Source: making solid geometry outside Hammer.

[R_Yell]

I thought this could be interesting. Using a 3D app to work on solid geometry could be much faster sometimes, there exist that possibility using XSI vmf exporter but it tends to find concavities in almost every interesting piece of geometry.

I tried to avoid that limitation working with a cube splitted in 4 parts like can be seen in the wireframe shot. The result was quite satisfactory, I could use deform tools over the mesh composed of those cubes (every single object is grouped). That one was deformed by curve, quite simple.

This is a tower like shape using the same technique:

Hope it can be useful.

[Defrag]

When I get a bit of time, I plan to create a bezier patch creation application that will export a bezier patch as a displacement in .vmf format. It'll effectively function like a poor-man's radient patch tool.

I already have a bezier curve application I made that lets you place / drag control points to create a curve, so it will just be a case of extending it to support patches instead of curves, then finding the appropriate format for exporting. It's a shame Hammer doesn't have a plugin system or I could probably knock this up quickly. I don't fancy doing the GUI using Win32 and I don't know MFC. I might use it to learn a bit of C# I suppose.

[R_Yell]

Good luck with that application Defrag. Now you mention displacements, XSI vmf exporter doesn't support displacements, why Valve, why! Anyway, one of the things I like from Hammer is displacement creation if it's something like a cave or small parts of a map. It could be easier or faster, but actual tools let you do many things.

[Defrag]

Yes the tools are pretty good for terrain etc. but it's not really much use for creating curved geometry. The FF guys (particularly eat & the trepids) make a lot of curved geometry using displacements, but they manually nudge vertices around which, while it gets the job done, is about as fun as drowning in a recently used beday(sp) . If Hammer could ape patch functionality it'd be great for that sort of stuff. It wouldn't even need to support true curved surfaces, just imitating the functionality and baking out the explicit vertex positions rather than storing control points in the .bsp.

The reason we use displacements a lot is that we have a lot of curved geometry and we also have two bases in most maps. As a result, we tend to find ourselves overrunning the BSP limits for planes/faces/brushes. Displacements are much more efficient to render and also store, so they help avoid this problem.

I guess we're not really using displacements for their 'traditional' use, but if you can bend something to suit your own needs, then it makes sense.

[R_Yell]

Ah, very interesting. Using displacements in that way probably will increase map size a lot, but quality will pay though. I love how lighting works over displacements. I had some problems when displacements are a continuation of a solid, lighting doesn't work well there.

[mjens]

If I could use Max to make HL2 maps

It could be good for making terrain, curves etc. (with "snap to grind" on) but to create buildings from brushes - Hammer is better.

Also the problem is that i like to make everything from planes which HL2 won't like I guess...

[Defrag]

Ah, very interesting. Using displacements in that way probably will increase map size a lot, but quality will pay though. I love how lighting works over displacements. I had some problems when displacements are a continuation of a solid, lighting doesn't work well there.

Yeah, there's a few things you can do minimise lighting errors:

1. Keep the displacements as small as possible

2. Set their lightmap scale to a lower value (I think 4 is the lowest usable lightmap scale for displacements. You either can't set it lower or there is no image quality benefit for doing so)

3. Put very low intensity lights at the joining segments to smooth out the lighting.

[R_Yell]

Thx for the tips I used a more conventional solution there, hehe, just covered the area with a solid. Next time I'll try what you said.

[bitmap]

Well, you can actually use max to make levels.

You just need to have game level builder (http://www.maple3d.com)

You can use the script to make walls, floors, windows with it, or you can just use the exporter to export the level to .map

You just have have to make sure the blocks are all convex and follow the CSG rules.