Talk:Hammer Face Edit Disps

Subdividing Tips

Is there any way to subdivide two faces without their edges staying straight? I've got a stumpy bit of cliff that needs to form a corner, and subdividing always makes a huge bulge because the edges are so close together. --TomEdwards 05:10, 14 Jul 2005 (PDT)

There are some situations where it's difficult to get good results from subdividing. Usually you want to subdivide right at the beginning of editing, just after you create the displacements. Trying to do it later on can give you headaches. If you're having trouble getting good results, it's probably a sign that your base geometry used for the displacements is too complex. It's important to keep the base brushes and their connections very simple to achieve proper construction when the displacements are created.

You may find it useful to add extra displacements at each end of a strip you want to subdivide. Then after the subdivision, delete the extra displacements and you won't get straight edges on the ends. This is sometimes used to make a cylinder out of displacements -- stack up three cubes, create displacements on all visible sides, subdivide them, then delete the two cubes on the ends. What's left is a perfect cylinder. Afterwards you can resize the center brush to create longer cylinders. --JeffLane 11:47, 14 Jul 2005 (PDT)

I've found that not bothering with the subdivide and moving stuff around by hand often helps, as subdivision often seems to make terrain look too 'blobby', for instance. Here's something I built mostly with manual displacement manipulation - the hillock at the bottom right is the only real bit of subdivision, and I hate it... :-] --Cargo Cult 12:00, 14 Jul 2005 (PDT)

Thanks, those are good tips. Oh, and Cargo Cult? HOLY FU- --TomEdwards 12:33, 14 Jul 2005 (PDT)

I believe the term for that screenshot is "great googly moogly!" :D --Charron 13:10, 14 Jul 2005 (PDT)

Cheers! :-]

When the map's (eventually) finished, I'll be making the .VMF publicly available - and I think I might write a tutorial on displacements and terrain as well! --Cargo Cult 13:50, 14 Jul 2005 (PDT)