Curves 201: Lesson 6
Texturing Tricks
Texturing curves can be a mighty tricky business, but there are some concepts that make it much easier. First of all, you should be using the PATCH options on the Surface Inspector.
Every time that you are editing the textures on a cap, you should press the CAP button first. Otherwise, Radiant will try to bend the patch around the cap (making the texture distort).
Every time that you wish to repeat a texture on a curve, you should press the SET button and manually enter how many times you want that texture repeated along the curve. Pressing the FIT button is the same as entering a set value of 1x1.
If you do in fact need to move a texture manually along a curve, you need to know that the texture tools don't work the same on curves as they do on brushes. While on brushes, these values actually represent the properties of the brush face (a value of 0.556 for horizontal stretch means the texture is stretched 0.556 times), on a curve, it works differently. Instead, the value in these boxes affect how much the texture will move when you press the up and down buttons.
For example, if you have 0.556 for horizontal stretch with a curve selected, if you press up, the texture will stretch 0.556 more than it was previously stretched. If you press down, the texture will stretch that much less.
This little bit of knowledge is often overlooked in Radiant tutorials and can cause confusion for mappers who want to make the textures on their curves absolutely perfect. Hopefully we have rectified that with this little blurb right here. (: