Making completely indoor maps?

[laughterkillsme]

What is the best way to do this? So far I've been making outdoor environments with building etc in them .. and was wondering what was the "best" way to put together an entirely indoor map?

Should it be a series of boxes tied together and hollowed? Is there another, better way of doing this?

(By better I mean, more professional, and from the start smarter way of constructing the level to avoid problems later)

 

[myth]

dude.... never ever (I MEAN NEVER EVER!!!!) should a mapper use the carve feature available in hammer. this process create lots of invalid brushes which can't be selected or removed, and of course invalid brushes makes map sluggish.i only know method is to create 6 different walls and put them together.

instead try using clipping tool to cut blocky edges

 

[myth]

u can arrange all the 6 sides i such a way that the room looks like a single block from out side. ckeck out the img to know how it looks in hammer.

 

[giant384]

i think outdoor maps are more creative then just indoor maps

 

[Raeven0]

Make a floor, make some walls, stick a hole in a wall, make another floor on the other side of the hole, add more walls, put in decorations, extend the floor and walls, cut a hole in the floor and stick water in its place, throw stuff on top for a ceiling...

 

[Ennui]

please do not just make brushes and use Make Hollow - just make it brush by brush. and never carve. ever. EVER.

also remember to throw the nodraw texture on all non-visible faces, like the ones sticking out into the void

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

You don't need nodraw on void faces, because vbsp automatically culls them.

 

[Ennui]

oh well thats helpful

 

[laughterkillsme]

Alright, so what exactly is an invalid brush? Why is creating a brush, hollowing it out and ungrouping the brushes a problem?

It *appears* exactly as myth's box ....


EDIT:

I found this explaination ... but i'm kinda wondering how the hell you'd get a shape like that anyways without clipping? lol

 

[Kyorisu]

Behold the difference between carving and clipping, which one seems cleaner?

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d142/Kyorisu/CarveandClip.jpg

Using the left method of carving can get messy when you start making maps like this.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d142/Kyorisu/CaseandPoint.jpg

 

[Raeven0]

Alright, so what exactly is an invalid brush? Why is creating a brush, hollowing it out and ungrouping the brushes a problem?

It *appears* exactly as myth's box ....

An invalid brush is generally one that is nonconvex, and more accurately one that cannot be represented as the space enclosed by a set of planes. Invalidity is also created when one of a brush's faces is nonplanar--which can happen with awry vertex manipulation.

The problem with hollowing of sufficiently large rectangular prisms (other shapes? NO!) is not so much that invalid brushes can be created than that the map you get is a series of interconnected hollow boxes rather than a map. It's just bad mapping and tends to produce mediocre results.

 

[-Psy-]

Every official CSS map has an outside setting. Therefore an indoor map would be utter poo to play gameplay wise.

 

[Unarmed]

I disagree.

A nice indoor map will be real good. If made nice that is.

 

[Raeven0]

Every official CSS map has an outside setting. Therefore an indoor map would be utter poo to play gameplay wise.

...?

And by what perversion of logic does that conclusion follow from the premise?

 

[laughterkillsme]

HalfLife2.net forums has the best trolls ever. I'm glad I'm here.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Anyone using carve or hollow without a really good reason should be banned from Steam.

In addition, if a (proper) mod team finds out you use carve and hollow without due respect, they won't touch you with a ten-foot bargepole.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Solaris]

Make a brush, hollow it, then ungroup it and delete the face you dont want and build a door there instead.

 

[-Psy-]

Why hollow though? Just create brushes. You'll be able to make more complicated areas then using the hollow tool.

 

[Ennui]

Every official CSS map has an outside setting. Therefore an indoor map would be utter poo to play gameplay wise.

I don't even know how to respond to that.

 

[laughterkillsme]

Overwhelmingly I hear, "Carve and Hollow aren't in the map's best interest".

Since the only place I've used hollow is to create rectangular rooms, I assume that they are a bad idea on more complicated objects .. but I'm still unsure of why.

If I don't know why .. I don't know anything .. so I gotta ask why?
(Of course Kyo had a good example ... but the rest of you hint at technical reasons)

 

[Smokin]

I have used the carve tool with out any problems occuring so does that mean that it was wrong to use it, For me no as there are no problems you have to know when to use the carve tool the more complicated the object is the less you should use carve. There have been a few times that i have used the carve tool and it has given me the same result if i made it box by box.

 

[-Psy-]

But sometimes carving makes the brushes bugger up...so just use the clipping tool.

 

[Unarmed]

How to explain? Maybe this will help some lost soul.

Hollow is sort of like smoking. One is not so bad and niether is two. But do it too much and you'll encounter trouble. The main problem with hollow is that sometimes this makes your poly counts go higher then what they would have if you would have created each brush by itself. this lowers performance.

Carve is sort of like heavy duty drugs. In a simple controlled form, applied by people who know how to use it, carve is not too bad. But you you fool around with it and just use it a bit here and there, you're headed for distaster and you'll get there fast.

This is carve and hollow when applied to squares. Hollowing more comlex things will mess things up faster for you. Carving complex things will get you in crap hella fast. And just like the drugs it will take some time to fix the mess you just created in 1 second.

Conclusion. Dont carve. Dont hollow. Do it right from the start and use your primitives, clipping tool and vertex manipulation tools right.

//Unarmed

 

[Lamer]

How to explain? Maybe this will help some lost soul.

Hollow is sort of like smoking. One is not so bad and niether is two. But do it too much and you'll encounter trouble. The main problem with hollow is that sometimes this makes your poly counts go higher then what they would have if you would have created each brush by itself. this lowers performance.

Carve is sort of like heavy duty drugs. In a simple controlled form, applied by people who know how to use it, carve is not too bad. But you you fool around with it and just use it a bit here and there, you're headed for distaster and you'll get there fast.

This is carve and hollow when applied to squares. Hollowing more comlex things will mess things up faster for you. Carving complex things will get you in crap hella fast. And just like the drugs it will take some time to fix the mess you just created in 1 second.

Conclusion. Dont carve. Dont hollow. Do it right from the start and use your primitives, clipping tool and vertex manipulation tools right.

//Unarmed

LOL
but true

 

[Ennui]

that was an awesome analogy, and pretty much right

it's just a good habit to avoid carve at all costs, and avoid hollowing at most costs using primitives not only gives you maximum control over the feel of the map, but you also are more in tune with exactly what your geometry is, and it'll give you more practice with vertex manipulation and clipping.

 

[Kyorisu]

In the long run learning how to map using the clip tool more than anything will save you a lot of time.

 

[TCfromBN]

Every official CSS map has an outside setting. Therefore an indoor map would be utter poo to play gameplay wise.

I've got a nice indoor CSS map in the works.


[sarcasim]I'm overconfident that the gameplay will blow![/sarcasim] :thumbs:

 

[63]

Carving is fine if you do it properly.

 

[laughterkillsme]

Def. some good info. Thanks everyone.