Irregular inclines/slopes

LLamaBoy

L1: Registered
Aug 30, 2008
17
0
Ok, so I think I may be in over my head a little for my first big mapping project.

Basically, the concept of my map involves an assault up part of a mountainside, into a building near the top. The slope is pretty significant, probably a distance:height ratio of between 4:1 and 3:1 for the most part.

As you can guess from the title though, I'm not really sure on how to go about creating natural looking slopes in the easiest and/or most efficient manner. I've looked for tips and tutorials on the subject but I've come up empty handed.

A couple of approaches I've considered and tried:
- Placing and rotating brushes in a semi-random manner to produce irregular dips and elevations. I gave up after realising how much of a mess it will quickly become (I started geting lost after the first 3 brushes).
- Placing everything flat and then using displacements to imitate the elevation. I've not tried it to a large degree but I imagine the higher it goes, the more frustrating and time consuming this process will become.
- The other thought I had was to simply create ramps and place differently-elevated brushes, eventually linking them all up into a big combined area, although this would probably require a huge number of small brushes and take a lot of time.

Eventually I decided - before I give myself a big headache - to ask the experts for some pointers. So am I on the right tracks with any of these thoughts? I'm fairly sure the 3rd approach is at least more plausible than the others.

Thanks in advance for your time, all.
 

psihomir

L4: Comfortable Member
Mar 17, 2008
192
32
Well you can just use displacements on the sloped surface, it doesn't need to be flat - just 4-sided :)

If it's very steep, you may need to work with 2 axes to give it a more natural look.
 

LLamaBoy

L1: Registered
Aug 30, 2008
17
0
Well you can just use displacements on the sloped surface, it doesn't need to be flat - just 4-sided :)

This is what I intend to do, I'm just asking about how to go about the initial brush placement with the minimum of annoyance and backtracking.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
What is easiest to do is plan out your structure with 32 unit thick brushes. Hm, a screen shot will probably speak a thousand words here. But i'm feeling lazy atm :/

Plan it out with standard brushes like you would walls and floors (only this is.. just a floor), using the vertex tool to slope the brushes and join them etc. When the layout is done, displace your brushes how you wish with bumps etc. You don't need to just place blocks and join them with the displacement tool. It's easier to line up the brushes before hand.
 

l3eeron

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Jan 4, 2008
593
88