United3dArtists Archive

LoadTextureMap is a workflow accelerator to load both textures and alpha maps into the Material Editor in one clic. It enhances the process of loading textures, especially when working with textures like trees and plants that require alpha maps.

It uses the standard Windows' dialogue box to browse your hard disks rather than trueSpace's native dialogue box. That dialogue box is larger and resizable, which makes display and browsing through texture thumbnails more comfortable. That dialogue box also comes with its shortcuts on the left. Note that you can replace the default shortcuts with your own texture paths, using TweakUI, a tool from PowerToys for Windows XP.

Special Thanks again to Emmanuel for writing the help file.

Download can be found here

No reply to DD's post yet.
That's weird.

Or perhaps, people don't realize how much that new tool accelerates work in trueSpace.

Say you have to paint an object with a texture. In the traditional workflow, you must :
1. open the Material Editor,
2. Expand the Material Editor,
3. Right-clic in the Color panel,
4. Drag the slider and pick up the Texture Map icon in the Shaders Library,
5. Close the Shaders Library to free up some space on your screen,
6. Right-clic again in the Color panel to get the Open File dialogue box -which is always too small as it only displays three (yes 3 !!!) thumbnails at once-
7. You are not done : if you need an alpha map, you must clic the Transparency:Transparency Map selector,
8. And right-clic again to pick up the alpha file in that ridiculous small dialogue box.

BUT... HERE COMES THE LOADTEXTUREMAP TSX.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, you just have to clic the tSX icon to pick up your favorite texture, in a laaaaarge dialogue box, to load it into the Material Editor... IN ONE CLIC !


So now the question is : how are you going to fill the free hours of the saved clics ?


Thank you again DD

how? watching an old man fishing? :) no thanks :))

but great work DD :)

I dont have to say that plugin writers are those ppl making tS alive (not only - more - bringing new power to tS) and the most valuable ppl these days.

ps: that "_a" extension could be variable thing to set up using right click on the tsx button, where could be your name and textbox to write that suffix. For instance I looked to my folders and I hav _m as mask :) Is it problem or just another 5 min.? Just a suggestion, nothing more. Its good anyway.

Thanks DD.... this will save my eyesight... well done.

Hey D.D.
great idea, very useful indeed. This plug-in comes in quite handy during my "Revitalising" project. I placed several plants and trees and it can be quite time consuming changing all textures and alpha channels.

Thnx.

Looks like you're crankin em out DesignDevil! Excellent!

Thank you. This is great!