Questions to the mapping pros.

[WanderingDudeTheMapper]

Question 1: How do I make brushes that aren't just rectangles? Like for example in the desert maps
the rocks are more curved and have realistic rock placing. And how do I make brushes that look like triangles?
Thanks.

Question 2: How do I make water look fitting to the map? I'm planning to make a MvM Halloween map.
And how do I make the skyboxes move? Just like in the event maps.

 

[SnickerPuffs]

Both of your questions ask two different things, but I'll do my best to answer all four.

First, for the more "realistic rocks", you'll want to use displacements. Here's a good guide from former Staff member Freyja that covers how to do them. Secondly, the "triangle brushes" can be done using the clip tool, which is this little thing -->

Third, you find the water that best fits your map through trial and error. Try out different water textures to see which one fits best for you. Finally, skyboxes themselves don't often move (unless you count that weird thing that happened in Crash's wubwubwub), but the things in them do. Some have rotating clouds, other have moving buildings or props. Depending on which of these you want, you'd need either func_rotate brushes, func_doors, or prop_dynamic props. I'm not sure which one will work for you, so I'm gonna need some more info.

 

[WanderingDudeTheMapper]

Both of your questions ask two different things, but I'll do my best to answer all four.

First, for the more "realistic rocks", you'll want to use displacements. Here's a good guide from former Staff member Freyja that covers how to do them. Secondly, the "triangle brushes" can be done using the clip tool, which is this little thing -->

Third, you find the water that best fits your map through trial and error. Try out different water textures to see which one fits best for you. Finally, skyboxes themselves don't often move (unless you count that weird thing that happened in Crash's wubwubwub), but the things in them do. Some have rotating clouds, other have moving buildings or props. Depending on which of these you want, you'd need either func_rotate brushes, func_doors, or prop_dynamic props. I'm not sure which one will work for you, so I'm gonna need some more info.

Thanks! I meant the one with the rotating clouds. The ones in the underworld. I remember seeing them move.

 

[The Asylum]

I don't have access to hammer rn but I'm pretty sure those clouds are models with an animated skin

If not, there's always func_rotating. Lots of maps use a func_rotating or func_rotating_door to make things in the sky spin.

 

[WanderingDudeTheMapper]

I don't have access to hammer rn but I'm pretty sure those clouds are models with an animated skin

If not, there's always func_rotating. Lots of maps use a func_rotating or func_rotating_door to make things in the sky spin.

Ah, thanks!

 

[nᵗʰSonata]

You can also create brushes of any shape, not just triangles or rectangles, by using the vertex edit tool. However, this is considered to be a bit more of an "advanced tool"; with great power comes great responsibility, and while you can use it to create much more complicated geometry much easier than the clipping tool, you run the chance of creating something which breaks the engine. The main thing you want to watch out for are invalid solids, which are a bit difficult to describe. The main things are that you want to keep the faces of your brush planar, meaning that they all line up on one plane, with nothing sticking up or down past the other vertices of that plane, and that you need to keep the entire solid convex and not concave, meaning that all of your faces should be polygons (meaning that there isn't anything that goes "inwards"). You can check your map for invalid solids (or other problems!) by opening the error checker using "Alt+P" (keep in mind that there are some errors which can be ignored, such as the player start one, or the "unused keyvalue" ones).

For "moving" skyboxes, yeah, it's usually animated models in some fashion, whether by using an animation or having them parented to a moving object. I'd suggest checking up on how 3D skyboxes work for more information on them

 

[Da Spud Lord]

I made a Water Texture Library a while ago that shows off all the different water textures that might be useful in TF2, you might be interested in that.

As per the clouds: In Helltower, the clouds in the underworld are made of a prop_static using the model "models/props_hightower_event/underworld_fogcards01.mdl", which has an animated texture on it. There's also a few info_particle_systems that emit "hwn_lava_01_smoke" dotted around. Other maps probably use similar methods, if you want a greater sample size I'd advise checking out various decompiled Valve maps to see how they do things.

 

[Pocket]

sdk_ctf_2fort has the rotating clouds if you just want to look up how they did that.

 

[WanderingDudeTheMapper]

You can also create brushes of any shape, not just triangles or rectangles, by using the vertex edit tool. However, this is considered to be a bit more of an "advanced tool"; with great power comes great responsibility, and while you can use it to create much more complicated geometry much easier than the clipping tool, you run the chance of creating something which breaks the engine. The main thing you want to watch out for are invalid solids, which are a bit difficult to describe. The main things are that you want to keep the faces of your brush planar, meaning that they all line up on one plane, with nothing sticking up or down past the other vertices of that plane, and that you need to keep the entire solid convex and not concave, meaning that all of your faces should be polygons (meaning that there isn't anything that goes "inwards"). You can check your map for invalid solids (or other problems!) by opening the error checker using "Alt+P" (keep in mind that there are some errors which can be ignored, such as the player start one, or the "unused keyvalue" ones).

For "moving" skyboxes, yeah, it's usually animated models in some fashion, whether by using an animation or having them parented to a moving object. I'd suggest checking up on how 3D skyboxes work for more information on them

Nice, thanks! Will read everything later, currently working on unusual effect.

 

[WanderingDudeTheMapper]

sdk_ctf_2fort has the rotating clouds if you just want to look up how they did that.

Thanks!