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)

You should donate it as is, out of the goodness of your heart, for our HL2 Kids project. :-) --wisemx 15:23, 14 Jul 2005 (PDT)

Given that the island hides some absolutely appalling secrets, I think it's perhaps not a child-friendly map... ;-) --Cargo Cult 02:34, 15 Jul 2005 (PDT)

It depends on the shape of the object you're trying to create. I usually use subdivided displacements simply as a starting point, but I don't always use them. It can save you time from having to tediously curve out the L-shaped corners, for example. Regardless, if you want natural-looking terrain, you're going to have to do some serious hand-painting to create the proper silhouettes. The coastal terrain in HL2 was done with a combination of subdivisions, hand painting, and vertex editing of the base brushes. --JeffLane 16:45, 14 Jul 2005 (PDT)

I suspect that the precise method of displacement editing is going to be very much a personal choice - kind of like with terrain editing on the original Half-Life. (Cue flashbacks of my extreme vertex editing with single brushes bristling with triangles...) Still, if various techniques get documented, there should be something for everyone... --Cargo Cult 02:34, 15 Jul 2005 (PDT)

Good stuff, I host a Video Tutorial illustrating that method: (65MB) [1] --wisemx 19:33, 14 Jul 2005 (PDT)

This page should be updated

This page should be updated with the three new options added by the last update of the Source SDK. It means :

• No Physics Collision
• No Hull Collision
• No Ray Collision

I'm not qualified enough to update that myself, so I decided to let people know that It's 'todo'. In fact, I was searching for the signification of these three options when I found this page..

Done. --JeffLane 18:46, 18 Aug 2006 (PDT)

Thank you so much. I thought I understood these three options by myself, but in fact I was terribly wrong. So, thank you !

Descriptions of Effects needs to be expanded (or divided?) to describe the effect in each spatial/brush painting mode as the effects of Raise To and Smooth are different than described in brush painting mode. I haven't fully experimented with the various combinations of modes and brushes to accurately update the descriptions. Actually, I get confused. :( —BJ^(talk) 06:59, 25 Dec 2006 (PST)