likely to get in between the decal and the actual face, which can happen if the player is leaning into that wall or getting real close.