Curved edges

[MetalPiranha]

Does anybody have a decent tutorial or can anybody tell me how to make edges more curved in Hammer? I am trying to make a curb and some carpet stairs, and without curved edges they look silly.

Cheers

 

[Cunbelin]

Unfortunately outside of models, hammer doesn't handle curves very well, if you put faces into the same smoothing group vrad seems to still ignore them and use face normals, but dynamic lights work fine. If I had more experience with radiosity systems I'd try to hunt down the problem in the vrad source but alas I'm just a lowly beginner when it comes to advanced lighting schemes.

 

[MetalPiranha]

Ok!

___________
Piranha

 

[Flippage]

snarkpit.com has tutorial about making curved corners. This technique will also work for what you are after.

 

[sabre0001]

http://mnemic.d3files.com/ - also a good site...has a video tutorial for it, but no words. Simple enough really and its the way i do mine now...

 

[MetalPiranha]

The snarkpit one doesnt really explain it properly and mnemic's downloads are down :S - I'll wait till they're back up.

 

[fearian]

I have the best method for creating curves, *grarenteed* its my own method, never faild, and a braindead, zombie, uh, dog, um, with an IQ in negative numbers... could do it.

if you make your grid smaller by pressing the [ button, make sure the corner you want to curve isin yor top down veiw. now, use the carve tool (shift+x) to slice off a thin slice along this red line. keep carving but drawing the line from one more square to the left and one more square down. eventualy you should have a grid that looks like THIS , but with everything on the left of the red lines cut away.

now you have a smooth curve, of course dont do it on such a small grid, it will just take longer and will be more smooth than you need it, experiment and mainly have fun, thats what mapping should be! :thumbs:

 

[fearian]

oohm btw, for some inverted curves, make one normally and lace it INSIDE your brush, now... DUH DUH DUUHH! commit a sin of mapping and use the tools/carve option to carve out the curve into your brush. when doing this, it helps to have curve with little faces.

 

[Cunbelin]

for a concave curve you could just cut up brushes and vertex edit, you could do the same with a convex curve but theoretically you will be adding extra faces that don't need to be there. Still there are issues when trying to get a good looking curve with brushes relating to lighting.

 

[sabre0001]

fearian thats the way that the vid tutorial on menemics site does it too...and its GREAT!!!

 

[fearian]

yay! I tought myself the right way for once!

ill never forget the time i tought myself how to use a urinal *shudders

nah just kiddin folks!