carving help

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beanzo
3 Posts
Posted May 30, 2011
Hey, I'm new to this community and I've been reading a lot about mapping and attempting to make a map and ran into a snag, I'm trying to carve a doorway with an arch, but every time i click carve, the hammer editor freezes up and i have to force close it. Has anyone else run into this problem that could give me some insight?

Much Appreciated,
beanzo

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msleeper
4,136 Posts
Admin
Posted May 30, 2011
Replied 4 minutes later
Don't carve.

Ever.

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iWork925
1,080 Posts
Posted May 30, 2011
Replied 1 minutes later
Create it manually, using other solids.
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beanzo
3 Posts
Posted May 30, 2011
Replied 1 minute later
ok, the tutorials I saw for making doorways involved carving, could you please point me in the right direction of a proper door making tutorial?

Thanks,
beanzo

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NocturnalGhost
200 Posts
Posted May 30, 2011
Replied 13 minutes later
The carve tool is the root of all evil in hammer, and should never be used for anything other than the most simple stuff, like cutting a rectangle out of a wall (and even then it's pretty pointless). Carving creates a whole host of problems, like nasty triangles splitting up the wall in all directions, and can cause microbrushes to be created which confuse the compile tools, causing leaks etc.

Use the clip tool instead, and make each cut manually.

img

This is an example of carving vs manual creation, taken from this site (which every mapper should read if they want properly optimized maps)

For best results, func_detail any small triangles that you create around architecture like this, so you are left with a simple rectangular hole in your world geometry.

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beanzo
3 Posts
Posted May 30, 2011
Replied 12 minutes later

NocturnalGhost wrote:
The carve tool is the root of all evil in hammer, and should never be used for anything other than the most simple stuff, like cutting a rectangle out of a wall (and even then it's pretty pointless). Carving creates a whole host of problems, like nasty triangles splitting up the wall in all directions, and can cause microbrushes to be created which confuse the compile tools, causing leaks etc.

Use the clip tool instead, and make each cut manually.

This is an example of carving vs manual creation, taken from this site (which every mapper should read if they want properly optimized maps)

For best results, func_detail any small triangles that you create around architecture like this, so you are left with a simple rectangular hole in your world geometry.

thank you very much for the very informative reply, i will try to use the clip tool and hopefully I will have some maps to post in the near future.

Thanks again
beanzo

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Nidonocu
17 Posts
Posted Jun 01, 2011
Replied 1 day later
An even better idea is to rip apart the example files from the game and use the door surrounds they provide. I'm honestly not sure why these weren't included in the base back of instances.
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ChickenMobile
2,460 Posts
Posted Jun 01, 2011
Replied 4 hours later

Nidonocu wrote:
An even better idea is to rip apart the example files from the game and use the door surrounds they provide. I'm honestly not sure why these weren't included in the base back of instances.

What he said. I copied the func_details round the doors cause I was too lazy to make it myself.

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msleeper
4,136 Posts
Admin
Posted Jun 01, 2011
Replied 7 hours later
Same. I modified my instances to include them as well.
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Will T.
163 Posts
Posted Jun 01, 2011
Replied 13 minutes later
Glad to learn I wasn't the only one who did my door frames that way. :razz:
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yohoat9
274 Posts
Posted Jun 01, 2011
Replied 1 hour later
Wow, me too.
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WinstonSmith
940 Posts
Posted Jun 01, 2011
Replied 5 hours later
Same here.