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 Textures

 Textures: expansion key  < e >

As it was mentioned above, pressing the e key on a texture in 3D mode will toggle the scale of that texture by 50%. If you have applied a 64 x 64 texture on a ceiling, you can toggle between 64 x 64 and 32 x 32. You cannot make a texture that is in actual size 64 x 64, 128 x 128. You can make a 128 x 128, 64 x 64 but not the other way round. I just want to make sure you understand this. You can only scale down a texture or bring it to its actual size. Use the e key to toggle between the two options when painting floors or ceilings.

note: There's a slight problem with the name of this function:
it's called the Expansion key when it doesn't really expand tiles, does it?

 Textures: scaling & panning  < Shift >  < 2 >  < 4 >  < 6 >  < 8 >  < / >  and  < e >  

Scaling and panning: we have to discuss what we mean by these two terms. Scaling is altering the texture's size or scale. Panning is moving a texture from side to side or top to bottom. However, some people don't make much of a distinction between the two procedures. Don't be confused any longer. For this discussion, I'm giving you the definitions before we talk about the two procedures.

Let's start with scaling since it's usually the first thing we do to a texture after painting it on to a surface.
By default, the texture is painted on to a wall from the top-down and usually this is what we want but the texture does not fit (we'll talk about painting them bottom-up, later). Some of the texture runs in to the floor and hence we need to scale the texture so that the image fits on the wall. That's what we discussed with the default cube example when we talked about the door tile. We had to scale the texture both horizontally and vertically. We did this by pressing the 6 key on the door tile to scale it horizontally and the 2 key to scale it vertically. The 2 key shrunk the texture vertically. If we had, and most likely we did, scaled the texture short, we would stretch the texture back by pressing the 8 key on the door and likewise, we would have used the 4 key to stretch the texture, horizontally.

We use the 2, 4, 6, and 8 keys on the keypad when scaling a texture the appropriate size on a wall surface.
For panning textures on a wall surface, we press and hold the Shift key while we use one of the numeric keys previously mentioned to pan, move the texture from side to side, top to bottom.

However, using Shift on a ceiling or floor will not do anything. You have to use the e key on a ceiling or floor to scale the texture and again, I have to harp on the grid size used for the size of the room or area... but I won't. Just have a look at the extended blurb about the Default Cube, above. You can really only pan the ceiling and floor textures. The scaling is dependent on the size of the area (grid size or number of grid squares) and whether or not a texture, full sized or halved, will fit.

 Sprites: scaling & panning  < 2 >  < 4 >  < 6 >  < 8 >  and  < Page Up >  < Page Down >  < / >

The same four numeric keys on the keypad are used for scaling sprites: 2, 4, 6, and 8.
Holding or using the Shift key while we use one of the numeric keys does not do anything when scaling sprites. To pan sprites up or down, you use the Page Up and Page Down key in 3D mode. To move sprites from side to side, you have to move them by dragging the sprite in 2D mode.

 Textures: relative mapping  < r >

Relative mapping is what you do when you have a sector which is positioned diagonally opposed to North, South, East, West, such as the grid is in 2D mode. ( There is another reason/use for relative mapping but we'll get to that, shortly ). This will be best illustrated with an example:

Let's say that you have made a couple of boxes that sit on the floor in one area of your map and to make it look a little more realistic, you've set one right on the gird squares and the other you have positioned diagonally. For the box on the left you could simply use the f key to flip the texture to align it. For the box on the right you would have to relative map it by pressing the r key on the top surface of the box. This would paint the texture on it diagonally and you could then flip it and move it so that the texture sits perfectly on this box.

The above example is one such use of relative mapping. The other use is when you are making sectors that move. Whether they are a subway train, two way train or rotating sectors, you would relative map those moving sectors so that the textures are stationary while those sectors are in motion. Well, not that those textures are actually static but they appear to be moving with the sectors they are painted on.
note: Although the above example shows a 2D example, the procedure for aligning the textures would be done in 3D mode.

 Sprites: relative mapping  < r >

Making a sprite "relative" has to do with having it lay flat relative to the wall, floor, or ceiling. Basically, it's making the sprite flat. All one has to do to make a sprite "relative" is place the cursor on it in 3D mode and press the r key on it. Every time you press the r key on the sprite, it changes its relative position, that is, pressing r once makes it relative to (parallel to some surface; usually a wall), or perpendicular to the position of its tail.

You can see which way the sprite's tail is positioned in 2D mode. If its tail is facing North (toward the top of the screen) then in 3D, pressing r on it once makes it lay flat, vertically, east/west. Turn its tail to face West, and in 3D, it is relative, North/South. Get the idea?

Pressing the r key on the sprite a second time makes it lay flat, horizontally on the floor and pressing the r key on the sprite a third time has it go back to its original state which is pseudo 3D (that is, the sprite spins as you move around it).