Everyone seems to have this massive misconception about the carve tool.
It is very useful and saves a lot of time, it is only dangerous in the hands of a newbie or an idiot.
For a lot of people carving seems to be this evil which will undoubtedly break your map, but there is only two simple things which cause the problem.
1. It automatically groups the divided brushes - which means any dimensional changes you make to this group will deform the brushes within it. Ctrl+U fixes this.
2. People are lazy, if you take care to properly align the brush which will be the 'carver' nothing will go wrong.
Carving will cut your shape into the optimum configuration. Sure for a cube you don't need it, but to create a 32 sided pipe, I'm going to carve.
EDIT:
Things I would probably carve:
Things I would not carve:
Yea I apologize for stating that carving will carve objects into its optimum configuration, I miss-interpreted the carving algorithm. I thought it would compare configurations to find which one had the least vertices and shortest carving lengths, apparently its much more simple.
I'll only carve things if I know they're not going to be messed around with much and are too important, func_details and such. It's okay to be lazy sometimes if it means you finish your map, unless you don't have a deadline.
If you look at valve maps more carefully you'll notice quite a lot of things where simply made or not done quite right, most people would never notice such things.
It is very useful and saves a lot of time, it is only dangerous in the hands of a newbie or an idiot.
For a lot of people carving seems to be this evil which will undoubtedly break your map, but there is only two simple things which cause the problem.
1. It automatically groups the divided brushes - which means any dimensional changes you make to this group will deform the brushes within it. Ctrl+U fixes this.
2. People are lazy, if you take care to properly align the brush which will be the 'carver' nothing will go wrong.
Carving will cut your shape into the optimum configuration. Sure for a cube you don't need it, but to create a 32 sided pipe, I'm going to carve.
EDIT:
Things I would probably carve:
Things I would not carve:
Yea I apologize for stating that carving will carve objects into its optimum configuration, I miss-interpreted the carving algorithm. I thought it would compare configurations to find which one had the least vertices and shortest carving lengths, apparently its much more simple.
I'll only carve things if I know they're not going to be messed around with much and are too important, func_details and such. It's okay to be lazy sometimes if it means you finish your map, unless you don't have a deadline.
If you look at valve maps more carefully you'll notice quite a lot of things where simply made or not done quite right, most people would never notice such things.
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