Wall texture alignment

[noisebloom]

Hey guys - so I've been working on designing levels in GZDB and have a fairly good grasp of the basics, but I'm pretty confused about wall texture alignment and haven't found any documentation that clears up my particular question. 

 

Let's say I want to make an octagonal room. I can make the horizontal and vertical linedefs 64 long, but as long as I'm snapping to grid I don't think it's trivial to make the four diagonal sides this exact length. 

 

Anyway, I want to apply ROCK01 (for example) to each wall. Since not all of the walls are 64 wide, it won't align properly, and I am incapable of getting the walls to align in GZDB Visual Mode. The pattern never matches up and I can always see the seam between the walls. 

 

I feel like I'm missing something. Is there a good process/methodology when it comes to this? Also, are there guidelines on linedef lengths, e.g. multiples of 64?

[Kappes Buur]

Texture alignment is done best in the visual mode

 

Spoiler

 

[Alper002]

Within the edit option at the top, you can choose "Align grid to selected linedef". This will allow you to get as close as possible to 64 unit long diagonal walls. Close to that option is also "reset grid transform", which resets the grid back to normal. There's also this old thread which talks about both circles and shapes and how to make them fit textures well.

 

edit:Having small grid sizes and moving the vertices can also allow you to change the length of lines pretty well, so that they align properly. Things that are off-grid aren't bad, especially if it's for texture alignment.

Edited June 18, 2019 by Alper002

[noisebloom]

3 hours ago, Alper002 said:

Within the edit option at the top, you can choose "Align grid to selected linedef". This will allow you to get as close as possible to 64 unit long diagonal walls. Close to that option is also "reset grid transform", which resets the grid back to normal.

 

I'm not seeing this after selecting a linedef... See attached.

 

Also, if this option were available, would I select a horizontal/vertical linedef that was already 64 units before selecting the option? 

 

 

[noisebloom]

2 hours ago, Kappes Buur said:

Texture alignment is done best in the visual mode

 

  Hide contents

 

 

That definitely helps - thanks. I just need to figure out how to get my linedefs the appropriate length. If I go around the whole room aligning textures, the last texture ends up being mismatched with the first.

[Nine Inch Heels]

4 hours ago, noisebloom said:

That definitely helps - thanks. I just need to figure out how to get my linedefs the appropriate length. If I go around the whole room aligning textures, the last texture ends up being mismatched with the first.

Unless by some freak-luck your linedefs add up to an exact multiple of 16/32/64/128, depending on texturse size, you're out of luck. If you want to avoid texture seams while keeping the geometry mostly intact, use "dividers" like small 16x16 or even 8x8 pillars with some support texture... Large walls with the exact same texture everywhere look bland anyway.

[noisebloom]

2 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Unless by some freak-luck your linedefs add up to an exact multiple of 16/32/64/128, depending on texturse size, you're out of luck. If you want to avoid texture seams while keeping the geometry mostly intact, use "dividers" like small 16x16 or even 8x8 pillars with some support texture... Large walls with the exact same texture everywhere look bland anyway.

 

Thanks! I'm a bit surprised to hear this... It seems like a common critique of WADs out there is texture misalignment... so unless everyone is using those multiples, WAD designers are either using dividers as stated, using uniform wall textures, or ignoring the problem altogether.

[kb1]

The sum of the widths of all the textures around the area must be divisible by the texture you're using (or if you use bricks, divisible by the tile-able section of the texture).

 

Yes, you can add a pillar to hide the mis-alignment...this will usually improve the look. But, if you want to avoid that, add up all the line widths and divide by the texture width. Any remainder will cause that mis-alignment.

 

If you're going for a natural shape, you can make small adjustments by pulling vertices outward or inward.

[Fonze]

NiH is on point; use vertical textures to break up the horizontal monotony and to provide trim/contrast. I also find it fun to Frankenstein textures into places they don't normally fit, but considering the time sink to do that I would recommend finding textures that can logically fit in many offsets to use between trim/dividers. As an example, for a horizontal stretch of texturing you could use a texture without a distinct cutoff point moving vertically up it, so that it can safely tile, or not, to your heart's content between trim and other architecture. You'd be surprised how much wiggle room you have on making textures look good; you just gotta make them work for you.

[Liberation]

If you're using UDMF you can scale textures and as long as its subtle you can get away with it.

 

Other that that you can split a lot of textures, and make them longer or shorter depending on what you need. Although the more busy the texture is, the harder this can be.

 

 

 

And failing that, as previously mentioned borders and trims which add to the level anyway.

Edited June 21, 2019 by Liberation

[Guest Unregistered account]

I once saw a post showing that you could fit a marble face texture onto a diagonal wall by splitting it up every few units with vertices.

[riderr3]

Auto-aligning textures in GZDB is a really convenient feature, but there is also a side effect. For example, after auto-aligning textures on walls, the mid-textures nearby are distorted (such as bars, etc.).

[Empyre]

3 hours ago, riderr3 said:

Auto-aligning textures in GZDB is a really convenient feature, but there is also a side effect. For example, after auto-aligning textures on walls, the mid-textures nearby are distorted (such as bars, etc.).

Unless you are using UDMF, which has separate alignments for upper, mid, and lower - so nice!