This guide explains how to create custom textures that can be used on terrain brushes in Dromed.

These directions are for Jasc Paint Shop Pro, but can be easily translated for Photoshop or GIMP.

1. Clip out the desired texture from the source image.
2. To simplify later steps, resize the texture to a square. Other aspect ratios may lead to unwanted results. You should also use a higher resolution to prevent loss of detail. Try using sizes like 128, 256, or 1024. e.g. a 217×123 clipping is best sized to 256×256).
3. Copy the clipout into a new texture, resize it 200%, then copy the same clipout onto the resized one 4 times, so it repeats in 2 columns and 2 rows (A,B,C,D)
4. Blend the edges between the copied textures A,B,C,D. I suggest doubling the size once more. This gives you more area to work with, even 4 times for very fine details.
   There are several ways to blend the images. Some textures need more work than others. How you do this requires practice and experimenting with these options. No matter how you do the blending, the end result should be seamless.
   • Mirror trick: Works for some types of textures. Mirror part B, and invert and mirror C & D from part A.
   • Push trick: Copy and paste small parts of a texture a onto the edges of B,C & D.
   • Smoothing: Smoothens the pixels/edge transitions.
   • Smudge: Combine pushing and smoothing. Has stepsize, downsizing, opacity and density options, so you do several steps in one take (recomended).
   • Use Selection→Convert to Seamless Pattern. This is an automated process that replaces steps 3 & 4.
5. Select a new clipout with dimensions half the original size. i.e. Select 512×512 if the working image is 1024×1024. I prefer to clip out a little below the upper-left corner. To make it more browser friendly, clip out the middle part so the texture alignment is centered. Just be sure that the blended parts of the texture are inside the clip border.
6. If all is done right, it is now a texture. But to verify this, do as in step 3: copy the clipout into a new texture, resize it 200%, copy the new clipout onto the resized one 4 times so it makes 2 columns and rows. You will now see if it is really seamless or not. If the blended edges mismatch, then repeat or redo step 4. Optionally, do step 6 several times if you would like the pattern to be repeated more than once within a texture.¹⁾
7. Save this new texture in your work folder. I sometimes save in step 6, using PSP format, in case I discover errors or something that needs a fix. Resize so both X and Y are a power of 2 (i.e. 256,128,64,32, or 16) although it need not be square, and save it. Optionally convert to 256 colors, using nearest color reduction, to remove color dynamics a bit.

To make a new Dromed texture family, create a new folder in Thief’s fam folder (Mynewfam/Mytex.pcx). You should add a palette with it as well. Save the same texture as full.pcx and Dromed will use this as the main palette for all the textures in this family. If you forget to make the palette, the colors will look weird.

Before saving full.pcx, make the color in index 0 bright pink or green. Then use the color replacer tool to change all instances of that color to something similar to the previous color. Save the palette from full.pcx and then load it into each other texture in the family to ensure they all live happily together.