- Sep 12, 2008
- 1,272
- 1,141
How to clip fences?!
I can already see the reactions coming: 'What the hell? Why this kind of stupid tutorial on my tf2maps.net?'
Yes, it might sound weird or stupid, but it's a common mistake in mapping! First of all, many people think: 'let's just disable colisions on that fence and place the playerclip nicely whereever we want!' No problem with people getting on top of it! Wrong. Disabling colisions might seem a good solution - for a darn easy "problem" to solve -, but it's not and has a lot of stupid back-sides. I've seen a few maps now that don't have solid fences, and it's starting to annoy me, so here we go!
Why not to disable collisions on a fence?
Here is an example of what happens when you want to try to shoot as a soldier/demoman at an enemy (currently not here in the picture) that's standing right next to a NON-SOLID fence.
How annoying! And come on, such big rockets flying through a fence with such tiny holes?
But! If we imagine a red soldier shooting at a heavy in front of a SOLID fence....
What an improvement! And it's easier to get kills without getting annoyed by the mapper's choices!
Conclusion? Always make your fences SOLID, unless you really want to be special.
So, now that this is cleared out, i'd like to show you why clipping fences isn't hard at all.
Clipping fences properly.
Good, I have put a set of security fences around my cow to keep it inside! I want to clip those fences, and it isn't a hard job!
First of all, I press the 'CM' button
cm: - Shows Collision Model Wireframe). I can see that the fences have yellow wires around them. The cow and the barbed fence set don't have collision models so there are no yellow wires.
Now, I select the tools/toolsplayerclip texture to clip the fences so that players can't jump over them. And then i use the BLOCK TOOL ( ) to create a brush, leading from ceiling to sky, in a basic shape around one part of the fence.
Now I select the VERTEX TOOL ( :vertextool: ) and shape the brush along the fence, while making sure that the brush is around the whole collision model of the fence, so that players can't stand on it.
And I do this for all the fence models.
And Huppah! It's already over! I have succesfully clipped my fences! And by the way, that cow is made of wood.
So next time you have fences in your map, please, please please PLEASE do NOT disable collisions on them but DO clip them properly!
I hope this short tutorial hasn't helped you at all, because this is basic mapper knowledge! And for those who really didn't know it, well, you should know better!!
I can already see the reactions coming: 'What the hell? Why this kind of stupid tutorial on my tf2maps.net?'
Yes, it might sound weird or stupid, but it's a common mistake in mapping! First of all, many people think: 'let's just disable colisions on that fence and place the playerclip nicely whereever we want!' No problem with people getting on top of it! Wrong. Disabling colisions might seem a good solution - for a darn easy "problem" to solve -, but it's not and has a lot of stupid back-sides. I've seen a few maps now that don't have solid fences, and it's starting to annoy me, so here we go!
Why not to disable collisions on a fence?
Here is an example of what happens when you want to try to shoot as a soldier/demoman at an enemy (currently not here in the picture) that's standing right next to a NON-SOLID fence.
How annoying! And come on, such big rockets flying through a fence with such tiny holes?
But! If we imagine a red soldier shooting at a heavy in front of a SOLID fence....
What an improvement! And it's easier to get kills without getting annoyed by the mapper's choices!
Conclusion? Always make your fences SOLID, unless you really want to be special.
So, now that this is cleared out, i'd like to show you why clipping fences isn't hard at all.
Clipping fences properly.
Good, I have put a set of security fences around my cow to keep it inside! I want to clip those fences, and it isn't a hard job!
First of all, I press the 'CM' button
cm: - Shows Collision Model Wireframe). I can see that the fences have yellow wires around them. The cow and the barbed fence set don't have collision models so there are no yellow wires.
Now, I select the tools/toolsplayerclip texture to clip the fences so that players can't jump over them. And then i use the BLOCK TOOL (
) to create a brush, leading from ceiling to sky, in a basic shape around one part of the fence.
Now I select the VERTEX TOOL ( :vertextool: ) and shape the brush along the fence, while making sure that the brush is around the whole collision model of the fence, so that players can't stand on it.
And I do this for all the fence models.
And Huppah! It's already over! I have succesfully clipped my fences! And by the way, that cow is made of wood.
So next time you have fences in your map, please, please please PLEASE do NOT disable collisions on them but DO clip them properly!
I hope this short tutorial hasn't helped you at all, because this is basic mapper knowledge! And for those who really didn't know it, well, you should know better!!
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