Texture bashing/splicing and texture stitching

[DoomGappy]

WIP thread, screenies will be added shortly. I'm just a very hotheaded guy.

 

Texture bashing or texture splicing is a technique that allows mappers to segment linedefs into multiple smaller linedefs in order to achieve some great looking surfaces. This is achieved by placing vectors across the linedef. Here are some examples of that.

 

 

 

Texture stitching is similar to texture bashing, but it connects the ceiling and the floor of a sector, and allows mappers to achieve some interesting looking combinations. Here are some examples of that. 

 

 

 

 

In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to use these techniques in order to achieve very interesting looking maps.

 

Disclaimer: I don't know if this technique already has a name, or if there are any other tutorials teaching it. We've used names that sound fairly intuitive and easy to remember.

 

Texture bashing/splicing

Let's begin with texture bashing/splicing. We are going to make a lift using SUPPORT3 and another surface material. First, we'll make our lift. Draw a square room with a square center in the middle. Let's make it 160 by 192.

 

 

After we've finished making the sector for our lift, let's go into 3D view mode by pressing Q. Then let's raise the rooms ceiling to 256 and the lifts floor to 128 and texture the bottom part with startan. It should look like this.

 

 

After that, let's go into vertices mode and place the vertices for our textures. SUPPORT3 has two 24 pixel metal bars and one 16 pixel bar. Let's make a 24 pixel separation on each side of each linedef. Here is what you should have after you're done.

 

 

Now, let's go into 3D mode and place SUPPORT3 in the corner parts. It should look something like this. It already looks very interesting. 

 

 

After that, just texture the middle parts with whatever you want. I chose SKSNAKE2 and also added SFLR6_4 for the lift floor.

 

 

Finally, go into linedefs mode and assign the proper linedef actions and tags. It's important to select all linedefs when doing this, unless you want your lift to be activated by a button or walkover line. For the purpose of this tutorial, we'll do a regular Doom lift.

 

 

Important: Don’t forget to tag linedef and sectors in order to make it compatible with ports other than GZDoom!

 

And there we go! Our texture spliced/bashed lift is ready. Next, I'll make a similar lift but enclosed by walls, so we can understand how we can use the same technique for making interesting looking lift railings.

 

First, let's make an elevated room at the corner of our room. Just make an adjacent square and raise it until the floor is over the ceiling of the first room. Let's go with 256 for the floor and 512 for the ceiling.

 

 

Then, let's copy and paste our lift there, in the connection of the rooms. Raise it to the level of the raised room you created.

 

 

Now, let's erase the vertices on the back of the elevator. We need to make new vertices to fit with the textures we are going to use. After that, let's lower the elevator so we can see the back side of the lift.

 

 

 

 

 

We are going to use a mix of SUPPORT3 and doortrak here. Let's make some divisions. I will create one vertex 48 pixels away from each side of the back of the lift, and a 48 pixel linedef in the middle. It should look like this:

 

 

 

After we've made the vertices, we can use the texture in the surfaces. Go into 3D view mode and lower the lift so we can see the back side. Let's texture the appropriate surfaces with SUPPORT3. After that, we'll use doortrak on the other surfaces. This is what it should look like.

 

 

 

There, we made our lift. It looks very cool, right? You can experiment with creating subdivisions and using different types of texture. My map wood5flat5 used this technique extensively to make different looking things from a single texture. Go check it out, and leave a review!

 

 

Texture stitching (WIP)

 

Spoiler

If the floor and ceiling of a sector have the same height, the surface will show as a solid wall. This can be used to achieve some very interesting results, as shown before. Here is a quick step by step of the process.

 

Important : Doomguy is 56 pixels tall, and his eye sockets are placed 41 pixels from the ground (a little mismatched from where his actual eyes would be). 32 pixels is the height he shoots from. In this little ruler I made for texture makers, you can see where his eyes would meet the textures if you follow the yellow line. More info about the ruler's usage here. It's important to consider this information when doing texture stitching, as well as doing extensive testing to achieve the look you want.

 

 

 

Make a sector and Define the height where sectors meet. Raise the floor to the desired height and lower the ceiling to the same height. You can do this in 3D view mode, but the best way for this technique is going to sectors mode and defining it manually in the sector properties. We are going for 40 pixels which is just below doomguy's line of sight.

 

After you've made both parts meet, you can choose the textures you want. We are going to make some mixed marble stones for the purpose of this tutorial. Let's texture the bottom part of the walls with (marble brick), and the top part of the wall with (grey marble). 

 

Important: this technique can work well with boom based formats, but it shines much brighter in UDMF format, which allows upper and lower textures to have different offsets. In boom and its lineage, they are connected and that can make it difficult to achieve good alignment, but it's possible nonetheless.

 

 

After aligning things properly, you can see that it looks quite good. If you change the height where sectors meet, you can achieve different looks, but we're not done yet. Let's expand on the concept. 

 

You can make sectors divided by a very small gap, 8 to 16 pixels of height and use the light textures to achieve the look of an inset illumination wall.

 

Let's do that now. Create a small room

 

Now, still in draw lines mode, draw the contour of the room, 8 pixels afar from the original. This will be our texture spliced sector.

 

Go into 3d view mode or sector properties and adjust the height of the putter sector until there is an 8 pixels différence between them. I'm going for 40 for the floor height and 48 for the ceiling height.

 

When you go into 3D view mode, you are going to see a hole between the two parts. Select the texture you see there and apply a light texture. I'll choose zxxxx

 

 

Now, texture the upper and lower parts as we did before.

 

 

Don't forget to check the floor and ceiling flats of the outer sector with the lights, as well as the brightness levels.

 

Now you have a cool wall decoration with inset lights. You can use this for hallways to great effect. 

 

Here Is a little texture museum @SpaceCat_2001 put together to show some of the possible combinations you can achieve using this technique. Feel free to explore it. Analyze and understand the techniques applied here. 

 

 

Special thanks to @SpaceCat_2001 who helped me build the texture museum and review the tutorial. 

 

That is all for this tutorial. Happy mapping!

 

 

Changelog

Spoiler

V1.0 - 08/11/2023 

Original thread posted.

V1.1 - 27/02/2024
Texture Bash museum wad added to thread

 

Edited February 27 by DoomGappy

[Finnisher]

Ooh yes both are super useful! Thank you for taking the time to write it down.

[DoomGappy]

On 11/13/2023 at 3:11 AM, Finnisher said:

Ooh yes both are super useful! Thank you for taking the time to write it down.

I'll still come back to add pictures to the second section as well as make a little video tutorial, but these take some time. Pretty swamped with other projects for now!

[DoomGappy]

Small update to an old thread. Me and @SpaceCat_2001 (who actually was the one who introduced me to this technique) put together a little museum with some effects you can achieve by using the stock textures and these properties. This is probably something that's not so obscure, but I promise it can raise the standards of your mapping to the next level if you take your time with it. You can check it out here. I still plan on adding more pictures to the second part of the tutorial, but things have been pretty hectic here. 

Edited February 27 by DoomGappy