Primitive

Primitive types

A primitive is by definition a very simple structure, primitive when it relates to the Valve Hammer Editor refers to a brush based object that conforms to a common shape. Primitives include arches, blocks, cylinders, spheres, spikes, tori and wedges.Some are made up of multiple brushes but are still considered primitive as they are used commonly and a simple shape, the 2 examples are tori and arches.

Note:Some primitives have an orientation, to set which way they face upon creation turn on the 'Reorient primitives upon creation' option under the 2D views. Now whichever 2D view you leave active (click in last) will be the way the object faces.

Note:Another option that may cause problems can be found under the General tab, 'stretch arches and tourses to fit bounding box'. This means any arches or tori you create will fill the box you drew, if turned off it will consider that box as defining the circle the arch or torus is drawn from

Arch

This creates a basic arch as defined by the Arch Tool, multiple blocks slightly rotated will be created within 1 group.

Block

The block, a basic cube, is the most used object when mapping in Hammer.

Cylinder

A cylindrical brush created with a specified number of sides.

Sphere

The sphere is a rather complicated piece of geometry, so it would be wise to be careful with the number of faces you give the sphere.

Spike

Like the cylinder but all the top vertecies come to 1 central point.

Torus

The torus resembles an inner tube or a donut. This primitive can easily mass polygons so keep the number of faces on this primitive low. Like the arch it has a special Tool.

Wedge

The wedge is basically a triangular prism.

See also

• Brush Creation
• Hammer Block Tool