Stuff you might want to ask, and what I might want to reply.
General questions
Where are these textures from?
They are from me. I made them. Many are drawn from scratch, others are based on photo sources.
Texture X is totally from project Y!
No it’s not. If it’s similar it’s possible that I drew inspiration from something else, but I made these
How did you make these textures?
Photoshop, patience, experience. Most are done with a mouse but some, especially organic details, are with a wacom pen/tablet. Obviously some detail is also from photos. A sane person would use a 3D program for the bump maps but I’ve stubbornly stuck to using Photoshop, since I apparently can’t make myself learn Blender or whatever.
Are you a professional?
Absolutely not. I’m genuinely unskilled for this kind of stuff, which is why these took something like 15 years to make. 99% of what I do looks like ass, but then I stubbornly keep going until it somehow looks good-ish.
Can you teach me to make textures?
Probably not, you should learn from someone who knows what they’re doing
What do the names mean?
Most of the 4 letter sequences can be figured out, while others are more far fetched. BRCK is obviously brick, but BNKR meaning bunker is less clear perhaps, and I’ve honestly forgotten some of the names.
What do the numbers mean?
For most of them they refer to the subdivisions, first digit being vertical and second being horizontal (i know this is yx and not the standard xy, so sue me). For example 64px divisions is 3, and 32px is 4. So 64×32 blocks is 43. n7-9 is often alt variations of these patterns, 90+ is big symbols etc, and 00-09 is plain variations. Some themes deviate from this for various reasons but 40 will always be 32px “band” segments, and so on.
Why does everything start with an O?
Because I made them and my name is Ola. No IWAD textures or FLATs start with an O so I made that my own namespace.
Will you be adding more textures?
Maybe, but there are zero guarantees. It might also take 15 years, apparently
Can I contribute?
Thanks for offering, but I want to retain absolute control over this set. However if you make a nice edit or combine patches in some useful way, let me know and I might recreate that for the core set.
Requests and modifications
I need a special version of texture X. Can you create it?
If you’re in need of something that is somewhat universal, let me know and I can probably create it for you from the source material (which is always better than editing the down sampled, palette converted ones in the WAD). But if you need a super custom thing to create a specific effect in a single map, I probably won’t do it. These are meant to be fairly universal.
Can I make my own versions?
Sure, but there’s considerable chance it won’t be as good as if I do it from the source files so if it’s something you think others might find useful, let me know.
Can you convert these to the Heretic or Hexen palette?
No, these are Doom textures.
Why didn’t you make them PNGs? Let me educate you on 24 bit color!
Doom has an 8 bit palette. These are Doom textures.
You should make them high res!
No I shouldn’t. These are Doom textures.
Please make the skies taller to support mouselook!
Some are already 240 or 256, but I prefer Doom played the classic way, without mouselook, so it’s what I’ve designed for.
Usage and distribution
How do I copy them to my WAD?
Your editor can probably save a level into a resource WAD, or you can use tools like Slade.
I want to use your textures alongside other textures
If there is some style or variation you’re missing, let me know and maybe I can add it. To combine textures from multiple sources into your project can be tricky if you’re new to the format, but this is a bit beyond the scope of this page.
I do recommend you make sure to remove the texture definitions and their graphics lumps that your project doesn’t use, or your file size will be very bloated.
I want to use these in a project with a custom palette!
If you only do things like desaturate the blue’s a little but leave their positions in the palette intact, it’ll work fine. If you do something more extensive, like Ancient Aliens, this won’t work. There are a lot of very careful color utilization choices made in these textures so changing those around will fuck shit up.
How do I use the skies?
Google “MBF Sky Transfers”.
What the hell is texture X for?
Whatever you want. You don’t have to use it.
Feedback and bugs
I found a stray pixel / tiling issue / face of jesus!
Let me know what texture it is and what the error is, and I’ll fix it.
The circle on texture x is squished!
No it isn’t, it’s you who are playing on the wrong aspect ratio settings. Doom does not have square pixels, which is due to the original resolution being 320×200 on a 4:3 aspect ratio.
Why aren’t these working in vanilla/chocolate DOOM?
Because skies have a TEXTURE height exceeding 128. Sorry, but as much as I want to honor the original, I want to be able to build maps where you see far down without having to resort to vertical tiling skies. There’s also ANIMATED and SWITCHES lumps that are incompatible with vanilla Doom, and woth v1.0 OTEX exceeds the maximum number of lumps a single WAD can have for vanilla Doom. If someone wants to make and maintain a vanilla compatible version, please reach out!