I have a few things I need to ask as I cant seem to find an explanation anywhere.

1) how do I cut shapes out of blocks or shapes I place? (map geometry)

I tried placing a door but when I attempted to place a wall around it there was corners through which you could see into the next room, the only way I could block these was placing more blocks, which is wasteful and ugly as hell.

2) Sometime textures of shapes placed next to each other don't line up, how do I remedy this?

3) How do I make insta-kill zones? (Not progressive damage ones like fire or toxic waste)

(Be nice, we all start somewhere)

1) The clip tool or the vertex manipulation tool, depending on which suits the occasion. And having several brushes around a door isn't as wasteful as you may think, as long as you remember to group them together into one func_detail object.

2) Use the texture application tool. Click on one surface, then while that is selected, right-click on other (in this case contiguous) surfaces and it will copy the texture settings onto that surface as well, making them line up.

3) Just use a trigger_hurt and set the damage amount to something ridiculously high like 5000.

If you need any more information, i Suggest you take a look at the Valve Developer Community:

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Portal_Level_Creation

And good luck!

Korjagun wrote:
1) The clip tool or the vertex manipulation tool, depending on which suits the occasion. And having several brushes around a door isn't as wasteful as you may think, as long as you remember to group them together into one func_detail object.

2) Use the texture application tool. Click on one surface, then while that is selected, right-click on other (in this case contiguous) surfaces and it will copy the texture settings onto that surface as well, making them line up.

3) Just use a trigger_hurt and set the damage amount to something ridiculously high like 5000.

The clip tool only lets me cut things once across it in a straight line. Am I using it wrong?

Thanks for the help =]

gallmond wrote:
The clip tool only lets me cut things once across it in a straight line.

Correct. Then you can use it again. And again. And again, until what you want is the desired shape.

Or use the vertex manipulation tool.

Korjagun wrote:
Correct. Then you can use it again. And again. And again, until what you want is the desired shape.

Or use the vertex manipulation tool.

Is there a way to ad more... 'nodes' to the vertex manip tool, for more complicated shapes?

What kind of shape are you going for here?

Korjagun wrote:
What kind of shape are you going for here?

like... a cylinder missing from a block.

or is that impossible, would I have to use multiple shapes?

also: I saved you from Ganon.

gallmond wrote:
also: I saved you from Ganon.

You did not.

There is another tool called the Carve tool which lets you do things like cutting holes out of things, but it should be used with caution; or preferably not at all. And if you do cut a cylinder out of something, make that something as small as possible and make it a func_detail afterwards.

Korjagun wrote:
You did not.

Heh.

Yah it sound too complex, ill just cut up two blocks and place them next to each other.

Thanks for all the help!

Consider joining the IRC channel for more real-time answers.

Korjagun wrote:
Consider joining the IRC channel for more real-time answers.

whaaaAAA!!

Theres an IRC?

Address plz.

There's a sticky in one of these forums... Community Something.

EDIT: Links. viewtopic.php?t=190

I guess I should pop in here and say that this site isn't exactly geared towards those new to mapping in general. We'll try to help you out the best we can, but if you are looking to get started then you might be better off at Interlopers.net and/or reading the tutorials at Halfwit-2.com.