Domes In Source...

Dr. KillPatient

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May 10, 2009
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I was thinking of making a massive glass atrium in one of my maps, but can't quite figure out an easy, optimized way to make a dome in Hammer. Any way to do this?
 

lana

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I agree, the only way to do this well is with models.
 

Blue552

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Sep 16, 2009
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Depends how much of the blockie look you're willing to tolerate.

For a round dome - model

Semi round dome - Displacments

Blocky dome - Brushes

The blockier the easier though
 

strangemodule

L5: Dapper Member
Sep 10, 2009
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If you want to build it with brushes, you could make it with brushes, func_detail them, and then surround it with nodraw walls.
 

YM

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There is the torus tool. No one ever gives that any love, but it's quite powerfull.

It seems the turorial i was looking for is gone. So I'll give you a breif description - torus tool can be found in the :brushtool: tool, same place as arches and cylinders ect, use it to make a donut with 0*0 hole in the middle. clip off the bottom half, then hit :ig: or :ungroup: to edit it, select thefaces that are starting to turn inwards to the centre again and delete them so you have a hole. make a cylinder that fits into this hole (vertex edit if need be) and hey presto, one dome.


for a displacement method - http://www.snarkpit.net/snarkpower/articles/game/cat/pn/tp/152/Displacement_Domes
 

lana

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What if he wants the dome to be seen from the inside?

With toruses?
 

gamemaster1996

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Sep 30, 2009
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Ok i did summin like this a while back although im not sure if it was any good.

Basically what i did was made a sphere (in menu where it has block etc) then carved it in half then used the make hollow tool.
 

lana

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Ok i did summin like this a while back although im not sure if it was any good.

Basically what i did was made a sphere (in menu where it has block etc) then carved it in half then used the make hollow tool.

Wrong.
 

YM

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What if he wants the dome to be seen from the inside?

With toruses?

Toruses are best for inside but also ok for outside. if you're just making an outside dome (which i know isnt the topic here) then you're better off not using a torus or a displacement.
Make a cylinder then use :vertextool: and add points(ctrl+f) in the middle of the upright edges and then move the top veticies inwards to a smaller radius then repeat until you have a dome of high enough smoothness.

I dont understand why everyone is so anti-brushes here there is no reason to use a displacement and no reason to knee-jerk to a model if you simply want a domed surface. You can of course make your glass dome how i stated before and then use separate arch brushes for any beams you want.

Of course if you want to have loads of complexity in your dome you might consider a model, but something like a displacement really wont help add complexity, infact I imagine most people would struggle a -lot- if they tried to make a displacement dome. I know I would.
 

Dr. KillPatient

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May 10, 2009
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Torus seems fine for what I'm doing, it's from inside up close and possibly can be seen from the outside far away. How can I make a torus a dome though? No matter what I adjust I seem to get a circular tube.
 
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YM

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select all the midpoints on the vertical edges and hit ctrl+f. those midpoints are now verticies. I've just realised that might not actually work entirely correctly.

*checks*

Blast, it wont let you use a midpoint and a non-mid point to create a split. (since you have to create new veriticies in pairs of midpoints)

*checks something else*

However. you can create a split by selecting one face's midpoints, then the adjacent-but-one face's points, so the splits altternate.

Then repeat this alternating split effect on the nonsplit faces (but they've now got two mid points along their length due to the other split faces. just pick either both the upper ones or both the lower ones, its easy to tell midpoints cause they're yellow) and then simply move them up or down on the grid so they line up perfectly with the first lot of splits. it will ask you to merge them, definitely say yes.

if you've done it right should look like this:
attachment.php


Now you can just vertex manipulate the top points into a smaller ring as well as repeating the process for either of the new ring of midpoints.