[article] Hollow spheres

This is a discussion topic for the article "Hollow spheres" by mazemaster which can be found here

Article description:

Vertex scaling

Beautifull

Straight from the top - this is the man who first made really good brush-based spheres (see the map Megalith), and you won't find a more authoritative source for making them.

uber

This technique looks really good inside and outside. the only thing that I can add is to make sure that when you are using the vertex scaling mode that the little circle that the scale 'centers' to is moved to the central focus of your sphere - that's for the n00bies like me

All hail the Hollow Sphere!!!

^^^what he said...lol

SPHERES!? OMG!

Man, this tutorial is sexy, I learned so much from this, weeeeeee.

Someone commented previously that you can skip several of the first steps by using the arch tool. That is certainly a good idea, but if you use the arch tool be sure to move your verticies to on-grid locations before you do any vertex scaling.

I just tried this out today. It was a lot quicker and simpler than my old technique. Good work.

Wow nice. but you can make the start using the Arch tool

This is the greatness

Good on you man. Next step is low ploygon, outdoor hills anf stuff.

Just a little tip for anybody who uses this tutorial. The ALT+E option totally ignores the grid. If you use it you are likely to have off grid verticals.(that aren't on the size 1 grid) In hammer it looks ok but Hl can't cope with them so the engine snaps them to grid. In this procces Hl might create invalid solids or leaks.(if the sphere is open to the void)

My suggestion is to lower the grid size to 1 and with vertex manupilation snap each vertical to the grid.

Another thing is that 12 sided cylinders have off grid vertex too, they shouldn't be used unless you snap those verticals.

Apart from that there is nothing wrong exept that you could have used the arch tool at the start, it is a very good tutorial and easy to understand.

If you snap manually, then some faces will be concave (they become skew quadrilaterals). You have to be ok with non-grid locations if you want a sphere with convex faces.

It didn't hurt my hollow spheres one bit when I snaped the verticals a quarter of a unit, you just have to choose wisely then you wont create concave brushes. Of course you can always use Hlfix instead.

Many people get leaks using your method, you should warn them about it and explain them how to fix it.
As far as I know there are three methods to fix these leaks: Snaping veticals, Hlfix and creating a nulled box around the sphere and turning it to a func_entity.

I have a heck of a time making the sphere say, the size of a small bathroom. I can't even line up the verticies. For some reason two get grouped together under certain situations and you can't have both lined up to grid one. Anyway, point being don't make the sphere too small!

My question for posting is, what is Hlfix and where can I get it?

Hlfix fixes some brush errors, and outputs floating point coordinates. It can sometimes fix brush problems, especially for small brushes.
http://extension.ws/hlfix/

Great Tutorial. Im making a zombie map for css and this is by far more efficient than the cruddy sphere and hollow tools valve gave us

Followed it word for word and it works perfect. Anyone having troubles havnt followed the tutorial properly :P

Soooooooooooooooo badddddddd.

CSG gets after compiling error.
Haha I would like to win again you :P

I have improved sphere or tows mapping with in or out. I will create article for Half-life Mapping :P and sphere or tows types would like to support same compiler like vhlt or zhlt better.