Quote from mcdaniels on May 22, 2011, 8:09 am

Just tested it with a standard texture and its material file, which I both renamed directly in alien swarm/swarm/materials/lights/ in order to test PAKRAT and see, if this standard but renamed texture appears in my map. (I also changed the material file?s text content: the line $basetexture "Lights/<light_orange001>" into "Lights/<light_orange003.vtf>", a texture, that doesnt exist in portal 2?s standard content).
In HAMMER I covered some faces with this light_orange003-texture, which I could of course select in the texture application and see it in Hammer (because it?s in the materials-folder, which HAMMER refers to). Then I compiled the map containing some light_orange003-infos. If I started the map now, portal2 would never find this light_orange003-texture, because, as I said, it?s no standard-texture and I would of course see only the pink/black-texture showing that the texture files are missing.
So I had to start PACKRAT and pack in my two renamed files, which portal2 would search for when the map loads. I did this over the "add"-button, then browsed my way through alien swarm/swarm/materials/lights/ and selected light_orange003.vtf and light_orange003.vmt. After confirming the dialogue that appeared (sth. about FIX PATH...) these two files were embedded into the Map. I saved the new .bsp to where I wanted it, copied it into the portal2?s map directory and then started the map... and voila, the light_orange003-texture was visible in my map! It looked exactly the same like light_orange001, of course. This proofed that packrat was doing a good job!

Ps.: My own texture still isnt working, havent figured out yet, what Im doing wrong. I followed a very detailed desription on the internet. I saved my texture as tga, once with 32bits, another time with 16bits, but made no difference. doesnt show up the right way...when I converted the tga into the valve format .vtf with VTFEDIT, there were many possible things that could be set referring to mipmaps, resolution and stuff, but I left it all as it was, because the tutorial said I could do so! dunno what to do...HELP!!