Tutorial

Importing Textures into MyLevel

By Plutonic Email: plutonic@plutonicdesign.com Website: www.planetunreal.com/plutonic/

Introduction
At some stage, you may feel the need to include in a map textures that did not come with UT or any of the bonus packs. Typically, you've made your own textures or used some that are available on the 'net. This tutorial will show you how to import textures into UT.

One of the more common problems in the mapping community is user-made texture sets. The problem is not usually the textures themselves, but rather the texture files (.utx). There have been several instances where two mappers have used the same file name for different texture sets. I'm sure you can see the problem: if both maps are installed, one of them is not going to find its texture set and therefore fail to load.

The best way to avoid this problem is to import the new textures into the 'MyLevel' texture set so that they are actually 'embedded' in the map itself. This way the map can not be separated from its textures and there is no chance of a conflict in texture set file names.

A small note of warning: importing textures into the map will increase its file size. If you have a heap of textures, you are best to make a separate texture set. Giving your texture set the same name as your map should reduce the chances of texture set conflicts; just do some research to check that there isn't another map with the same name as the one you plan to use.

Texture Properties
Any texture used in UT must have the following properties:

Importing textures
Launch UEd and open your map. Access the Texture Browser
- click on the button -
[ highlighted with a red square in the graphic below ]

select 'Import…' from its 'File' menu.

Select and open the texture that you want to important.
By default the UnrealEd is set to import textures that have been saved in .pcx file format. You may need to convert the textures to PCX-format and resize them.

The import texture dialog box will appear. Clear the contents of all fields and then type MyLevel into the 'Package' field and the name of the texture into the 'Name' field. Leave the 'Group' field blank. Make sure that 'Generate MipMaps' is selected. Click OK.

Your new texture will now appear in the Texture Browser.

To add more textures, simply repeat these steps.

DO NOT save the MyLevel texture set. When you rebuild and save the map, the textures will be saved as part of the map file.

Exporting Textures
If you wish to export a texture, simply click on the texture and then select 'Export …' from the 'File' menu in the Texture Browser window and save the PCX file.

Texture sites
Here are three great sites for user-made textures that are freely available for use in UT. In the case of the first two sites, you may need to convert the textures to PCX-format and resize some of them.

Rorshach's Journal - http://www.3dpalette.org/~rorshach/index2.shtml

[hfx] - http://planetquake.com/hfx/

Gengo textures - http://www.flakzone.it/Editing/gengo.htm

Chris ‘Plutonic’ Blundell
[30-01-01]