Vertex's Misaligning, despite valid geometries!

Subject and these screenshots say it all:



Above is right after I save and exit hammer, or close the map.



Now you see after I reopen the map. Tons of subtle shifts in geometry (trust me, these weren't there before I exited).

I've checked with alt+P as the same thing would happen if I saved a slightly invalid geometry, but the brushes used to make the arch thing are totally valid! I even used triangles in the bottom part (for the most part) to ensure this!

Argh, any help appreciated.. Altnernate ways to creat such an arch thing also accepted. Would the geometry come out better if I made it using a few carves or something?

I was forced to put a halt on my competition entry because hammer no longer allows vertex manip of arches.

There is no solution.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

What do you mean it doesn't allow vertex manipulation of arches? Why would arches be different to any other brush in terms of vertex manipulation? All the arch tool does is build a set of individual brushes in the shape of an arch and group them together, they aren't treated differently to any other brush.

Beguiled, I'm not sure what this problem is - its not something I've come across personally. It does look like a fairly awkward piece of geometry though, and something that would almost certainly be better modelled than built out of brushes anyway. There are ways to export brushes from hammer and import them into modelling packages, and you can then use them as a reference for building the model, so you might wanna check that out.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

I can't help you but I can tell you I experienced the same thing. Perfectly aligned vertexes in more complex geometry (arches) wont load up correctly if you re-load the map in Hammer. Seems to be an anti-invalid-solid-structure feature gone wacko. :sad:

Thanks for the replies, folks. The whole thing isn't made with the arc tool, so it's definitely not just a shortcoming of the arch tool. For the "inner" set of brushes I used an arch as a guide but constructed it all of brushes which were semi-triangular to avoid illegal brush problems. At any rate, I'm getting the same kind of issues with any subtle brush work I do... maybe if I don't group things it will be better, but I don't see why that would be the case.

At any rate, it does appear that the invalid-brush fixer has gone mad...

As for doing this type of thing with XSI or whatever, I've never been very quick about the whole modelling thing, and the nature of things like these archs is such that I like to have them done in brushes as I can resize them if I'm in a pinch (although I won't deny that resizing such structures can lead to a variety of problems if one is not careful).

Any good tut which would teach me how to crank out simple models like this quickly (it's the details that I'm sketchy about, UV mapping and texturing quickly, making collision models, quickly applying material properties, etc.)?

Edit: Thinking of new ways to get the result I'm looking for (or something better, might as well set my sights high if I'm stuck opening up XSI and groping my way through that interface) and the idea of exporting simple brushes seems like a good way to get an integrated result, thanks Reno. Gonna look for a tut now, and add it to this thread if the result is sound.

Edit2: Wondering if Milkshape is powerful enough to do this nowadays? Should I worry about implementing things like smoothing groups with these static props? Ugh, really need a good tut :razz:

Guessing from your screenshots this is a source engine map and the structure you're doing looks like it could probably be done using the displacement tool.

Also I found this:
http://www.snarkpit.net/editing.php?page=tutorials&game=HL2&id=173

Looks very similar and apparently works (in some version of Hammer it did at least).

That's an interesting solution, reaper.. Hmm.. so what's the consensus here, is it better to dive into XSI or do this with Disp's? Seems like this will be a toss up time-wise, and I might be able to get a more interesting (detailed, efficient, flexible) result with XSI... but, on the other hand, VMF importing into XSI seems incredibly slow, even for simple geometries (anyone know of a better method of importing things? Should I try and scrounge up a copy of 3Ds max from school?)

Decisions.. decisions..

Edit: Jesus, I hate XSI. This is the least intuitive modelling program I've ever used.. Tried MilkShape (way back in the day), 3Dsmax, and Maya, and interface-wise all three are lightyears ahead of the "XSI Mod Tool". Only have the PLE of Maya as an altnerative, unfortunately, and it's import/export restrictions are a pain to work around. Might have to go dig up a copy of 3Dsmax from schule... ugh :razz:

One last thing you should probably try is using 90? vertical and horizontal vertices for your brushes. You know, instead of "following" the curved shape. I hope you know what I mean. Just the edges between the brushes.

That might clean some of it up, but would mean I'd probably have to abandon the arch tool all together.. more manual work :sad:

Okay I know what your talking about here - you spend 2+ hours working
on some complicated geometry, and like me, spend a great deal of time
making sure all the vertexes are alligned to the grid somehow, you do
alt-p to check for invalid solids, but it comes back with nothing
(Everythings goood right?). You save the map, and come back to it the
next day, and have a look. You discover that the vertexes are no longer
alligned to the grid that they were before. WTF?!

This has happened to me many times. The solids are valid, but for some
reason they dont align themselves to the grid when you come back to it.
There is no solution that I know of, its quite annoying. The only
advice I can give you is to break them up into more triangles and go
from there. (Or you can open the map in text pad and make those vertex
cordinates a integer value - not recomended)

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Posting And You

That might clean some of it up, but would mean I'd probably have to abandon the arch tool all together.. more manual work :sad:

I thought I've read you didn't use the arch tool? If you did then it's not really a surprise Hammer stops working correctly. In short never use the arch tool. Use it as an approximation and build the actual vertexes yourself. It's an autoimmune sickness of the program. It can't handle it's own "curved" brushes.

Used it on the outer brush, and alt+p gave no errors, so I stuck with it. Just used an arch as a guide for the inner parts, had to make it out of triangles to avoid errors.

I find arch actually works rather well if you know it's limitations, at least it did work rather well..

At any rate, the issue here is hammer "correcting" brushes which should be valid, they were all on the grid, all 'legal'... I'm rather annoyed about this problem :sad:

You shouldn't even use the arch tool if it give's no alt-p errors. I had problems that crash the vbsp and won't show up in the problems dialog.

In short never use the arch tool. Use it as an approximation and build the actual vertexes yourself. It's an autoimmune sickness of the program. It can't handle it's own curved brushes.

no no no! Learn the arch tool and don't relay on it, but don't write it off as broken.

I've had this same problem, like said above the only way to fix it is to break up the brushes into more simple forms. Also if I'm not mistaken you can export the shape into 3D program as-is, texture it, then export it as a model.

Pretty sure the Hammer arch tool works fine if you use it properly - I've been using it recently without any troubles. Provided you don't try and resize the thing after you've made it everything should be aligned to the grid and work properly. But then maybe I've just been lucky.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Spent a few hours today making a model in 3dsmax, similar to what I did above (plus a few details). Well, that's not entirely accurate. Spent a few minutes modelling and a few hours uv mapping, texturing, and compiling... ugh.. tedium!

As for arc: yeah, it only runs into trouble if you start messing it after making the arch...

I might go back to the original idea and just try and break the model up fruther. Not something I'm excited about (another split means some 30 more vertexes to align, at least!)

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting ReNo</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>What do you mean it doesn't allow vertex manipulation of arches? .</DIV></DIV>

I drove over 800 miles today. I am tired.

I read this and see "Insensitive accusation"

I think I will go to bed and hope that when I re-read this in the morning that it becomes a "Simple Inquiry"

I realize that my skills at mapping are pathetic compared to most here but, I hardly ever post with certainties unless I am fairly sure.

I spent days, days I didn't have to spare, trying to successfully vertex manip my Hoover Dam map for the competition.

I failed.. It cannot be done, at least NOT the way I tried to achieve it.

Arches failed me.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Reno said:
But then maybe I've just been lucky.

I think you were :smile:
It's true, I used the arch tool myself a couple of times, even the sphere! But especially if you want to add anything later (even if it's new brushes ect.) it's better to do the whole thing by hand. It may take 15 minutes but sometimes saves you a lot of trouble later. IMO it's owrth it.

first off i created an 8 sided arch and vertex manipulated it right away to see if it works, and it did and i diddnt have to ungroup it.

but on the topic did you have to do a check for problems and use it to fix invalids, if yes than that is why a vertex is off like that.

if not than i couldnt tell you whats wrong.

but from the looks of it. it looks like you were making an arch with a champhered bottom.

the best way to do it without modelling or using the displacements is to make the champher a seperate brush from the square part

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the only problem with steam updating things every week is it doesent give the developers an incentive to playtest thier work, so we do it for them

but on the topic did you have to do a check for problems and use it to fix invalids, if yes than that is why a vertex is off like that.

As mentioned, I checked with alt+p after each brush was vertex manipped. No invalid brushes, nothing to fix.

The champher is made of seperate brushes, each section consists of two triangular blocks, moved into place. Again, no invalid brushes, but they deform upon reload.

Try turning the offending brushes into func_details. In one of my maps, I have some really small cylinders/tori, but the vertices won't dissalign since they're func_details. If the problem persists, then it's an issue with Hammer rounding off the values of the vertices' coordinates, and can't be fixed.

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People its snarkpit.net not snarkpit.com! Be sure to check this when you add links!