Hey all, Quick question to those of you who map a lot. I've been mapping for about a year now, so I like to think I have a pretty good grasp of what all the textures under "tools" are used for, and I'm aware of what "Caulk" does, but I'm curious. Why does everyone build their objects out of Caulk, then re-texture? Is it so they can leave textures that will never be seen "invisible" and save game resources? Honestly, I've always just used the textures I wanted, and never bothered with that step, as it just seemed unnecessary to me. are there any major benefits to using Caulk? Am I making a mistake not using it? My PC can basically run anything, so I never notice frame-rate differences, so if it makes a difference in frame-rate, I wouldn't know. Thanks!

Hey all, Quick question to those of you who map a lot. I've been mapping for about a year now, so I like to think I have a pretty good grasp of what all the textures under "tools" are used for, and I'm aware of what "Caulk" does, but I'm curious. Why does everyone build their objects out of Caulk, then re-texture? Is it so they can leave textures that will never be seen "invisible" and save game resources? Honestly, I've always just used the textures I wanted, and never bothered with that step, as it just seemed unnecessary to me. are there any major benefits to using Caulk? Am I making a mistake not using it? My PC can basically run anything, so I never notice frame-rate differences, so if it makes a difference in frame-rate, I wouldn't know. Thanks!

People leave them as caulk textures because it makes them feel special inside 
You can use any texture, the actual idea behind it is that in the early stages of mapping, you don't want to commit to anything because the layout could change at any time, so you don't want to waste time texturing brushes and patches you might resize or delete later. Once you're reasonably satisfied with everything then you start adding textures.

As far as surfaces that are hidden, yes, use caulk textures. Caulk isn't rendered by the game engine, so it saves FPS if you set any hidden surfaces to Caulk.

People leave them as caulk textures because it makes them feel special inside 
You can use any texture, the actual idea behind it is that in the early stages of mapping, you don't want to commit to anything because the layout could change at any time, so you don't want to waste time texturing brushes and patches you might resize or delete later. Once you're reasonably satisfied with everything then you start adding textures.

As far as surfaces that are hidden, yes, use caulk textures. Caulk isn't rendered by the game engine, so it saves FPS if you set any hidden surfaces to Caulk.

Ok, thanks for the clarification. I designed my entire map without Caulk so far, so I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something major