Brush Creation

From Valve Developer Community

Brushes are the basic buildling blocks in the Hammer editor and can be created in multiple ways, depending on the needs of the situation.

Creating brushes from scratch

Brushes are created from scratch using the Block Tool. Although this is a clean method to create new objects, creating brushes by cloning an existing one is a more practical way to create brushes quickly. The Block Tool should mainly be used to create more complex brushes, such as cylinders or spikes.

Creating brushes by cloning

Cloning provides a simple way to quickly add new brushes by creating a duplicate of a brush that already exists. This includes both brushes and entities, and groups can contain a mixture of both. Clones are duplicates of the the original objects, but have no other relationship with them. A space such as room can be quickly created by making one wall as a new brush, then cloning that brush for the other walls and floor of the room.

Brushes are cloned by moving them while pressing <Shift>, using the Selection Tool.

Tip: The cursor "arrow" keys can be also used in combination with the <Shift> key to clone brushes. With each press of the cursor key, another clone will be created in the direction of the nudge.

Creating brushes with prefabs

Another way to get new brushes into a map is placing a Prefab. Prefabs are sets of brushes (and possibly entities) that have been created earlier and grouped together.

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