Clipping Fit for a Competitive Medic

[Bereth]

First I would like to say this isn't a full or complete guide on clipping. I am not going to go over use of different types of clipping (such as the invisible tool), or clipping to keep players out of an area. This is just to make playing on your map like playing a surf map, only slightly less so.

First I'm going to go over clipping stairs. Clipping stairs is vital. Just look at an official map to know how to do it. There are a few areas that won't be perfect, but they are mostly clipped well. Just really one thing to go over: the bottom step. Clip the bottom step to match the rest of the clipping.
Good:

Bad:

Clipping trim is also important. Two ways of doing it. Either you can just make a slightly further-out wall of pure player clip. If you have all your brushes totally covered this is fine. This can be seen below:

Alternatively you can have sloped paths to the brushes. This is a bit more work, and it requires more brushes. I don't really see an advantage in doing this, but go nuts.

Doors with trim are the worst culprits of bad clipping. I'll go over how to do it well. Here's a simple door with some trimming.

A simple solution is to do something like so. Not my ideal clipping situation, but it works for most people.

I prefer to see something like below. I turned the trim into a func_brush and removed collision. I then slanted the edges of the wall itself inside, made them func_brushes and removed their solidity. You will glide through this door. It's great.

One final thing to cover is bounding boxes. Please clip things like this. It really just simplifies things. You may also chose to nobuild them depending on some factors.

Hopefully you learned something from this. Here (Right click, save as) is a copy of the map I used for the bounding box and door.


If you would like me to run through your map and show you any clipping problems just pm me or message me on steam.


This tutorial isn't final. I may add to it and/or update it, so feel free to leave input.

 

[Fruity Snacks]

You might want to touch on Hanging lights, I know that there are some maps that have lights hanging from the ceiling that isn't clipping.

 

[tyler]

Hanging lights, overhead beams, small props, tiny gaps. Do it.

Your door trick is cool.

 

[honeymustard]

Door trick is bad because people can hide stickies inside of them.

 

[tyler]

I don't think your door trick is cool.

 

[A Boojum Snark]

Both of your stair examples are bad. Clipping should be a ramp to the ground, the edge trim should not. It looks absolutely awful and nobody builds stairs like that (it would be a tripping hazard).

 

[TheKieranator]

Both sets of stairs are from Badwater, so saying that nobody builds them like that is wrong since Valve clearly does.

I needed a good clipping guide. That way, I'll be able to tell if I'm going overboard like I usually do.

 

[fubarFX]

I know I have my own way of doing it but I'm curious to know how you guys clip roofs

 

[tyler]

Copy the roof (already two brushes), retexture to playerclip, vertex edit the low side to be even with the high side and then raise to the skybox

 

[LeSwordfish]

I usually whack it out a bit to cover props like gutters and such, but pretty much yeah.

 

[grazr]

The gutters don't even have a collision mesh, best to just leave them non-solid. Players wont really notice that they're clipping through them since the props tend to be so small or barely jutting out from the geometry.

 

[honeymustard]

Also for the stairs, the top one is good (obviously), but if you really want to clip for competitive, you should change it to blockbullets, so splash damage doesn't break when it hits the vertical segments of the stairs.

 

[A Boojum Snark]

Both sets of stairs are from Badwater, so saying that nobody builds them like that is wrong since Valve clearly does.

By nobody, I meant in actual construction. I thought the tripping hazard comment made that obvious.

 

[Trotim]

Also for the stairs, the top one is good (obviously), but if you really want to clip for competitive, you should change it to blockbullets, so splash damage doesn't break when it hits the vertical segments of the stairs.

Does any map actually do that?

 

[tyler]

Prestige wanted me to do it for Hella, and honestly I probably will just because it will make things more consistent.

 

[xzzy]

I've never seen a map that did it. I think the only reason not to is that blockbullets don't allow bullet decals, which looks kind of weird.

They also cuts visleafs.. so you have to remember to make them a brush entity or you can kiss goodbye to your vis times.

 

[tyler]

You can just func_detail them, unless I am mistaken.

 

[Rexy]

Don't just assume a bounding box area for props. Just use the toggle button to view collision meshes in hammer to see which parts and which models are actually solid:

Yellow collision meshes indicate solid props, and purple indicates props that are set to non-solid.

 

[honeymustard]

Does any map actually do that?

Well I do..

 

[Pocket]

Why is clipping the bottom step of a staircase important, exactly? The only reason stairs are clipped to my knowledge is so players' screens don't go jittery when they're on stairs, and not clipping the bottom step (in cases where the trim doesn't keep going) doesn't seem like it would even make a noticeable difference.