NGLE Manual

 

The NGLE Manual

Texturing: the Basics

Texture lines above and below Door portals
by George Maciver

Ever wondered how to get non stretched textures onto walls above and below doors without having to stack rooms? If you're clever, you'd be surprised how many ways there are to work around this problem. Here are a couple of hints to get you started.

Diagonal texturing lines above and below Door portals
By Titak


One can also make those floor and ceiling parts diagonal.

1/ Click on the door in 3D view. A red frame will appear around the door in the 2D grid.

2/ Click on the door again and the red frame will change into a single red line.

3/ Click to change the direction of the red line.

4/ Now use the D/E and R/F buttons to raise/lower one side of the floor/ceiling line.
 

"Sometimes you have to find out where the texture line is to begin with but you'll soon get the hang of it."

I found out that using the Flatten floor and Flatten ceiling features puts both floor lines and both ceiling lines in the same spot. So when you want to divide the wall section below a door into two parts you can simply press the D button (floor down) And the R for the ceiling part (ceiling up). This works with all wall sections, as long as the first floor and ceiling lines are visible, and can save time.

How to make 5 texturing Rows on Walls
by Croft Storm


One of the most annoying things about the level editor is that if you create a tall room you inevitably get stretched textures, so you often neeed to create stacked rooms to acheive height. You might think that the maximum number of rows is 3, but you can actually get 5. This is briefly mentioned in the manual but very easily missed:

First of all open a new project and select a few wall panels.

The Q & A keys act like the floor + & - buttons. Try them out and raise the floor a few clicks.

The W & S keys act like the celing + & - buttons. Try them out and lower the celing a few clicks.

The E & D keys are used for creating an extra floor layer, called the sub-divided lower wall. So press E a few times and see you new row rise up!

The R & F keys are used for creating an extra celing layer, called the sub-divided upperwall. So press F a few times and see you new row lower down!

So ultimately the extra rows aren't some kind of bug, just often overlooked as they can only be controlled by the keyboard keys E,D,R & F.

How to select small Triangular Textures
by George Maciver


When selecting triangular sections of textures for difficult or small areas, you can use the key below the Esc key and beside the 1 key to toggle the green triangles. This key may vary from country to country, so maybe the tilde key will work for you instead.

 

 

How to adjust Texturing lines on floor and ceiling Blocks
by George Maciver


Ever wondered how to straighten texturing lines on floor and ceiling blocks?

Use the E and D keys and arrows! Put the arrow to the corner and use the E or D key to raise or lower the texturing line.

For ceiling blocks, simply use the R and F keys with the arrows, instead of the E and D keys.

How to apply whole textures to Broken floor and ceiling Tiles
by George Maciver

Having problems applying textures to broken tiles and getting them to match up?

Hit the Alt key at the same time as you apply the texture with your left mouse button and your problems are over. Holding the Alt key down while right mouse clicking on the texure will rotate the whole texture cleanly. Holding down the Ctrl key and the Alt key while mouse clicking will allow you to flip the texture cleanly too.

How to move Texturing lines on solid Columns
by George Maciver


Trying to move just one corner of a texturing line on a column? Frustrated because everytime you try it, lines on the other side of the block move as well?

Simple! Hold down the Ctrl key while toggling the arrows. You will be able to select and move just one corner and no other lines will move.

This will also work on partition walls dividing up a single room.

Getting rid of the Wallpaper Effect
By George Maciver


Here is a screen shot from the early stages of development of one of the levels of QRS's recent release 'Egypt and Beyond'. The wall paper effect is very evident:

Here was my suggestion:

Little tip for you, rotate every second wall brick tile 180 degrees to get rid of the wallpaper effect.

Here was QRS's reply:

Rotating them did not work so well (for this texture) but I made half of them mirrored and that did the job!

And here is the difference! Startling eh!

Of course, your job is made much easier if you use blocks of 4 or 6 textures, like these rock textures from the title flyby level of The Last Revelation:

How to get rid of the wallpaper effect on water
By Michiel


It might help to load a temp texture and put numbers on the lava textures (if it has 8 textures, number them 1-8.

Then rotate the view so you look at the left side of the 2D map and texture the faces like with the following numbers:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6
2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7
3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8
4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 1
5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 1 - 2
6 - 7 - 8 - 1 - 2 - 3

Then it might look better. Also see this picture about wallpaper effect on water:

Texturing Large Areas
by Dhama

It can be difficult to apply textures to large rooms, so if you first copy the 256x256 texture and on the copy, place numbers 1,2,3,4 etc. on each of the 64x64 cells and then apply them you can ensure they are in the correct sequence and rotated correctly. Then afterwards replace the 'numbered' texture with the original, and you will have a perfectly textured area.

Rotating Difficult to see Triangular Textures Correctly
by George Maciver

Here is a good tip for ensuring a triangular texture is rotated properly into position.

Place your triangle texture. If you're not sure it's right, place a totally different, easy to see texture there and rotate it into position. If you then apply the same triangle of your corrct texture, it will be properly applied. Alt Z is a pain, but used with this method does make things easier.

Let me illustrate. In this particular editor screen you can see which one of the textures isn't right. However, it isn't easy sometimes.

Simply select a contrasting texture, select the same triangle, and apply, like this:

Now it's easy to see the texture isn't placed properly and it's simple to rotate into place.

Now all you have to do is select the same triangle on the correct texture and apply it and it will be right.

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