Rock walls in 1.5, can I use patches?

(Flippy) #1

Hi,

I started making a map again after a long time of not mapping, and since I’m now running Vista I need to use radiant 1.5 since 1.4 doesn’t work properly on Vista.

I have found however that the vertex deformation (moving vertices of a brush) is either horribly f*cked up or it works completely different than 1.4 and I can’t figure out how exactly…
In 1.4 I would create a rock wall for example by stacking 3 rectangular brushes, copying them over horizontally a couple of times, select them all, and then use vertex deformation to deform them slightly so it looks more chaotic and realistic. Every time I try that in 1.5, if I move one vertex, another vertex also moves, or ‘slips’ off the grid. If I use ctrl+G to snap it back to the grid, yet another vertex jumps off, and this seems to repeat for ever…

Long story cut short, I can no longer make rock walls with brushes properly :frowning:

So I was wondering if I could use patches? I have never seen patches used as rock walls… Why? Is there a large performance hit if you use too many of them or something? Or have I just not seen the maps that do use them maybe…?

(-SSF-Sage) #2

Working with patches is harder and slower. I’ve also noticed how hard it is to work with quads, and found the same thing. I have how ever always worked with triangles in terrains and caves and haven’t had as big problem with that. But a cave from tris is slower, but a lot simpler in 1.5.0 than from quads. The downside seems to be a little more sparklies however, even from a completely aligned mesh. The corners are still quite hard with tris tho.

(Flippy) #3

I don’t agree just yet on the harder and slower part, I have just created a pretty nice rock wall in a few minutes that would have taken me much more time and pain using brushes. You make a good point on quads though, I hadn’t even thought about using triangles as I usually do for terrain brushes, that might work better.

But if there are no performance hits or things like that using patches I am going to stick with patches. It looks damn nice even in the designer without texture blending etc!

(-SSF-Sage) #4

[QUOTE=Flippy;185969]I don’t agree just yet on the harder and slower part, I have just created a pretty nice rock wall in a few minutes that would have taken me much more time and pain using brushes. You make a good point on quads though, I hadn’t even thought about using triangles as I usually do for terrain brushes, that might work better.

But if there are no performance hits or things like that using patches I am going to stick with patches. It looks damn nice even in the designer without texture blending etc![/QUOTE]

But aligning the patches etc. I never liked patches too much. Anyways how about texture alignment, blending and such? I wonder how much pain they might be? Looking back now, I would model any caves. Using patches, depends totally in the type of cave you need and what you want. But I personally would not use them.

(Flippy) #5

If you think the shape through beforehand even aligning isn’t much of an issue. For example, a rock wall that comes up from the ground, extends up a little, and then curves back to level ground again (like an elevated path way) is pretty easy if you just create straight patches at first, so that everything is connected beforehand, and then select all the patches and move their combined vertices. This way (as long as you keep the subdivisions of the patch mesh the same on both sides) the vertices will stay connected and you don’t have to worry about them.

If you only did the rockwall first for example, and would try to add the ‘elevated ground’ later on, it would indeed be hard to line up because you can only see a patch from one side and it’s hard to see “from the top” if the patches are aligned properly. Is there any way I can make a patch visible from the bottom too?

If blending turns out to be an issue I will leave it off, but will it? I have never tried blending textures on patches, is it different?

(-SSF-Sage) #6

[QUOTE=Flippy;185971]

If blending turns out to be an issue I will leave it off, but will it? I have never tried blending textures on patches, is it different?[/QUOTE]

I have never tried or heard about it. Try it.

You mean like cull disable in shader?

(Flippy) #7

I’ll try blending textures later when I have enough time to pick that up again (it’s been a while…).

I might mean the cull thing, does that work on patches too? I’m using standard shaders atm so haven’t tested yet.

In the meanwhile, this is what I did in about half an hour (although there’s alot of copy/pasting of the rocks, I don’t think it’s very noticable):

309qakh.jpg1280x1024

14e5puv.jpg1280x1024

Looks pretty nice to me even without blending…

The biggest frustration is the fact that the subdivisions on a patch change when they need to. This way, you can have two patches lining up perfectly at one moment, then move a vertex of one patch (not connected to any other vertex of any other patch) and it’s subdivisions change (it gets one more row for example) and they will not line up perfectly any more…
Can’t I stop the patches from subdividing themselves?
(If it’s not clear what I mean I’ll post a screenshot later…)

(-SSF-Sage) #8

I’m not sure about subdivision in radiant, but it is possible to stop it with the compiler in game. That’s tho probably not exactly what you want. That’s one reason I don’t like patches. As I said I don’t like too much patches, so I don’t use them alot.

That’s not bad for that time, but I thought you were making a real cave tho. Like in oasis or fueldump.

Cull disable should work on patches aswell. I don’t remember the conditions in which the radiant uses the cull disable tho. Hmm… I wonder if it were like, it works always with patches, but you only can select it from the front side. Anyways this site could be more help for you.

Edit. I noticed that you never said a word cave. I got confused. Probably because I have been working my ass off with caves lately.

(Pande) #9

Radiant and cull none/disable/twosided puts 2 faces in radiant too. Sometime you may find yourself trying to select the wrong side and selecting through the surface, but for the most part it is useful.

(Flippy) #10

I have made a screenshot of my ‘subdivision’ problem in the hope that someone knows how to stop this from happening.

I created 4 simple patch meshes (3x3), deform a few of the vertices (vertically only) and then it happens:

iztkcm.jpg582x669

Top pic is before moving the selected vertex, bottom pic is after moving it.

As you can see, one patch (bottom-right one) has more subdivisions than the other (presumably because I forced it to bend in a way that was impossible using only 3x3 subdivisions). But, since the other patch does not gain a few subdivisions, it cannot bend in the same way, and little gaps appear…

I can see two solutions, both of which I have no clue if it is possible:

  1. Force the other patch to also create more subdivisions (they are connected after all, doesnt make much sense to me :S)
  2. Make it impossible for me to move the patches in a way that would force them to create more subdivs.

Any idea’s?

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(DerSaidin) #12

Just use brushes, or models if you want it to look really good.

http://dersaidin.ath.cx/mapping/index.php?act=tutorial&tut=rockwall
may be helpful.

(kamikazee) #13

GTKRadiant 1.5 works totally different from 1.4 though because it actually stops you from making invalid brushes. I’ve actually found out that it’s sometime faster to make a 3-point clip than to drag vertices around to make a smooth landscape.

Once you got that right though, the result is just the same.

(Flippy) #14

Well, I tried blending and it seems to work just fine even on patches. So I guess I’m going to stick with them for the most part.

(-SSF-Sage) #15

Nice. We’re you able to defeat the subdivision in radiant? Can you blend “inside a patch” meaning like from any vertex of the patch, not only from the heads?

(Flippy) #16

No, I haven’t found a solution to that problem yet. I just try to make sure all the patches have the same number of subdivisions after moving vertices. If I see one patch with less subdivs it usually takes only a slight movement to cause it to ‘break up’ into more divisions, fixing the seam.

I haven’t tested it yet but I don’t think you can blend ‘inside a patch’ :frowning: , because I accidently placed one alphamod brush too low with one test resulting in NO blending. If you could blend inside a patch I should have seen some blending, no? (The alphamod brush was below the ‘main seam’ between two patches, but on top of one of the subdivisions inside one patch).

(Pande) #17

[QUOTE=Flippy;186016]I have made a screenshot of my ‘subdivision’ problem in the hope that someone knows how to stop this from happening.

I created 4 simple patch meshes (3x3), deform a few of the vertices (vertically only) and then it happens:

iztkcm.jpg582x669

Top pic is before moving the selected vertex, bottom pic is after moving it.

As you can see, one patch (bottom-right one) has more subdivisions than the other (presumably because I forced it to bend in a way that was impossible using only 3x3 subdivisions). But, since the other patch does not gain a few subdivisions, it cannot bend in the same way, and little gaps appear…

I can see two solutions, both of which I have no clue if it is possible:

  1. Force the other patch to also create more subdivisions (they are connected after all, doesnt make much sense to me :S)
  2. Make it impossible for me to move the patches in a way that would force them to create more subdivs.

Any idea’s?[/QUOTE]

Use just 1 patch there… there is no reason to use 4 as you have in your picture.

(Flippy) #18

Yes, of course, but that was just a demonstration of the problem. If you have a large rock wall I doubt you can use 1 patch (there is a limit on the number of subdivisions right?) so I would still have the same problem (only maybe less frequently…?)

(Tyrlop) #19

just place grass/bush on the leaks, then nobody will see it :smiley:

(Pande) #20

subdivisions 15 is the limit and is plenty enough for your uses in those pictures, but you should be able to get away with 9