[article] Better looking buildings

This is a discussion topic for the article "Better looking buildings" by Ferret which can be found here

Article description:

Using angles to make better looking cities and towns

Another good ferret tutorial.

Gah. Making buildings on a diagonal angle? EVIL! the amount of cliping and slicing the mapper would have to do to line a road up perfectly with the buidlings would be insane.

Good building tut

Really it isn't that hard to get roads to line up. Shall I make more to the tutorial to prove this?

I don't doubt that it is easy for them to line up but if you made, for instance, a very very long (emphasis on LONG) highway with buildings on the side, naturally you will want to change the size\shape\color of the building, and therefore need a new object. If your buildings does not line up with the road, you will need to slash it in order to do so (helps to work on 1 unit grid )

Please I work in 8 unit grid for my buildings and 4 unit for detail. There is no need to go below 4 units ever unless you are doing overlays or some serious angle work.

Looks a lot like something I once made...

Roads arent hard to line up = / vertex manipulation anyone?

The effect you get with this way of building is superior to others, only drawback is that you'lle have to line-up roads and sidewalks aswell which could take a lot of time and if you just place a square block underneath it, r-speeds will go beserk 'cause of clipping...

Guys it isn't really that hard. I was going to add it to the tutorial later but I'm just going to jump to it now. You take the building, you duplicate it holding shift. Line up the verteces of the new building with the old one, and scale it down to 8 units tall. Then you take your clipping tool and clip it properly. You have yourself a sidewalk. Simply repeat to get a road. You guys need to be creative with methods or you wont get anywhere.

Or we could just steal your methods and go places that way. It's unfortunate when people rate tutorials lower that they deserve due to their own ignorance.

Hey man, I put the tutorial up here for other people's help, not for the rating. but thx for the vote of confidence

I'm going to help stem the tide of stupidity by saying nice work Ferret, you've made a useful tutorial that may help people break out of the habit of constantly making square buildings. Encouraging people to use more complicated construction methods will help them in the long run become better mappers. Plus you can use methods learned in this tutorial and apply them to all sorts of different situations.

Jesus, why don't you give him a handjob while you're at it Yak... Sorry. I know you didn't write it for the rating Ferret, but people take higher rated tutorials more seriously.

Very nice ferret Nothing wrong with making roads differently. I use 1 unti grid 64 units to a cube. Its the way Ive always mapped. Im in college now I will be getting 3dsm soon So I will be mapping with it.

Useful tutorial, top marks What will you be mapping for with 3DSM Atrocity?

Very nice, but what kind of roof would you put on this baby?

Most likely a flat one, though if you wanted an angled one there is no reason why you couldn't do so.

I could write a tutorial on roofs too if you really wanted lol

Picking up on what was said earlier on, which do most ppl use, 8 or 4 grid, cos I usually just click 'make grid smaller' until its as small as can go.

Depends on the circumstances, I change grid size frequently. If making significant geometry such as buildings, I'll keep it up at 16 or 32, but then if I'm making detail or working with angular geometry, I'll drop it to 8 or 4, or possibly even 2 if the circumstances require it.

I stay at around 16 units. 32 units when laying things out. I go down to as little as 1 unit for details. Minimum hallway height being 128 units, and doorways being 96 units high.

I usually map at 4-8, going down to 2 for most details. I also tend to use the alt button quite a bit

I don't see the point in making a sliced angle in the building brushes when they are not even visible, just makes more to worry about when you wanna stretch the other part out. Also seems a bit lacking to be honest- I looked at the tutorial expecting something more.

As for grid sizes I work with one of the large ones at first, but after a while I use grid size 1 or 2... :P

I like this tutorial. Make more please! 8-D

I have heard people mentioning things about func_wall, not having one big brush under complicated brushes, to keep things optimised. I am a total newbie and even though I have learned a lot in the past few weeks (I have LOTS of free time.) I still don't know enough. Maybe a tutorial to explain that stuff would be nice.

I can make sexy buildings now! I think this was enough to spark my imagination.

Great tutorial!

Now I know what I'm doing after my final today. :P