The layer editor

The layer editor

The Layer editor window, shown below, is opened via the Edit button in the material editor window.

The various settings and controls are described below:

Texture settings

Texture file name

The filename of the texture image for this layer. Valid file types include BMP, JPG/JPEG, PNG, TGA and DDS. All files should be in the following directory or subdirectories thereof:

WinXP	C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\L3DT\Resources\[version]\Climates\
Vista	C:\Users\[username]\L3DT\Resources\[version]\Climates\

The weighting of this texture layer as a fraction of the final texture output. The weightings of all texture layers in each material are adjusted automatically so that they sum to 1, to avoid texture saturation/colour clipping.

Texture blend mode

Add	This texture is combined with the other texture layers by addition.
Modulate	This texture is used to modulate the other texture layers (e.g. a greyscale 'detail map'.)

Bump map settings

Bump map file name

The filename of the bump-map image for this layer. For information of bump-mapping, see the light-mapping algorithms page. For information on generating bump-maps, see this tutorial.

Bump map weighting

Same as for texture weighting, above.

Resolution settings

The resolution settings determine how the texture/bump-map layer is stretched horizontally when applied to the final texture or normals map.

Set res.

Set res. is the horizontal stretch ratio of the texture layer. It takes on a different meaning depending on the value of the relative to TX/HF ratio checkbox:

If 'relative to TX/HF ratio' is false...

…the texture scaling is relative to the heightfield. This means that:

A value of 1 will make each pixel of the texture layer match up with a pixel in the heightfield.
Values larger than 1 compress the texture layer for high-detail. For example, a value of 4 will give 4×4 texture pixels per heightfield pixel (assuming this is a high-res texture).
Negative values stretch-out the texture. For example, a value of -2 will mean that each pixel from the texture layer is stretched across 2×2 pixels from the heightfield.

If 'relative to TX/HF ratio' is true...

…the texture scaling is relative to the texture map. This means that:

A value of 1 will make each pixel of the texture layer match up with a pixel in the final texture, irrespective of the texture resolution (TX/HF ratio¹⁾).
A value greater than 1 is meaningless.
A negative value such as -2 will stretch-out the texture layer, so that each pixel from the texture layer is stretched across 2×2 pixels in the final texture.