WIP in WIP, post your level screenshots!

[Steppenwolf]

you gotta love radiant. patches is what hammer really lacks. like in cod-radiant i could make ten times better terrain. And you dont need props for every little nonsense.

[tomdon]

You do get a feeling of a achievement doing stuff the hard way in hammer though.

[Defrag]

Valve could've easily implemented patches. Displacements are basically half way there -- all they'd need to do is add the relevant controls in Hammer and then implement the detail stuff in the engine (so the patch can be subdivided the appropriate number of times). The main difference is that displacements are subdivided planes with explicit vertex positions whereas patches are defined by control points. Even then, they could've easily added quadratic or cubic bezier patch controls to Hammer for convenience (so you could edit the displacement as if it were a patch to get curved surfaces, then just bake out the explicit vertex positions and let the engine use them as is).

The latter compromise would've greatly aided level designers in making some complicated geometry without having to resort to loads of triangular brushes, displacement vertex nudging or props. If you look at just how integral patches are when it comes to making really cool architecture, I think it was a missed opportunity for Source. The valve guys possibly just felt that Half-life2 and their other planned source engine games wouldn't benefit from having patches, but it would've been cool for 3rd party level designers & modders

I plan on making a displacement editor with patch functionality using C# after I graduate to help me learn the basics of C#. If I can figure out the .vmf & displacement format it shouldn't be too hard as I already have a good handle on bezier curves, and a patch is further step beyond curves.

[KungFuSquirrel]

you gotta love radiant. patches is what hammer really lacks. like in cod-radiant i could make ten times better terrain. And you dont need props for every little nonsense.

I love patches, but oof do I hate them for terrain I actually prefer Valve's displacements for terrain over using patches (though modeling stuff by hand in d3 has its advantages)... But Unreal wins the terrain category, of course

[PS_Mouse]

Displacements are nice and easy for heightmap style rolling terrain. But once the terrain starts getting complicated, they're the devil.

[Defrag]

It's horses for courses, really. Displacement editing is better for terrain and patches are better for smoothish geometry Developers could merge both into one tool in the editor though. Displacement functionality by default with a checkbox for patch style editing (or vice versa) would be of great use.

[KungFuSquirrel]

Really all they'd have to add would be vertex control of the original brush face(s)... otherwise the editor already supports displacements on all axes; imagine being able to set up your terrain's initial roll with vert tweaking before painting the rest, or being able to add a damaged feel to a rounded wall (which you can do already, but getting the rounded wall is a bit of a chore )

[PS_Mouse]

imagine being able to set up your terrain's initial roll with vert tweaking before painting the rest

drool

[Steppenwolf]

actualy in cod-radiant you got two different kinds of patches a) terrain meshes. they are like displacements in hammer except you got more and better options to manipulate them. and b) patch meshes. you use them to build tubes, tunels, fancy geometry and that stuff

Dont know if its the same in doom 3 radiant.

[KungFuSquirrel]

Ah, ok, that makes sense. Stock Q3/D3 patches are pretty much just the curved bits, and not really well suited for terrain work... though they can do the job in a pinch.

[Psy]

Splines are needed too.

I love the CoH world editor where you can use splines to have fences and sandbags line up perfectly with the terrain.

They can also be used with overlays...

[⌐■_■]

Is someone from Valve reading this?

[dux]

You have to wonder what on earth they ponce about with with Hammer to NOT have any of this included with it.

[mabufo]

I've always had trouble with displacements... Maybe I'll try to get over that with my next little project.

[Wunderboy]

You have to wonder what on earth they ponce about with with Hammer to NOT have any of this included with it.

Probably because Source is just Goldsrc with a few third party API's bolted on? I've yet to see anything in the SDK that stands out as "revolutionary" in Source. Seems most of the cool stuff is either something bought and bolted on or they've just employed someone who had a good idea.

Maybe if/when they break away from the old Goldsrc BSP based mapping system and go with a really new engine they'll be forced to re-write their development tools rather than just bolt stuff on.

I must admit, for a commercially available engine Valve's Source SDK toolset sucks. I know if I was shopping around for an engine I'd want a great toolset and Valve's would make me run a mile.