Two quick questions

Shaeam

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Aug 19, 2011
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Question 1: What's the easiest way of building diagonally?

Question 2: Although it might be asking too much (and if it is; feel free to correct me) I am working on a CP_ map to help with my skills in optimization, since MvM maps tend to be rather difficult to optimize properly. As such i've made a diagram and a very basic hammer layout. Does this concept art look very heavily flawed?
aCLEUcI.png
I, personally, thought the layout was interesting -- but i'm not the best judge of that due to my inexperience at making CP_ maps. (This'll be my first one.)
 

A Boojum Snark

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Nov 2, 2007
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Stick to nice power of two slope ratios (1:1, 1:2, 1:4... maybe 1:8 but that is pushing usefulness) and edit brushes with vertex manipulation. You can drag selection boxes around groups of vertices to make resizing almost as easy as square and proper brushes.
 

ThrowingPie

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Apr 6, 2014
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In my experience (not much) the best way to build large structures is to build it and rotate the finished product. or look at CTF_doublecross, it feels like it is at a angle but only the front side is angled. Without seeing the specific situation it is hard to say. someone may have a better option.

The layout sketch is a little too vague for me. I cant tell scale, height difference or entrance ways. is the gray area the whole map or one room? and is it exactly mirrored on the other side. a more complete drawing or making it in hammer is the only real way to judge a layout. and you can always delete a file if you find the layout doesn't work. It could be interesting but there is too little information to work with right now, it might work so try it out.
 

Shaeam

L1: Registered
Aug 19, 2011
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20
Stick to nice power of two slope ratios (1:1, 1:2, 1:4... maybe 1:8 but that is pushing usefulness) and edit brushes with vertex manipulation. You can drag selection boxes around groups of vertices to make resizing almost as easy as square and proper brushes.

vBg3XQE.png


Perhaps it's just me, but; after I did that it seems as though the slant is a bit disproportionate. Which is fine, I suppose. It works as-is. Just slightly off it seems.
 

A Boojum Snark

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Nov 2, 2007
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You just need to compensate for it. In situations like that you would make the joint between the two brushes close to a bisecting angle, rather than parallel with either one. If there is a need to be "easy to work with", keep it on one of those ratios, otherwise just do what looks good if the angle will have no purpose other than joining the two brushes.

As for what Australian said, kinda. My advice was for when you need lots of stuff at an angle, and in particular major sections of your map that need to be easy to match up with everything else. For small stuff you can make it square, instance it, and rotate it via instance.
 

Shaeam

L1: Registered
Aug 19, 2011
42
20
In my experience (not much) the best way to build large structures is to build it and rotate the finished product. or look at CTF_doublecross, it feels like it is at a angle but only the front side is angled. Without seeing the specific situation it is hard to say. someone may have a better option.

The layout sketch is a little too vague for me. I cant tell scale, height difference or entrance ways. is the gray area the whole map or one room? and is it exactly mirrored on the other side. a more complete drawing or making it in hammer is the only real way to judge a layout. and you can always delete a file if you find the layout doesn't work. It could be interesting but there is too little information to work with right now, it might work so try it out.

Here's a in-hammer picture /w grid, perhaps that'll help! :D
Czb4joW.png

The gray areas are raised platform (the dark dark gray indicates doors)

Edit: The red solid block is for my own personal reference. Ignore it -- it's not intentionally placed there and it will be removed later.
 
Last edited:

Shaeam

L1: Registered
Aug 19, 2011
42
20
You just need to compensate for it. In situations like that you would make the joint between the two brushes close to a bisecting angle, rather than parallel with either one. If there is a need to be "easy to work with", keep it on one of those ratios, otherwise just do what looks good if the angle will have no purpose other than joining the two brushes.

As for what Australian said, kinda. My advice was for when you need lots of stuff at an angle, and in particular major sections of your map that need to be easy to match up with everything else. For small stuff you can make it square, instance it, and rotate it via instance.

What do you mean instance, by the way? I'm sorry -- I haven't particularly worked with anything like that, I don't believe.
 

A Boojum Snark

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Nov 2, 2007
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The func_instance entity allows you to "nest" an entire VMF inside another VMF like a self-contained unit, and rotate it to any angle you like without actually rotating the objects until the compiler itself "collapses" all the instances into one map. This works out better because the compilers handle off-grid vertices better than Hammer.

Here is an example from one of my maps. I wanted to make an enclosed overhead conveyor belt structure that was at a weird double angle to the side and downward. This would have been hell to do by hand given the complex geometry and Hammer wanting to fix everything to the grid. But it is also just a detail piece that doesn't need to really "match up" with anything, and will all be func_detail anyway. So I made it squarely in a separate VMF, put a func_instance which references it in my main map then rotated the entity. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98931/pics/instanceexample.PNG


and while I was in Hammer I grabbed a pic of the other thing. I do stuff like this a lot. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98931/pics/angleexample.PNG
 

Shaeam

L1: Registered
Aug 19, 2011
42
20
The func_instance entity allows you to "nest" an entire VMF inside another VMF like a self-contained unit, and rotate it to any angle you like without actually rotating the objects until the compiler itself "collapses" all the instances into one map. This works out better because the compilers handle off-grid vertices better than Hammer.

Here is an example from one of my maps. I wanted to make an enclosed overhead conveyor belt structure that was at a weird double angle to the side and downward. This would have been hell to do by hand given the complex geometry and Hammer wanting to fix everything to the grid. But it is also just a detail piece that doesn't need to really "match up" with anything, and will all be func_detail anyway. So I made it squarely in a separate VMF, put a func_instance which references it in my main map then rotated the entity. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98931/pics/instanceexample.PNG


and while I was in Hammer I grabbed a pic of the other thing. I do stuff like this a lot. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98931/pics/angleexample.PNG

Your example helped:
uCAu4Gw.png


Not quite as elegant as yours; but it's definitely something, thanks a bunch! :D
 

Shaeam

L1: Registered
Aug 19, 2011
42
20
Well; apparently it's 4096x4224. Is this too big for a single point area? I think it might be. If it is; what's a slightly better size? i'm guessing 2000~x2000~ or 3000~x3000~ with the tildes indicating some odd number.