tired of having to do a reload on textures and switching back and forth form your text editter when making a new material file
well there is hope
you can do a real time preview of your material in d3
create a dummy texture in this case
either by using a text editor or jumping ahead and launching the declaration editor and creating a new texture there
textures/exhale1/y1u2
{
}
and thats all
now go to your editor load up a map add a brush or patch mesh to be your sample surface
select it
hit
f7
f6
f4
f7= render
f6=animate
f4=realtime
now the problem is when you select your texture its black nothing ther were about to fix that
click on the console tab of the entity inspector
at the bottom in the entry field type
editdecls
wait a second and a browser window will appear
ahh but sorrow now textures are listed
dont panic go down to materials
click on it then browse down to textures and you will see all of them there
click on
textures/exhale1/y1u2
now click the edit button at the bottom of the window
a fancy text editor opens up
so what well the magic here is the test button at the bottom as you make changes to the textures click test and you will see a realtime update in editor
oh joy
then when your done you can simply click on the save button
saves a lot of time when your trying to learn to do different stuff with textures
also
its okay to reload the materials in editor if you feel you should (thought no need with this method )
but do not reload the declaration browser quite often all that is left is the tables entry without all the others and you have to relaunch the editor to get them back
have fun
this is a great way to test your math or how altering variables affects your materials without waiting on an editor reload