Any tutorials for planning how to position displacement?

Hyperion

L16: Grid Member
aa
Jun 8, 2015
840
659
To me, displacements are huge pain in the ass. When I look into official maps and how displacements are done there, I cant do nothing else than wonder how on earth they made those disps. So, I'd like to learn how to make displacements in advanced level, like this:
6UEZDOC.jpg
Also how I can fit them into my map without making them go under buildings
 
S

saph

To me, displacements are huge pain in the ass.
I hate them. They are annoying, but as with most things, it takes practice. (It helps when I have an environment artist though....) Just practice and play around with it. You'll find out more as you go. Experience is key to progressing as not only a mapper, but as pretty much anything.

It is not possible to have a triangle displacement. You can have any quadrilateral you want though. However, you can have the displacement 'hide' under the wall. Displacements must be the same size, or half the size to sew together. When doing displacements, I recommend having 256x256 displacements with a power of two and 512x512 displacements with a power of three. These will have the vertices lines up if you line the sides up. As with most things in Hammer, a power of two is the way to succeed. If you play around with this, you'll get used to it, and as I've learned, it helps a lot. Also, try to keep displacements on the same plane, otherwise they won't sew.


I would personally adjust the corner one because the other displacements are already aligned with various surrounding displacements.

Personally, I'd make a box-like shape for the start. Simple shapes can help you connect and have a fluid connection between the various planes. It's like when you block out an idea for alpha. Keep it simple, then make it more complex.
Learn to subdivide, it helps a lot. By just playing around with it, you can create (as close as you can get in Hammer) smooth surfaces which you can then go over with a brush to make it more jagged and natural. I'm pretty sure tunnels, caves, and walls are good with this. It takes practice, and manipulating displacements can be tricky. The corners pinch up sometimes, and an extension or decoy might be needed.
Smooth it out. Smoothing is what I do after making any cliffs or ground. I set it to a low value and then smoothing. As with any displacementing (people say it, it's not really a word though), a large radius can be useful for flatter, smoother surfaces. Don't go overboard, but a little bit of smoothing can really make an area look nice and not rough.

Picture it in your mind and simplify it. When viewing a Valve map, turn off the 3D mode for displacements, and poke through there brush-based origin. You'll see how simple and tricky they are. Always make sure you can sew, and when doing stupid angled displacements, please cut the edges so it lines up nice. (It should be flat on the ends, making a smooth connection with the other surrounding displacements.)
 

Izotope

Sourcerer
aa
May 13, 2013
698
764
What I like to do from time to time is look at Valve maps and "Destroy" a displacement.
This will reveal how they made the brush first.
You can do that to an entire area to see how they constructed the brush-base first,
and then from there you can kinda guess how they did it.
 
S

saph

What I like to do from time to time is look at Valve maps and "Destroy" a displacement.
This will reveal how they made the brush first.
You can do that to an entire area to see how they constructed the brush-base first,
and then from there you can kinda guess how they did it.
I do like it sometimes, but I like to undo it sometimes to compare the change from the initial brush to the displacement's final form. I usually use the Disp Mask toggle which shows the brush or the displacement. It can be found next to the Align to World/Face (on the left of the displacement buttons) in the Hammer Map Operations Toolbar (the top bar in hammer).
 

MoonFox

L10: Glamorous Member
Mar 17, 2015
739
74
If you need help, look up UAEKCrash (he has a tutorial for this)


I guess tangential question (I will make a thread)
how do you people get the ENV_cubemap working
 

UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
aa
Sep 8, 2008
1,264
816
Note though that you can mimic a sewable displacement triangle using 3 displacements and its quite easy to perform.

Displacements first require a person to build clean brushwork and get some knowledge of vertex editing. If they dont know these basics displacements are hard to build. But when they can vertex edit any brush to fit they can easily make more complex displacements. Since you arent required to make the complex shape initialy you can just edit it to the final shape. Moving a displacement over 128HU in the final result isnt bad at all. Its better to start with a good shape at a good size and then just move the walls to where you want it (as long as its within a reasonable distance - and note i mean moving it using the displacement tool - your initial displacement doesnt have to match the final result at all as long as you dont mess up the textures on the displacement)
 

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