What is the recommended thickness of a wall?

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PRG013

L1: Registered
Jan 13, 2012
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What isthe recommended thickness of walls/floors/ceilings?

Some tutorials use 64, some 32. I looked at the official Valve maps and 2fort looks like it uses 16.

What do you think is a good standard?

I just want to be consistent on what I am working on.

Thanks...
 

tyler

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Sep 11, 2013
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For wood, I tend to use 16 in development and then go down to 8 during detailing, when I make 8u thick supports or trims. For concrete I at least give the illusion of being thicker, usually by starting thicker.
 
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Fruity Snacks

Creator of blackholes & memes. Destroyer of forums
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Sep 5, 2010
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You will usually see between 16 and 8... usually depends on the material that you want the wall made out of... wood is usually thinner, but usually has support beams infront/behind it. Concrete/brick is usually thicker than 8.


You can judge scale if you use a prop_static of heavy.mdl (this is the heavy model) since he is the "largest" of the classes, you can judge scale of the map pretty well off of him.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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16-8 is standard. It looks like you've checked out some of the Valve maps and seen this for yourself. Some good consistent examples are pl_thundermountain, pl_badwater, ctf_doublecross to name a few. 8 syncs with the majority of window and door frame props, but you can use 32 if you cut the brush in half to texture the edges of the brushes that meet the frames appropriately (IE the inside and outside textures of a wall will often be different).
 

A Boojum Snark

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Nov 2, 2007
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You can judge scale if you use a prop_static of heavy.mdl (this is the heavy model) since he is the "largest" of the classes, you can judge scale of the map pretty well off of him.
Offtopic a bit, but I think it is better to use any class other than heavy or scout. The heavy is supposed to look huge and imposing, so ideally he will appear bigger than he "should be" for the scaling.
 

Jeremy

L11: Posh Member
Oct 24, 2010
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I always use 16 for walls. Anything above that just gets messy and 32 is too thick IMO.
 

English Mobster

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Jul 10, 2011
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Offtopic a bit, but I think it is better to use any class other than heavy or scout. The heavy is supposed to look huge and imposing, so ideally he will appear bigger than he "should be" for the scaling.
Agreed. I usually use Medic, Spy, or Sniper for scaling. Medic's the tallest class besides Heavy (Sniper comes in at just a couple units shorter, and Spy's a unit shorter than that), so he's good for judging height without having issues with overscaling.
I also tend to stick with 16 unit walls. Any thinner than that and occasionally classes can "poke through" to the other side (notably Soldiers).
 

PRG013

L1: Registered
Jan 13, 2012
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I posted this question because I noticed when doing the Tutorials, once you put windows and doors in, 32 makes everything look like your inside a prison.
 

Freyja

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Jul 31, 2009
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I use 8, for mostly everything. I don't think I've ever had the situation in one of my maps where you see the edge of a concrete wall, though. I then drop to 4 for derailing.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Nothing wrong with 32. As i already said, it requires a bit of finesse at the frames because they are 16 wide, so you need to break your brush up to seperate the textures by the frame; but other than that 32 is perfectly acceptable.