2 Questions regarding breakable glass and the carve tool

[N0VA]

(Before you flame on me i KNOW that the carve tool is very hated in the mapping community)

But first: i got a question about breakable glass. As far as i am aware: the only map in the official Tf2 rotation that has breakable glass is arena_watchtower.

While listening through the dev commentary (you should do that if you haven't, its quite interesting) i heard that bullet proof glass was to see incomming enemys for both of the teams,
Basicly all glass brushes (except watchtower) are bullet proof.

So my question is: is it a good idea to use breakable glass? it would make for a slight more unique experience, but it would also confuse those familiar with unbreakable glass.

Second the carve tool:
I know that you should never use it but does that even count for rectangular shapes? ive tried it on my experimental map and it actually just clips the brush to match the removed part, it doesnt seem to be a problem when a rectangular shape is used.

Thank you.

 

[Crowbar]

Regarding carve, it depends. I believe it first cuts using faces that are listed first in the VMF (the cause of the spiral like shapes with cylinders) so if your rectangular brush's faces are listed clockwise (or counter, that doesn't matter) it will cut it quite messily and you should always be ready to tweak it. Carve isn't a taboo tool, it's a nice time saver if you understand how it works and look at what it does.
About breakable glass, tf2 levels just tend to be static. In a game as dynamic, a good map lets players fight each other, so it steps back in player's mind. Breakable glass is also a certain engine load if you do the pieces falling off. If you feel like it fits there, try, it mighy work and give a nice touch. Or might not.

 

[Erk]

Dude, we wouldn't flame on you, that'd be mean and it would make us look like a bunch of bad apples.

I don't know about break-able glass because of the point you've already made, confusion, but if you want to put into a place where it doesn't affect gameplay I'd be all for it.

 

[Pocket]

Valve doesn't bother using breakable glass mainly because, well, you break it and then it's broken, for the rest of the round. It doesn't really add a significant dynamic element. In the Counter-Strike games, rounds are like a minute long so having some part of your environment you can permanently alter might mean something, but in TF2 they can last a half-hour or more depending on the mode. And since they go down in one shot, you could just not have glass there at all and achieve basically the same result.

 

[IrishTaxIDriver]

(Before you flame on me i KNOW that the carve tool is very hated in the mapping community)

Carve isn't a bad tool, its a very powerful tool with no handholding. As long as its used smartly its completely safe.

Do: Use it to slice angles in blocks and build multi-sided shapes.
Don't: Use it to carve a cave out of 100 100x100x100 brushes.

 

[nᵗʰSonata]

In the Counter-Strike games, rounds are like a minute long so having some part of your environment you can permanently alter might mean something, but in TF2 they can last a half-hour or more depending on the mode.

Which is probably why the only map using breakable glass is an arena map. So, breakable glass would probably work well enough in an arena map, but in other maps wouldn't make much of a difference than if there were no glass.