Tutorial (WIP): Embedding Buildings Into Terrain

(Ifurita) #1

http://planetwolfenstein.com/4newbies/terrain.htm

Feedback and comments welcome

I’ve been doing a lot of this this weekend. Prior planning saves hours of work.

(the_hat) #2

-edit- bah, i have had that problem and fix’d it myself, but i guess its not a good thing to tell beginners

(Ifurita) #3

keep in mind that i’m new at this and i’m sure there are some very good tips/techniques i haven’t learned yet

(MindLink) #4

Thin mesh is evil. q3map2 seemse to freak out on some of those terrain triangles if you use thin mesh, it will result in holes in the ground and stuff, so this actually is a big no-no.

(the_hat) #5

-edit- very nice and easy to follow tut!

(SCDS_reyalP) #6

Even if it does work, it bloats you BSP size and eats performance needlessly.

(Ifurita) #7

what exactly is thin mesh? I’ve heard that is was bad, but don’t even know what it is. Why would it bloat your BSP and eat performance?

(sock) #8

Its a very nice tutorial but the images are confusing. If you are going to highlight things in images, get rid of the excessive stuff (Light radius info, models - trees, detail inside of structure). Only show the basic shape of the bunker intersecting with the terrain.

Section 4 should be split into 2 sections as it talks about easy brushes to delete and then starts on the roof brushes discussed in section 5-7.

Section 7 the image is very confusing and does not show the insides very well. Pan back and show more of the room, if necessary hide the back wall so you can show the brushes above are cut flush against the roof. (Well most of them)

First, there will be a set of brushes that overlap the sides of your building but part of the textured face lies above the level of your structure’s roof, just like you did in step #8.

This seems to point to itself, I assume u mean point to 4.5?

Section 8, I had forgotten about the shift-enter leaving all cut brushes. Doh must add that into my 2point clipping tutorial. Never used it myself, I’m use to the slow method of doing things, its hardwork teaching an old dog new tricks! :wink:

caulked facees showing.

Section 9, spelling mistake.

A sample map would be nice showing the example terrain and bunker so people can follow in editor while reading.

By Mindlink
Thin mesh is evil. q3map2 seemse to freak out on some of those terrain triangles if you use thin mesh, it will result in holes in the ground and stuff, so this actually is a big no-no.

There is no thin mesh used in those images, all the unclipped terrain brushes extend downwards to the caulk hull. The clipped ones are cut where the bunker brushwork is. Maybe we are confused on what “thin mesh” is but a thin mesh to me is where the back face is extremely close in distance to the front face of the brush, so its almost like skin, extremely thin. These brushes are not a thin mesh if that is the definition. Please let me know what you mean by a thin mesh.

Sock
:moo:

(ratty redemption) #9

I agree with socks definition of a thin terrain mesh, but I would also add, that thin meshes tend to have their back faces (the underneath hidden faces) at the same angle as the front (visible) faces.

I believe this is what bloats the bsp as its more efficient to have as many of the back faces sharing the same plane as possible, which is easy to fix if they can all align with the caulk hull floor of the map, like it appears iffys are doing.

edit: I also agree that some of the editor pics are too cluttered, even though the compression is clear… and unfortunately, despite me refreshing the page a few times, my crappy connection couldnt dl all the pics, but I know most broadband users wont have that problem.

(Ifurita) #10

ok, points taken. May revise the screenies when I get time. Seems like this is a critical tut that has been missing and needs to have the time to show it as simply as possible.

I think in terms of easy of brush-editing, we could break it into three classes:

brushes with no visible face showing outside of your structure - Delete
Brushes a with visible face showing outside of only one side of your structure (e.g., over roof) - highlight and clip off at appropriate plane
Brushes with the visible face showing outside of two or more sides of your structure (e.g., corners) - clip, but use Shift+Enter to clip and preserve pieces. Repeat as necessary.

(ratty redemption) #11

I didnt read the whole tut, but after you clip the tris brushes, are you then doing snap to grid on them? because sometimes clipped brushes will have their verts off grid which can lead to sparklies... if you havent already, it might be worth suggesting people carefully line the clipping plane with the corners (verts) of the brushes they are cutting… sounds obvious but I`ve messed this up in the past.

(Ifurita) #12

the corollary to that is: When you build structures with non-axial walls, stick to something pretty simple dimensions, like 30, 45, and 60 degree angles. This will help ensure you can snap to a grid to help your clipping. It’s really hard to trim terrain around something that has been rotated 25 degrees. :frowning:

(SCDS_reyalP) #13

Indeed, I suspect the original mention of ‘thin mesh’ was in the edited post by the_hat.

Ifurita:
The reason it is bad for bsp size and performance is because it gives you a whole bunch more unique planes in the bsp. In normal terrain (as shown in your tutorial) there is only one plane needed for the bottoms of all the terrain brushes.

All slightly off topic, but worth noting because it is tempting to use the easygen ‘thin mesh’ option if you plan to have extensive underground structures. If you want to do this, the more efficient method is just to cut off the bottoms of the relevent terrain brushes.

(ratty redemption) #14

the corollary to that is: When you build structures with non-axial walls, stick to something pretty simple dimensions, like 30, 45, and 60 degree angles. This will help ensure you can snap to a grid to help your clipping. It’s really hard to trim terrain around something that has been rotated 25 degrees.

agreed, and I`m glad no one has suggested using csg substract to cut up terrain :wink:

(Ifurita) #15

Updated. More graphics intensive, but more step by step without a lot of the noise. Also added a .MAP file with the finished product as well as a mirror image of the initial terrain and bunker for someone to practice on. Same link

(ratty redemption) #16

cool, and all the pics loaded for me first time :smiley:

personally I find the large grid lines in the background of pics distracting, so I have my gtk misc menu\colors set up so my grid lines are the same as the “grid background” (2d window background) color.

Im not suggesting you do this, but I noticed when you have very small grid lines, it made it easier to distinguish the grid from the brush work... this is probably just me though, so dont change the other pics.

(sock) #17

The screenshots are looking much better with less stuff all over them as it is easier at a glance to see what is going on. I really need to re-read it again, which I can’t do until much later.

Will be back with more comments later. Good work with the tutorial. :drink:

Sock
:moo:

(Fusen) #18

ooo yah the new screenshots are 10x better I don’t even map but I reckon I could follow that… beforehand I just looked at the hundreds of lines criss crossing each other wondering if mappers have some sort of 3D vision

(Ifurita) #19

:bump: :smiley:

(Marko) #20

nice tutorial indeed :slight_smile:
Just one tiny comment I’d like to add: check the sides of the clipped brushes after doing all this. On the last screenie, you have a vertical brush with “terrain” on it, which is triangles lost in game :slight_smile: It has no impact on the quality of the work done, just on FPS if you start clipping huge areas of terrain :smiley: