Rockwall tutorial

(sock) #1

While bashing my head against the keyboard trying to write scripting documentation I got distracted and wrote this instead. be warned it is very heavy on images and should be extremely newbie friendly.

Direct link: http://www.planetquake.com/simland/pages/articles/rockwall1_1.htm

Thanks to Shallow for the extra feedback and MadMaximus for giving me a gently nudge in the right direction. There is other sections to write, like tri-souping, advanced corner designs and intergration with a tri-souped ceiling. This is just a start, so enjoy it as is.

Sock
:moo:

EDIT: Updated links

(redfella) #2

c00l.

(MadMaximus) #3

I think thats an excellent tutorial, and very descriptive and explained in a good way with the pics to back up the theory, thanks again sock, ive just trashed my tunnel making/vetice moving ( with wierd triangles being created on the back sides that were not visible but made a lot of clutter in my 2d window ) and started out a new tunnel with your excellent tut.

hope you can make more like that when time allows you, your work is most appreciated!

:clap:

(G0-Gerbil) #4

That’s a bit of a long diversion from your original documentation, but I know how boring doing docs can be. I’d forgive you for that, but I’ll forgive you instead because this is exactly what I’m after - I’ve started redoing my own tunnels several times because I didn’t like the way they looked - this should help a lot :slight_smile:

Now stick it in the sticky thread, and put the darned word ‘tutorial’ in it’s title so people know to look there!

Cheers again.

(Drakir) #5

A thought after reading the “ROCK” tutorial.
Why are you using square brushes and not Triangles? IMO, its alot easier to vertex edit triangle brushes like a terrain than making walls and ceilings out of square brushes.

(hummer) #6

Good stuff, sock.

Just tried is out and made a pretty cool wall… a lot better than one method I used… which was taking a set of triangles and being careful with vertex manipulation… although, it’s tough to get them to line up around bends :slight_smile:

Really good for people without a modeling program as well (the way I make caves and such now).

(hummer) #7

Now that I think about it, something that I suck at is 3-point clipping… (you mentioned this in your rock tutorial)… are there any good links to that, or ways to practice it? I always end up “guessing,” and no tuts I’ve come across have been helpful with regards to 3-point clipping…

(G0-Gerbil) #8

The main problem with clipping is it’s window dependant. I’m sure we’ve all set up 2 points, swapped views to set the third point and seen our previous cut now somewhere else.

It’s damn useful, but just one of those things. My main problem with 3 point clipping is doing the points the wrong way around so I have to shift-return to cut and delete the wrong part, but that’s no big deal.

I do a lot of vertex manipulation too, but clipping usually beats it hands down.

(hummer) #9

I can’t seem to wrap my head around it… there doesn’t seemt to be any rhyme or reason to it, or when there is, it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Of course, that’s mostly due to my inexperience with it, but I’ll be damned if I can get the hang of it without some direction :confused:

(G0-Gerbil) #10

Experience tells me that when you place a clipping point, it’s only actually got values for two of the axes (the two of the view you are actually working in). When you next swap views, it needs the third coordinate filled in. Radiant appears to do this by making it the mid-point of the brush you are working on. Once it’s had all 3 axes coordinates set, they stay the same, so if you need 3 point clipping, it’s probably best to roughly set your 3 points first, swap views, move them roughly again to the right place then go for accuracy.

(BigBadWolf) #11

lol, that would take entireley too long. why not use it with patches. you can make large patches, with many columns and rows. press V and change the verts. this is the easiest and fastest way for me to do it at least, and if i want there to be dirt to come out of it when i shoot it, i just make a caulk brush basically over the patch and place a special shader on it. works verry well for me

(G0-Gerbil) #12

Patches have their own problems (rendering speed for one, although you could get away with this with patchmeta I suppose), one of which is most people often don’t line them up correctly, either getting sparklies or worst case, huge gaps (can’t remember the name of the map, but one of Drakir’s with the tunnel to the bridge - the roof of the tunnel was horrific for this).

While patches have their uses, I’d say that doing large amounts of structures is not one of them.

BTW, I never knew you could shear faces! FFS, how n00b am I?
Ah well, it wouldn’t be fun if I knew everything :wink:

(BigBadWolf) #13

thats what beta testing is for heh heh. but how will it slow render speed down, ive never noticed anything like that

(G0-Gerbil) #14

Because patches have LOD.
I don’t know quite what form this takes, whether all levels are precalculated and stored or whether it’s truly dynamic (doubtful).
Also, of course, anyone running at high LOD for patches will have a hugely increased polygon count - I just noticed this in my own map (I normally play in low mode out of habit).
What I thought would just be a nice simple curve was subdivided to hell and back :slight_smile:

(hummer) #15

Plus, patches are more curvey, and rock walls are generally not very curvey… they’re more straight edged in a lot of places… which is why Sock’s technique looks so nice on top of yielding efficient poly counts.

(SCDS_reyalP) #16

In gtkradiant 1.3.14 (test builds available here: http://www.map-center.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=2017) you can use a patch mesh to define the clipping plane, thanks to ydnar.

Before you rush off to cut clip smooth curvy bits off of brushes, understand that the patch still defines a plane, and is just used as a handy way of manipulating it.

(kat) #17

nice tutorial Mr BrushMonkeh…! :smiley:

good way to get ‘a’ brushwork prefab set done quickly and relatively painlessly…!

(sock) #18

Good question, here are my reasons:

  • Square brushes are simplier to see on screen and easier to manipulate with this method. Triangle meshes get very messy in the 2d window.

  • Square brushes can be resized quicker than triangles. In this example if you want a section of wall wider than the rest, you pick up the template and drag the squares sideways, done. If you have a triangle mesh it cannot be done. You need to remake the triangles to fit the new shape.

  • Very few brush errors. Which is a bonus for someone starting out with trying to create organic brushwork.

If you need more detail you can always cut the squares. Which leads me onto my next rock tutorial, tri-souping and advanced corner designs. I suppose this tutorial is a good starting point for someone and will give good results without much hassle.

I remember the caves in Oasis (which are a model) and the amount of heart ache they cause with clipping. I’m sure modelling can be quicker and easier to create organic rockwork, but its a damn pain for clipping.

Nothing compared to your brushwork skills on rockwork, but its a good start in the right direction. :slight_smile:

Sock
:moo:

(sock) #19

Well if enough people want something like this I can rustle up a good example. I’ve spent alot of time 3 point cutting and it was me who requested that the points start in the middle of the brush. Originally they started at the 0,0,0. Damn annoying if you are creating brushwork half across the map.

Sock
:moo:

(kat) #20

is it ok to link to this and any other rock tutes you do from my site??