Some questions about brushes and textures

[Smyger]

So, I'm sort of new to mapping, and to the forums, and I have some questions.

The first question I have is if it's good texturing with wall textures on the floor and vice versa. Is it? Because I've heard that hammer doesn't really like it.
I know that texturing with prop textures is bad.

Another question I have is:
Is carving any good at all, cause some say it's just bad, and that you should only use the clipping/vertex tool for things like that. Or just plainly piece it together with brushes. Personally I haven't noticed anything going wrong when I use carve.

And the last question I have is about cylinders, arches, and spheres.
Do they work, cause again I've heard that they can be bad.

Those are the qestions I have for now

 

[DJive]

The first question I have is if it's good texturing with wall textures on the floor and vice versa. Is it? Because I've heard that hammer doesn't really like it.
I know that texturing with prop textures is bad.

If you texture with a prop you will get very weird ingame texture errors. You can texture floors to ceiling, it doesn't matter. Just stay away from prop texture... and HL2 texture =)

Another question I have is:
Is carving any good at all, cause some say it's just bad, and that you should only use the clipping/vertex tool for things like that. Or just plainly piece it together with brushes. Personally I haven't noticed anything going wrong when I use carve.

Do not ever use carve, ever, ever. Its a horrible tool for lazy mapper and can cause tons of problems, and TONS of extra brushes. NEVER use carve =)

And the last question I have is about cylinders, arches, and spheres.
Do they work, cause again I've heard that they can be bad.

Yep they all work, although i would suggest NOT using Arch tool, as it does not match up to grid, rather use vertex and make your own arch.

 

[AWESOME-O]

For carving, it isn't that bad, sometimes you need to carve something in a circle, yes you get 200 brushes, but on top i make another circle of my own brushes, i just use carve to get a feeling for about how i need to do something, i always deleted my carved brush
EVERY TIME YOU CARVE GOD KILLS A KITTEN!

And for the arch tool, i use it, than i use the vertex tool to snap it all to the grid.

 

[Smyger]

If you texture with a prop you will get very weird ingame texture errors. You can texture floors to ceiling, it doesn't matter. Just stay away from prop texture... and HL2 texture =)

Do not ever use carve, ever, ever. Its a horrible tool for lazy mapper and can cause tons of problems, and TONS of extra brushes. NEVER use carve =)

Yep they all work, although i would suggest NOT using Arch tool, as it does not match up to grid, rather use vertex and make your own arch.

Thanks, now I can stay out of trouble. But no hl2 textures? Argh, now I have to retexture my hole map just kidding

 

[Sgt Frag]

There is a texture replace. I haven't used it yet but you should be able to choose a tex, hit tex replace, pick a TF2 tex and all instances will be replaced. That is how t seems like it should work anyway

 

[AWESOME-O]

 

[Hawk]

Remember that if you make complex geometry like a cylinder or arch, you should convert it into a func_detail to save you compiling time.

And I'll back up the Carve sentiment. When I got the refining process of my map, I had to rebuild a lot of stuff I made with the carve tool. It was a pain in the butt. I find myself just making what I need out of multiple brushes and the vertex tool.