Feature Request: Texture painting onto existing textures

[sk89q]

I don't see how this could be implemented any time soon because it would require that everything involved be changed (BSP, compilers, the engine). Plus, it would be more fitting if it involved a new map file format, but regardless...

It would be great if you could paint a texture onto another brush like it was decal. This would have the advantage of adding extra features to a surface (windows, etc.) without raising the already-precious polygon count. For example, for a building, you could construct the actual brushes for windows on the first floor and then paint the window textures for the upper floors. No one would notice this and maps would look fantastic. To do this now, you would have to create a new repeating texture, but this would result in greater file size usage for the map.

[IronFist]

I forgot how this is done, but isn't it already implemented? For example, ub_rooftop.

[ViciouZ]

Well, there's the one-face brush solution with a transparent texture, or you could use rscripts.

[sk89q]

It's not easily doable.

Using a one-face brush is quite a pain, and it does add polygons (albeit not much).

And rscripts are very much a pain.

[Garrett]

I like the idea.  The work for implementing would involve a lot.  If this would work, I believe the development on bsp should be done by the community and the game code for the engine to be already implemented and released.  Jitspoe has mentioned that he doesn't have any plans for developing bsp any farther.  The new map format would almost defiantly be needed for this also because it would almost be a waste of time implementing this and then having to tweak it once the new map format would come out.

[sk89q]

I got the idea from Source. I was examining the buildings in Left 4 Dead to see how they were done while keeping the polygon count down.

[jitspoe]

I'm not sure what you're proposing here - looks like they just used window textures for the top.  "Decals" are just polygons put in front of other polygons, so regardless of how you do it, you're adding polygons to the scene (unless you have a texture with the brick and the windows that just tiles, but that's just standard texture usage - no fancy new features).