Descent's walls are flat faces with a texture on them; whatever structure a wall seems to have is only painted on.

D2X-XL now gives textures depth. A texture can come with a height map, and the renderer uses it to let grooves, plates and rock sink into the wall or stand out of it. Lighting follows the relief, too, be it the light of the lamps in the level, of weapon fire or of your headlight. The relief is visible close up and fades out in the distance.

Signs, lamps and other overlay textures needed some extra care. Descent simply paints them over the base texture, as a cheap replacement for geometry, and on a base texture with relief they would follow all its bumps and dents. They are now placed on top of the base texture's relief.

Robots and other models get relief as well once they are large enough on the screen.

Displacement mapping is active with render quality set to medium or high and lighting quality set to high or extreme. Textures without a height map remain flat.