Carving? why the hatred

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phantombadger

L2: Junior Member
Sep 20, 2008
56
1
Long time no see. I really havent been on these forums for months. and I havent worked on my maps for tf2 for awhile either. a series of unfortunate events and life etc. but thats off topic.

I have been looking at mapping again, mostly for L4D; some for TF2. I have been looking through several tutorials and vids again for Hammer and have come across a general consensus about Carving. DONT DO IT.

Why?

Why is there this hatred for carving? when you carve a door or window into a wall or a pit into a floor or make a room by reducing the tool 32px/ edge and carve or hollow a block for a room then carve openings into it, its much quicker and it groups the blocks made of it together anyway. Also this standard practice for anyone who maps with the UEEditor. (a subtraction editor)

Is there some technical aspect with source that no one is explaining here? am I to trust them and not piss on the electric fence as it were.
 

Void

Local Man Unable To Map, Sources Say
aa
Sep 14, 2008
1,865
2,972
Ohhhh dear.

Carving is bad for so many things. I even object to using it for squares and rectangles. It's just... bad. Like, it creates microbrushes, oddities in the carved brushes, and it provokes people to do... horrible things with it.
 

Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
1,443
710
I think the general rule of thumb shouldn't be 'don't use it', it should be
'use it wisely'.

Hammer will optimize brushes the same if you carve or cut them or edit verts. You just have to make sure you stay clean and on the grid.

carving cubes out of cubes is fine if you like to work that way. I like cutting and using verts more. it's when you start carving with complex shapes (anything other than a cube) that you have to be careful.

Making a tube by hollowing out a cylinder from another is fine, but you should snap each vert on the first one to the grid. make a copy and shrink it an even amount so it'll stay on the grid. carve away. But if you don't snap the verts first it could get ugly.
 

(-TN-) Ben2

L4: Comfortable Member
Apr 10, 2009
172
15
many people complain because they say when you resize carved objects its weird, which it is,

but u can just ungroup something after you carve it,

I carve windows.
 

RavenStryker

Former Alias: †Blade†/Xi.Cynx
aa
Nov 25, 2008
782
844
I would have to agree with Sgt Frag, just use it wisely and there will be no problems. I have had my fair share of horrible experiences with the carve tool. For 1 never EVER carve a sphere into ANYTHING, it just cause major hoot-n-nannies all around the board. Also, remember, even though it may be faster, does that necessarily make it cleaner and easier to work with in the long run? ;)
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
Carving is often seen as a quick way to get certain long winded brush construction done, but a lot of the time it ends up giving you more stuff to clean up than if you had just manually built something from scratch.

It's a matter of taste i suppose. I'm a methodical individual and like things to look neat, almost too neat even. The carve tool may create what you need but it wont be in the most 'optimised' of ways. If it causes you compile issues you'll almost certainly have to delete the whole thing and start over.

The more complex the brushwork the more likely you are to get invalid brush's forming. But even if it is just cuboids it can still "break" individual faces and leave you with infinitely stretched texture's (which can be fixed just by clicking the "to world" box on the texture panel, just so people know).

If you do thing's manually yourself you know it may take a while but it will turn out exactly how you intend and usually all work out fine. If you carve.. you need to way up the possibilities of running into error's further down the line with the amount of time you *may* save.

Personally i have always defended the use of carving as long as you know what you are doing. Though it is a habit i have long since abandoned.
 

RavenStryker

Former Alias: †Blade†/Xi.Cynx
aa
Nov 25, 2008
782
844
Carving is often seen as a quick way to get certain long winded brush construction done, but a lot of the time it ends up giving you more stuff to clean up than if you had just manually built something from scratch.

It's a matter of taste i suppose. I'm a methodical individual and like things to look neat, almost too neat even. The carve tool may create what you need but it wont be in the most 'optimised' of ways. If it causes you compile issues you'll almost certainly have to delete the whole thing and start over.

The more complex the brushwork the more likely you are to get invalid brush's forming. But even if it is just cuboids it can still "break" individual faces and leave you with infinitely stretched texture's (which can be fixed just by clicking the "to world" box on the texture panel, just so people know).

If you do thing's manually yourself you know it may take a while but it will turn out exactly how you intend and usually all work out fine. If you carve.. you need to way up the possibilities of running into error's further down the line with the amount of time you *may* save.

Personally i have always defended the use of carving as long as you know what you are doing. Though it is a habit i have long since abandoned.

VERY WELL PUT!:wow:
 

RavenStryker

Former Alias: †Blade†/Xi.Cynx
aa
Nov 25, 2008
782
844
Well were not saying that it would always cause a problem from using it, were saying that there is more of a "potential"(i guess you can say) of something going wrong when carving as opposed to manually making separate brushes.
 

Fogold

L2: Junior Member
Jan 23, 2009
92
7
I have to say, Ii use carve quite a bit, but I think it's ok to a certain extent. Windows and possibly doorways are easier with carve. But then again, I dont know too much about hammer, I could be missing someting :(.
 
Aug 19, 2008
1,011
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before knowing better, i used to carve a lot...
had to delete the whole thing once i saw the errors coming up
i strongly warn to use carve once you have playerclips and hints throughout your map, it will mess them up too

i only use it for specific reasons, like cutting an arch into sth
if i do so, i copy what i need into a new document, cut the arch into a brush, the fix the vertexes so it looks clean, the copy it back to the original document
 

phantombadger

L2: Junior Member
Sep 20, 2008
56
1
Thanx for the help guys. all in all it sounds like if you are to Carve PAY ATTENTION to what you are Carving into. I have always kept measurements in 2's. and When carving I do the same. its just I havent run ito any problems, but then again I haven't exactly come close to finishing a map yet.
 

Shmitz

Old Hat
aa
Nov 12, 2007
1,128
746
The way I look at Carve is that it is for carving. Not gouging, or digging, or otherwise subtracting from the inside.

I use carve when I want to subtract from the outside of a brush. Most often, it's when I want the brush face to have a slope that can't be achieved by clipping, and using the vertex tool would require a calculator and a whole lot of time and luck.
 

Mar

Banned
Feb 12, 2009
607
63
Don't be like me and carve a parallelogram from a cube several times, and then carve that with a sloped plane. Just don't. It's a really bad idea. I promise.
 

Tayrtahn

L1: Registered
Mar 21, 2009
7
0
I carve our doors pretty frequently. If there's a flat wall and I want to make a door-sized opening in it, it's very easy to quickly make a brush in the size of the door and use it to carve. This has the added benefit of being able to use the carving brush as the actual door (if I'm making a fake door for detail). Just squish it into the wall a bit and you're good.

Sure, I could make two vertical cuts, select the middle section, and make a horizontal cut. It's a few more steps though.

Besides, there's always undo. I've never had a carving issue I couldn't fix with a single undo. Cutting and vertex adjusting takes multiple steps to compare pre- and post-undo appearance.

But as others have said, don't use carve for anything complicated, and only use it when everything involved is on the grid. I generally use very large grid sizes when carving.
 

DJive

Cake or Death?
aa
Dec 20, 2007
1,465
741
carve takes me off grid.

grid = everything

therefore care = bad

=)
 

no means nomad

L1: Registered
Dec 23, 2008
33
11
I carve our doors pretty frequently. If there's a flat wall and I want to make a door-sized opening in it, it's very easy to quickly make a brush in the size of the door and use it to carve. This has the added benefit of being able to use the carving brush as the actual door (if I'm making a fake door for detail). Just squish it into the wall a bit and you're good.

Sure, I could make two vertical cuts, select the middle section, and make a horizontal cut. It's a few more steps though.

Besides, there's always undo. I've never had a carving issue I couldn't fix with a single undo. Cutting and vertex adjusting takes multiple steps to compare pre- and post-undo appearance.

But as others have said, don't use carve for anything complicated, and only use it when everything involved is on the grid. I generally use very large grid sizes when carving.
It might be fast, but it introduces an insane number of problems if you ever want to alter the wall or the door.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
If you can use vertex manipulation to fix any grid error's and the more 'advanced' texture functions to fix corrupted faces, and go over your work for error's as you work there shouldn't be a problem, if you are willing to work that way.

I wouldn't have said there were an insane amount of issues with it. Pretty much only boils down to:

A) vertex's forming off the grid structure when carving detailed construction at strange angles. Such as when creating arches.

b) corrupted brush faces

C) Infinity brush's

If you're experienced enough, all of these are small problems are over come with a flick of the wrist, before they even cause a real issue such as wasting a compile session. IT just so happens most people experienced enough for this no longer map this way.

I see no reason why altering it afterwards would cause issues unless you're grabbing the whole 'group' of brush's and scaling it. You should probably stick to the vertex manipulation tool for that and you really really shouldn't get any problems with that.