Sarcastic_Fantastic

L1: Registered
Oct 16, 2018
10
0
This is a very generic question but basically: I feel like I'm spending waaaaaay too long tinkering with complex or very small brushes making them all align exactly to each other when I could actually be detailing more of the wider map. It often pops into my head (usually after having messed around with a couple vertices for an hour) "why does this minute detail matter just extend the brush into the other one, no-one is gonna notice". Obviously I understand keeping everything on-grid is important and a large wall clipping into another is a glaring error but for things smaller than, I don't know say 4HU, does it really matter?

To give a recent example here's a road kerb outside of the playable area that I've been trying to line up for the last hour and a half: https://i.imgur.com/ld0Nvhs.png.
 

henke37

aa
Sep 23, 2011
2,075
515
You have heard of z-fighting, yes? vbsp is supposed to clean up overlapping brushes, but it doesn't do it in all situations.
 

Empyre

L6: Sharp Member
Feb 8, 2011
309
187
I would make a backup copy of your map for safety, and then select the road and use it to carve the curb. I think that as long as the result is a legal shape for each brush, it should be fine. This is a rare case where the Carve tool is actually useful. After all, you are not carving a hole into anything, which would be a very bad idea.

On the other hand, looking at your picture, it looks like it shouldn't be hard to line that up using vertex manipulation.

Oh, and Z-fighting happens when 2 different brush faces are in the same plane (or very nearly). The game can't decide which face to show you, and the result looks messy. The screen has the X axis and the Y axis, and the axis from your eye through the center of the screen and into the scene is the Z axis, which is where the name Z-fighting comes from. The 2 co-planar brush faces are fighting over which gets to be seen.
 
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iiboharz

eternally tired
aa
Nov 5, 2014
857
1,291
I would make a backup copy of your map for safety, and then select the road and use it to carve the curb. I think that as long as the result is a legal shape for each brush, it should be fine. This is a rare case where the Carve tool is actually useful. After all, you are not carving a hole into anything, which would be a very bad idea.
Don't do this, this is a fool's solution. The proper solution is to produce some better geometry. How are you producing the road/kerb/etc?
 

ficool2

L4: Comfortable Member
Oct 28, 2017
161
232
Don't do this, this is a fool's solution. The proper solution is to produce some better geometry. How are you producing the road/kerb/etc?

This solution works provided if you do go into vertex edit mode, select all vertices and do Ctrl + B to fix the slight offgrid stuff from carve. I have a feeling you actually haven't used the tool, it works perfectly fine provided you don't carve blindly
 

Sarcastic_Fantastic

L1: Registered
Oct 16, 2018
10
0
In regards to the post before, I have heard not to use the carve tool but I'll make a backup, give it a go and see what the result is.

I've also been trying to build a pavement that curves round the road (so a cube brush with a curved side) but that's proving even more difficult. Crux of the issue is the road made with the arch tool (16 width, 32 sides, 360 degrees with half removed) is "as a whole" snapped to the grid but the individual triangles that make up the arch aren't.

I am unable to use vertex manipulation to line up the kerb as the road isn't perfectly aligned. I could go in and move every triangle vertice to the grid so then when adjusting the kerb it'd be aligned perfectly but that'd be rather time consuming.

This is why I was asking if I can just make the kerb a little bigger and overlap it with the road by a couple hammer units round the curve rather than spend ages adjusting each vertice (which kind of defeats the point of using a tool to avoid manually making the curve).

Sorry if that sounds a bit lazy, but this is my first map and I'm kind of eager to make and finish something rather than spend months on something that never releases.
 

Sarcastic_Fantastic

L1: Registered
Oct 16, 2018
10
0
You beat me to the post ficool2 haha.

This solution works provided if you do go into vertex edit mode, select all vertices and do Ctrl + B to fix the slight offgrid stuff from carve.

If this works it sounds like exactly the solution I need, as it's the vertices not being on grid that makes everything else more difficult.
 

iiboharz

eternally tired
aa
Nov 5, 2014
857
1,291
This solution works provided if you do go into vertex edit mode, select all vertices and do Ctrl + B to fix the slight offgrid stuff from carve. I have a feeling you actually haven't used the tool, it works perfectly fine provided you don't carve blindly
It might work but it's still a sloppy solution to something that can be done properly, and as OP is new to mapping I think teaching them the proper methods would probably be for the better rather than letting them accept shortcuts which will create issues in future.. And you say you think i haven't actually used carve, when I've actually written a tutorial where carving is literally one of the steps.
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The best solution to this is to make every part with the arch tool, and to do it properly with concentric circles. I can elaborate if you like, because it's honestly quite easy, just requires a bit of maths.