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Brushes smaller than one small grid?
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 Re: Brushes smaller than one small grid?
Posted by beguiledfoil on Thu Feb 24th at 9:42pm 2005

My problem is pretty simple, I want to make a brush that's thinner than one block on the small bridge, but I can't figure out how to make it any smaller. Usually holding alt frees me from grid restraints, but that's not helping in this case. Any suggestions? Sorry for the simple/stupid question.



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 Re: Brushes smaller than one small grid?
Posted by Myrk- on Thu Feb 24th at 9:43pm 2005

The smallest grid size is the smallest HL1/HL2 can handle. No exceptions apart from with models that need to be made out of hammer editor.

[addsig]



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 Re: Brushes smaller than one small grid?
Posted by beguiledfoil on Thu Feb 24th at 9:47pm 2005

That doesn't seem to be the case, though. For instance, when I decompiled d2_coast_03 I found that the brushes they made into func_breakables appeared to be half the width of a standard small grid.



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 Re: Brushes smaller than one small grid?
Posted by Static88 on Thu Feb 24th at 9:56pm 2005

? quoting beguiledfoil
That doesn't seem to be the case, though. For instance, when I decompiled d2_coast_03 I found that the brushes they made into func_breakables appeared to be half the width of a standard small grid.

This is just a shot in the dark, but try using vertex manipulation on a brush that's made one grid thick. Will it let you merge vertices? Just a thought.

[addsig]



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 Re: Brushes smaller than one small grid?
Posted by RaPtoR on Thu Feb 24th at 10:14pm 2005

? quote:
The smallest grid size is the smallest HL1/HL2 can handle. No exceptions apart from with models that need to be made out of hammer editor.


Wrong, its possible to make really small brushes.

If you want to make something small, make it four times larger than it's supposed to be and then transform (CTRL+M) the object and scale it down (to 0.25).
Don't make brushes too small though, since that will count as a micro-brush error.

Oh yeah, it's also very difficult to move small brushes around since they are placed edge-to-edge with the grabed side and the grid. You can use the "move" function in the "transform" window if you want to be more precise.
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 Re: Brushes smaller than one small grid?
Posted by Myrk- on Thu Feb 24th at 10:20pm 2005

I've done that before and it doesn't compile the solid I make that small... [addsig]



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 Re: Brushes smaller than one small grid?
Posted by RaPtoR on Thu Feb 24th at 10:27pm 2005

? quote:
I've done that before and it doesn't compile the solid I make that small...


How strange, the panel on this screenshot (the little one, glowing cyan to the left) is made out of a couple of brushes that i scaled down. Its 0.5 inches wide, (i made it before i knew anything about models ), and as you can see, it compiled without any problems.
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 Re: Brushes smaller than one small grid?
Posted by omegaslayer on Thu Feb 24th at 10:53pm 2005

? quote:
That doesn't seem to be the case, though. For instance, when I decompiled d2_coast_03 I found that the brushes they made into func_breakables appeared to be half the width of a standard small grid.


Dont rely on decompiled maps for brushes, the only reason you do it is to see how valve did something with entities, not brush work, because the decompiler isnt perfected yet, and honestly you can never get a true honest decompile that wil have perfect anything.
[addsig]



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 Re: Brushes smaller than one small grid?
Posted by beguiledfoil on Fri Feb 25th at 12:07am 2005

? quote:
Dont rely on decompiled maps for brushes, the only reason you do it is to see how valve did something with entities, not brush work, because the decompiler isnt perfected yet, and honestly you can never get a true honest decompile that wil have perfect anything.

I'd considered this.. that the brush thickness was just a result of an "error" in the decompiler, or more accurately, the result of compiling, but I can't figure out how this would get changed.

I'm going to try the ctrl+m idea, that seems like an excellent suggestion. Thanks for the help, guys.

edit: Yeup, the scaling of the depth worked out great, thanks a ton! And thanks for the specifics about when not to use it Lep, I'll try and keep my brushes larger than 1 cubic unit (hopefully that won't be too hard )





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 Re: Brushes smaller than one small grid?
Posted by Leperous on Fri Feb 25th at 12:19am 2005

You can make brushes with fractional dimensions, but the surface area has to be larger than the microbrush area defined in VBSP (default 1 unit2, I think?)



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 Re: Brushes smaller than one small grid?
Posted by Gwil on Fri Feb 25th at 12:37am 2005

Hold Alt while doing your brush transformation to obtain more control over size (likewise for moving brushes outside of the grid range)

Try also making a brush 1 unit thick, then translating it whilst holding alt to take it off the snap lines.

Why you'd need a brush less than one unit thick is beyond me, though. [addsig]



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 Re: Brushes smaller than one small grid?
Posted by beguiledfoil on Fri Feb 25th at 12:41am 2005

Actually, gwil, the editor won't let you use the alt dealy to make a brush smaller than the smallest grid size. Moving it once they're smaller does get tricky, as someone mentioned, and holding alt will sometimes (this is inconsistent for some reason) allow you to move the brush around.

As for my reason: I needed to make a panel of glass small enough to fit within the "bars" model used in the wasteland/car parts of HL 2. One unit thick resulted in faint, but visible z-fighting.





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 Re: Brushes smaller than one small grid?
Posted by DrGlass on Fri Feb 25th at 9:10am 2005

I'd say it is best not to do that becuase you can easly lose the brush or create errors. But if you can handle it w/e right?
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