[article] Clipping Vs. Carving

This is a discussion topic for the article "Clipping Vs. Carving" by Tracer Bullet which can be found here

Article description:

Cutting holes in things: which tool and why

It needed to be made.

Yes it did with all these noob mappers asking why carving is bad? (and some other people defending it)

I still wonder why they kept it in hammer editor... it makes no sense...

Thank you! I think you should have gone a little more in depth with the window example. I think that vertex manipulation and clipping go hand in hand. The last screen may bring about more questions.

Over all, this is a must know for any newbie.

Wow! i didnt know how bad the carve tool was compared to clipping. I've been using carve since i started, and it gets bloody hard to see stuff in the cluttered windows. This has really helped.
But i really hate vertex manipulation, everytime i use it, it buggers up my map and creates shapes that cant exist in three dimensions.

Like Crono said, it needed to be made. I'll post this on as many forums as I can...

My idea is that carving is okay as long as you know where to use it and where to clip instead. But I agree, carving IS evil, regardless of my opinion.

Good job !

In the screens, it would be easier to see the actual objects if you reduce the intensity of the gridlines. (Tools > Options > 2D Views> Slider)

Besides that, good stuff.

Wow, I am a newbie and it finally makes sense to me, bravo, bravo, bravo!!!!!

Even if that was true, Ballblue, you're still an idiot.

Good tut, Mr. Bullet.

Wuhhu.... now i a?can make a REAL map.... THX MAN!!!!

Ok Ballblue, you could technically make that out of 8 solids, but chances are it would actually use the same number of polys. Faces that are coplanar and share the same texture alignment are combined into one.

Even if it did by chance reduce the polycount slightly, for the 2 or 4 or whatever w_poly you saved, I wouldn't say it would be worth the more awkward to manipulate brush layout.

Er. the sad thing is, I can probably make a cylindric hole in the wall with less polies than either of your shown screens <.<

The Carve tool isn't evil, you just need to use it like you explained and with some common sense [i.e. like not using torus to carve with ]

Yes an maybe carving water, As it kinda just turns into water after compile (dont quote me on this = P) Carving is mostly inneficient and causes more errors than it prevents <- Quote me on this = P

I chose "evil" as an obvious exaggeration. Let me rephrase. There is NO situation in which carving is superior to clipping. Clipping is faster and gives better results. If you choose to argue the point, you are wrong.

Sad isn't it, when we are compelled to make tutorials on subjects most people should be smart enough to figure out by themselves.

the results of carving are so dramatic, even when you use it the first time.

carving is evil.

Clipping gives better results and is almost always the best way to do things, but saying its faster is sorta lying Tracer :P

I don't know about that ReNo. If you look at it there are about the same number of steps involved. Maybe I just find carving slower because I had to sort of figure out how to do it again for the tutorial :P

It is sort of sad the this is needed, however it should speed the learning process. I know I used carving allot in my early days, simply because most "first map" tuts make extensive use of both the hollow and carve tools. I decided on my own that both tools were more trouble than they were worth, but it took me a lot longer than it would have if a tutorial like this had existed.

First of all, great tutorial! I love the clip tool... it has saved my life on many occasions (in a manner of speaking). I only wish I realized its full potential several months ago.

But to Parakeet, I hope you're joking about wishing the carve tool be removed. You can't do some things with the clipping tool that you can do with carve. Don't get me wrong, I RARELY ever use the carve tool, but it does have it's place.

For example, I wanted to make a 32 faceted hollow cone to connect to a 32 faceted hollow cylinder (seemlessly) and there is no way you could do this with the clip tool and the "make hollow" command would always produce uneven seems. So I created the first cone, cloned it and downsized it on all three axis (by 16 units) and then positioned it inside of the other larger cone and carved away.

Now, for those of you who think I'm crazy, you should know that the cone and cylinder brushes exists in an area of my map where nothing else is visible, they are both func_illusionary, and have a basic rectangle surrounding them to seperate them from the void.

For making funky hollow shapes, you ought to have a look at this tut:http://www.snarkpit.com/editing.php?page=tutorials&game=HL&id=27

No carving needed.

A good method, but i still prefer carving for most things. its quick and dirty, but you can always manipulate the individual brushes if you dont get the result you want.

Don't it just burn your ass, when someone ruins the premise of an idea?

insert eyeroll here

I've found that in order not to 'lock up hammer' when carving is to create the objects, copy and paste them into a new blank map, do the carving there and then reimport them into the original map, line them up over the pre-existing objects and them those.
making good use of the group/ungroup toggle and func_detail.

A very good tut for new mappers.

However, there are times when using carve can be useful AND produce usable results (gasp! Mapper Blasphamy!).

The rule of thumb is "keep it simple".

For example, you are making a banister for a staircase and it's at a funky angle that doen't match the pre-made textures. You've had to rotate the handrail of the banister into place to match the decent angle of the stairs. You then put in a series of thin vertical brushes for the supports that enter into the underside of the handrail.

You can highlight just the handrail, and the supports, and hide everything else. Now select the handrail only. Press the carve button. The tops of the supports will be clipped to line up with the handrail. Unhide everything (and kill the vis-group created).

The "keep it simple" rule of thumb sums up these more complex rules:

-Do your carving in place (with all brushes already placed in the map) and don't try to move carve pieces around (unless you have a handle that lines up to the grid). Always hide everything else that is not carving or being carved.

-NEVER carve INTO another brush. If you are going to make any kind of cavity in a brush, ALWAYS use the clip tool as shown above. Carving is ONLY good for cutting off the end of the target brush and having that brush line up with the carving brush. Always make sure the brush doing the carving is bigger than the brush being carved.

-Only use ONE face to carve another brush. Do not attempt to carve a brush with more than one face of the carving brush. Helter-skelter cut lines will result if you break this rule.

-Carve with only simple shapes. Carving with squares and rectagles is best. In a pinch you CAN carve with a vertex manipulated brush, but ONLY use it to carve a brush with straight, perpedicular lines. The extreme envelope edge in this rule would be to use a vertex manipulated brush to carve a wierd angle on a cylinder. NOT a good idea though.

-Always carve with one brush. If the staircase from the example had been a curving staircase, you'd have had to do each section of the handrail at a time. Selecting an entire set of brushes and then carving with them is bad because each face, on every brush, projects a "plane of cutting" through space and can easily cut into a brush that doesn't actually touch the brush which caused the cut.

Confused?

Just remeber to keep it simple and that 98 times out of a 100, clipping is the better choice, but every once in a while a carve, done right, can save you some time.

Good tut , but carving can save you some time .Simple example :
connecting two rooms with a straight corridor; carv the 2 rooms with the ( too long ) corridor brush ; make the brush at length ; make hollow outside ; delete the 2 ends ; done .

Carve out a block then carve the cylinder out of the block shape. How to carve like a pro.

Shift+x to change the clipping options OR click the clip tool icon until you reach what you like (add, subtract, or cut).

It was a good tutorial, but it doesn't say how you clipped the round window.