Displacement Floors, How?

devvon

L1: Registered
Aug 17, 2016
6
3
Hi guys, I'm new here. I made this thread because everytime I tried making a map, I got stuck in the displacements part. Because you know, the natural floor is a great height variant and pratically a must in maps, but I never realized how to do floors in the right way, then I downloaded some maps just to see the way Valve do, and also the way the community do.
So I realized there are two more common ways floors are made.

Gorge is a Valve map I like, where have a good height variation using the floor in the first point. Then I disabled the 3D displacement view and got it:
JOUVSuY.jpg
H6OcgbZ.png

Valve just do a flat floor with common edges (this one is so hard for me) and paint the geometry. But this seems very confusing to do.

Then I visited Harvest, a community map with little height variation but cool.
BPvXQQO.jpg
nFyZ6o0.jpg

If I destroyed all displacements and ran the map, seems like it would be the same experience, only with aesthetics differences.
This way of doing the floor is the way I was trying to do. but I was getting stuck because I was trying making a little more variation of height and the problems with edges and sewing and etc made me gave up in making maps. (but I'm back (back again (tell a friend)))

So... I entered Badlands. The KOTH version. A map with so much height variation by natural floor, I was amazed to know how they made the floor.
4telQK4.png
a1Goh0D.png

8dV2Ow2.png
dYrQAkV.png

OrOop3p.png

This is just crazy. I'm not sure, but seems like Valve did a floor in only one lay and then painted all the geometry.

So, how do you make floors? Have some tips? Sorry for the stupid question, for the bad english and all i am just brazileean

But Thanks!
 

Crowbar

Spiritual preprocessor
aa
Dec 19, 2015
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That's just Valve and @heyo having different styles. I actually prefer Heyo's, it's less confusing, but Valve seem to be very skilled on it.
 

CriminalBunny

Lasers are just deadly rainbows
aa
Oct 11, 2013
273
413
I usually make slopes where I want to have a hill and then make it a displacement. Kinda like what heyo did in Harvest.
I think that what you should do is try and see what way of doing displacements suits you best
 

UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
aa
Sep 8, 2008
1,264
816
I do prefer heyo's style. But for gorge i would have done the same. If you only need to do vertical adjustments on a mostly flat floor its best to start out with a flat floor. For cliffsides the ability to sew displacements can be relevant. In giza i have used both methods.
 

Kube

Not the correct way to make lasagna
aa
Aug 31, 2014
1,342
1,849
I usually add sloped displacements when players need to travel between different elevations. Though I'm moving towards the Badlands style of doing things as my displacements get more and more complex.
 

Crowbar

Spiritual preprocessor
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Dec 19, 2015
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1,297
Yes, but badlands' disp work could have been made with actual brush height difference had it been less complicated
 

UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
aa
Sep 8, 2008
1,264
816
Even then it also could have been done without. But displacement art can vary alot depending on the mapper. Some prefer a fully sewable displacement section, some layer the displacements. In the case of badlands i wouldnt be surprised if they first had a more flat ground, then realized that a flat ground doesnt work well, made the pit somewhat deeper and then corrected that with another displacement to prevent a stretched texture.

It depends on how you plan a map which way you go. You normaly try to use the original idea for the first displacement. When finding a flaw you arent going to remake that whole displacement (you only do that with dev state displacements) and especialy with large mirrored sections its a pain to do so. So fixing a side and adding displacements on top of it to perform the corrections can be the easier way to go. For badlands it resulted in very nice displacements, but maybe it could have been done even better. You dont realy know until someone does that.

The badlands method has the advantage of not having to make everything sewable and thats something that alot of mappers might like. And i wouldnt be surprised if that should be the way to make displacements. it looks good and can be performed very efficient.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
One thing to keep in mind is that the texture UV gets stretched along with the vertices, so you won't want to stretch the displacement too dramatically. The Harvest hill is like that because it has almost vertical sides; if you tried to make that out of a single flat surface, you'd get really ugly stretching on the sides. So that's an upside to starting with a boxier version of what you'd like to end up with.