Mapping: Beyond basic shapes...

[ShadowRunner]

OK any noob can click on cube, sphere, cylinder, cone/pyramid etc...

But we are going one step further. How to make complex brushes. Please note this tut is aimed at those who already have found their way around the basic buttons of the editor.

Here is a roof I made using an add and two subtract brushes... very simple.


OK now we are gonna make a complex shape. I keep this one very simple though... you can make much more complex brushes, but remember to check theck them for BSP and especially collision errors.

OK make a cylinder which is hollow...Golden rule, do this in a clear area.

Then make a cube and subtract half of your cylinder

Now select BOTH brushes, the subtract and the add, right click on the add is best, now select "COPY POLYGONS", now select "TO BRUSH". You should end up with something that looks like this.

Now take third button in right column of buttons... the one with the red arrow, funnily enough. Click it... you just have just intersected...or is it de-intersected, well anyway you have hit the 3rd button down, right column. and should see this...

Now u can delete the original brushes, the subtract and the add...

and you are left with a lovely teapot handle...


This way of carving up brushes to make a sexy one is very useful I hope.

You can keep this brush in your map folder too, BRUSH>EXPORT, save it as a .t3d

I have quite a library of brushes now... from UT, from SP and from my own maps... Will eventually release a pack. Categories like UNATCO desk, MJ12 lab door etc... The fantastic thing about these brushes, if you have the original textures in your folder, the brush will add into the world with all it's textures already textured properly, the amount of time it saves is awesome.

[Majestic]

Very nice tut Shadow!

[chin.democ.]

Thanks for this Shadow!

If you do plan on releasing a t3d pack, I guess you have to make sure that you check whether they have custom textures imbedded within them, if so you would have to release the textures too, could be a pain.

I'd love to source from it though.

[ShadowRunner]

Well fuhrpark isnt mine so I wont be releasing theirs which are already released and as far as I know I havent employed custom textures in any brush of mine...

custom textures are something I only use if I have no choice, I really have to.

[ECHELON]

Wow nice post, didn't know we could do this.
Two questions:

One, does it have to be hollow ?
Two, when you say clear area do you mean like somewhere away from map (in the darkness somewhere) ? or just not touching floor walls or ceiling ?

[ShadowRunner]

no it doesnt have to be hollow or a cylinder, I was just showing how you can use "hollow" to speed things up for you and reduce bug chances etc...

You can make any shape at all...

Here is a weapons rack which is just a solid cube with 4 subtractions into it, to make one brush... which I can then make semi-solid


Here is a ceiling light, which is one brush, made from a 4-sided cone (pyramid) which has had it's spike cut off and then the flat area subtracted into again... alternatively just go and steal one out of single player...but you will feel a big warm feeling inside your chest, if you make it yourself lol.

and here it is in 3-D view


I'm making some really very complexes at the moment for a joint FGS map we are making, I'll post it up when it's done...

[Jon]

LOL, I've never seen so much effort go into so little!

[ShadowRunner]

meaning what? care to share?

How would you make that light fitting?

[Jon]

Two words. Vertex Editing.

On another note, If you'd actually started to listen to me and used a suitable grid size, that 'roof' in your first post would look less like a *loving* ski slope.

[Sike]

Two words. Vertex Editing.

On another note, If you'd actually started to listen to me and used a suitable grid size, that 'roof' in your first post would look less like a *loving* ski slope.

Yeah I agree it's not symmetric lol.

Never use hollow brushes!


Edit. Here's how I would have done it.



First I would have made a simple cube (this time i used 128x128x128) then added it. Then made another one above the first cube and then did some vertex editing here and there + intersected lol. I think this is pretty easy...

[ShadowRunner]

That "roof" was knocked up in five seconds literally. It's not a real brush I would use, it's not even symmetrical... has no guttering or leading etc...

And Jon, its a rhetorical question, but seems like double standards with the [A]forums warning and your comments and language here... my comment was not aimed at any one person... I could have just as easily said noob, but I was using tard in the sense that u yourself, refer to people who need banning.

In any case, this tutorial was aimed at beginner mappers. Vertex and stuff like that I would reccomend for ppl who have already conquered the editor.
Some in our clan are still finding out about fps, average polys etc...

But if it saves as much time as you say, then why not...

[ShadowRunner]

So wheres the tut then sike on Vertex,...

HOW did you do that, it doesnt help any beginners to say

"I did some vertex editing, it was pretty easy"

wheres the "pretty easy" button?

And sike, wake up the roof is not hollow...

[Jon]

I'm sorry, I didn't realise this was Sike's tutorial topic.

You want a tutorial, you make it.

[ShadowRunner]

LOL, I've never seen so much effort go into so little!

This topic was a tut from one member to others...

Seems like a really constructive post you made there... NOT.

I had to ask you to elaborate...

A link to anything on vertex would be good, if it is a superior method.

Flaming the tut and saying *loving* will get you nowhere... fast.

And thanks for your screenshot Sike...

[Sike]

lol when I said don't use hollow I was referring to the first post. My bad.

And how to vertex edit I'll explain. When making maps and adding / subtracting brushes to your maps, every corner of a brush has a VERTEX in them. So for example a normal cube brush would have eight vertexes in it. In this picture I've marked all the vertexes with blue color.



Basicly what you do in vertex editing is changing the position of one or more vertexes of the brush.

How to do vertex editing is pretty simple. First you need to left click on the brush and then left click on one of the vertexes so that it highlights. Then start holding ALT + left click and drag the vertex to the place where you want it. Example pic of what I did with simple vertex editing 8)



I hope this helped lol.