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Textures
Every level has its own set of textures, stored on texture pages of 256×256 pixels. A texture is a rectangle on one of those pages; faces of tiles and brushes refer to a texture by its number. The editor lets you see all of them, import your own pictures, animate them and paint them onto faces.
Texture basics
- A level has up to 127 pages. Each page has one blend class (opaque, cut-out, semi-transparent …); every texture on it should have the same class.
- Textures are numbered:
#221is texture 221 of the level. In brush texture fields you can type#221or a name. The names (grass,stone,bark…) are those of the village textures. On another base level a name means the same picture wherever that level has it (Village 2 and 3 have most of them); names the base level does not have are left out of the texture grid, and a brush that uses one is skipped with a warning. - Brushes can also use flat colours (colour names, or
rgbRRGGBB). - The game shows textures in 15-bit colour (5 bits per channel) with 1 bit of transparency, so gradients get coarser and soft edges become hard.
- Texture entries are never deleted, because faces and object models refer to them by number. An unused texture can be reused by moving its rectangle.
Texture manager
Open it with the Textures tab of the bottom dock, View → Panels → Texture manager (Ctrl+Shift+T), or the Window button for a large separate window.
Pages
The left list shows every page with a thumbnail, its number and its blend class. Right-click a page for:
- Export page as PNG… – saves the whole page,
- Replace page from PNG… – loads a picture into the whole page (scaled to 256×256 and reduced to the page's blend class).
Atlas
The middle shows the selected page with every texture rectangle:
| Colour | Meaning |
|---|---|
| white | used texture |
| red | unused texture |
| cyan | animated texture |
| orange | the current texture, with 8 handles |
- Click a rectangle to make it the current texture (the smallest one under the cursor wins).
- Drag inside the current rectangle to move it, drag a handle to resize it. Every face using the texture follows; each drag is one undo step.
- The mouse wheel zooms; tooltips show size and usage.
- Double-click starts the Paint texture tool with that texture.
Texture table
The table lists #, a preview, Name (editable), Page, Rectangle, Blend, Faces (faces of tile models plus brushes using it), Models (tile models using it) and Anim (its animation, or "frame" if it is a frame of another texture's animation).
The Show box filters the list:
| Filter | Lists |
|---|---|
| All textures | everything |
| On this page | textures of the selected page |
| Used | textures on faces, brushes or in animations |
| Unused | the others |
| Animated | textures with an animation |
| Imported | textures you imported |
Name or # searches by name or number. Double-click a row to paint with that texture.
Note: Object models (characters, pickups) also use textures from this table, but they are not counted. "Unused" means not used by tiles, brushes or animations.
Toolbar
| Button | Action |
|---|---|
| Import… | import PNG/JPG images as new textures (see below) |
| Replace pixels… | put a new picture into the selected texture's rectangle |
| Export PNG… | save the selected texture as a PNG file |
| Paint | start the Paint texture tool with the selected texture |
| Window | open the texture manager in its own large window |
Texture tab
Details of the current texture:
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Name | name shown in the editor, also usable in brush texture fields |
| X / Y | top-left corner of the rectangle on the page (pixels) |
| W × H | size in pixels – the engine maps the whole rectangle onto a quad |
| Blend | blend class (the texture flags); the page's class should match |
| flags | the raw flag value |
Below it a usage line (faces, models, brushes, animations) and two buttons:
- Duplicate – a new texture entry with the same rectangle, e.g. as the starting point for an animation frame,
- Select users – selects the tiles whose models use the texture.
Texture animations
The Animation tab animates the current texture. The game supports two kinds:
- Flip-book – the texture is replaced by a sequence of frame textures in turn (torches, flags, water in the original levels).
- Scroll – the picture moves vertically inside a band of the page (rivers, lava).
Create animation starts one (a flip-book begins with the texture itself; add frames with +), Remove animation removes it.
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Type | Flip-book, Scroll up or Scroll down |
| Frame delay | game frames each flip-book frame stays (0 = change every frame; the game runs at about 30 frames per second – the label shows the resulting frames/s) |
| Back and forth | play forwards then backwards instead of looping |
| Band height | scroll: height of the page area the picture wraps in (usually the texture height) |
| Speed (px/frame) | scroll: pixels per game frame |
| Top row (v0) | scroll: first page row of the band (usually the texture's top edge) |
| Frames | flip-book frames: + adds a texture by number (the current texture is suggested), − removes, ◀ ▶ move the selected frame |
A live preview runs at game speed. The 3D viewport does not animate textures; the preview and the game do.
Tip: To make a new flip-book: import all frames as textures, select the first one, Create animation, then add the others with + by their numbers.
Importing textures
File → Import texture… or Import… in the texture manager opens the Import textures dialog for one or more images (PNG, JPG, BMP, GIF). The two previews show the picture as it is (Original) and as the game will show it (In the game (15-bit)).
| Option | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Size (longest side) | 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 or Original (up to 256); the aspect ratio is kept, rectangles need not be powers of two |
| Blend class | how the texture is drawn (table below); the description appears below the box |
| Transparent below alpha | pixels less opaque than this become fully transparent (default 64) |
| Keep half-transparent pixels | pixels between the cut and 75 % opacity stay half transparent instead of solid |
| Transparent colour | None, Magenta (FF00FF) or Top-left pixel: a colour that becomes transparent, for images without an alpha channel |
| Dither (smoother gradients in 15-bit colour) | ordered dithering against colour banding |
| Pack into free space of existing pages | use unused areas of pages of the same blend class before adding new pages |
| 1-pixel border (against seams) | repeats the edge pixels around the texture, so filtering never shows the neighbour's pixels |
Blend classes
| Class | Use for | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Opaque | walls, floors, most things | solid; transparent pixels become black |
| Cut-out | leaves, fences, grids | fully transparent pixels, everything else solid |
| Semi-transparent | glass, water, smoke | half-transparent pixels blend 50 % |
| Additive glow | light, fire, sparkles | adds its colour to what is behind it |
| Darken (mode 3) | shadows | darkens what is behind it |
The editor guesses the class from the image (alpha channel or not). Imported textures are new texture numbers; the status bar names them. The whole import is one undo step.
Engine limit: at most 127 texture pages. The Check reports more pages as an error.
Replacing pixels
Edit → Replace texture pixels… or Replace pixels… puts a new picture into the current texture's rectangle – every face using the texture changes at once. The dialog is the same, with the size fixed to the texture's rectangle. Useful to repaint an original texture (a sign, a poster) without touching any faces.
Paint texture tool (M)
The Paint texture tool (M, toolbar, or double-click a texture in the manager) puts the current texture onto faces.
- Hover: the face under the cursor gets a white outline; the status bar shows the model, face number, current texture and face flags (and "model shared by n tiles").
- Click: gives the face the current texture. The clicked face stays selected (orange) for the buttons below.
- Shift+click picks the texture of a face (eyedropper). I or Edit → Texture eyedropper does the same for the next click.
Options bar:
| Control | Meaning |
|---|---|
| swatch | the current texture – choose one in the texture manager or pick it from a face |
| eyedropper button | the next click picks a texture (I) |
| scope | Face (only the clicked triangle), Same texture in model (all faces of the model that had the same texture), Whole model |
| rotate button | turns the texture on the selected face (cycles its corners; on brushes: the brush's texture rotation) |
| mirror button | mirrors the texture on the selected face |
| half button | shows the other half of the texture rectangle on the selected triangle |
| Unique | if the clicked tile shares its model with other tiles, give it its own copy first |
Note: Original tiles often share one model – a hundred grass tiles may use the same one. Without Unique, painting one of them changes all of them. With Unique only the clicked tile changes (it gets its own copy of the model, which adds data to the level).
Brushes: clicking a brush sets the texture of the side you click – the top texture when you click the top, bottom for the underside, otherwise the side texture (for fences, trees and pillars the first texture parameter, such as the post or trunk). The rotate button then turns the texture of the last painted brush.
Engine limit: each triangle shows one half of its texture rectangle – that is why "other half", rotate and mirror exist instead of free UV editing. Object models cannot be painted.
Textures in the game
Limits
- Texture entries are never deleted; reuse unused ones by moving their rectangle.
- Object models' textures are not counted as "used" and their faces cannot be painted.
- The importer does not change the class of an existing page; it never packs into a page of another class.
- Imported meshes create their textures automatically (see Importing meshes).