Hey guys!

Just finished some basic tunnel sections, and I was after a quick crit from anyone who can be bothered? Bare in mind that this is my first work in Hammer other than dicking around with trigger entities and a little experimentation with brushes.

I haven't added and details, they will be done with models, and I haven't added any func-details yet, I was curious what others would use this on?

I was thinking that grating and the rails holding the grating would be good candidates for that?

Is it okay to create 'sections' like this? I was intending on keeping the straight section fluid, this is, I can make them shorter or longer using vert manipulation, so I only have to use one section for a long corridor area.

Grab it HERE

whispers

"wrong forum"

The fact that it asked you to search for your answer should have been a clue. :wink:

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I thought so! Where would this go? In the Map forum? The forum title is a little misleading, in my defence! :wink: I thought that whole search thing was a little weird.

Okay, well, I actually want to know where others would use the func-detail on these sections anyway, and whether mapping using this type of techniques is acceptable. I'm actually more of a modeller, this is my first time mapping anything!

For reference, it'd be better to post these kinds of abstract questions in the 'WIP / Concept Area' thread, the Editing Questions forums are better at handling concrete questions about particular entities/errors/etc
http://www.snarkpit.net/forums.php?forum=2&topic=6420&chap=1

As for the crit:
Use a higher grid snap level, and place info_player_start entities to judge scale.
Using grid snap helps avoid problems like leaks, generally keeps your brushes more readable, makes texturing much easier, and really allows you to work faster. These tunnels would be pretty cramped in-game, place an info_player_start standing on the walkway to see how big features in your level are compared to player height.

As for the prefab sections:
While there's nothing wrong with it, if you use the same sections too much you'll end up with a level that feels more like a maze than anything else. In the end it's not much of a time-saver, and you'll most likely end up with a better result by building things on the spot and making copies to fill places where they're needed.

func_detail:
The compile tools (especially VBSP and VVIS) like very simple structures, it makes their work much simpler. func_details behave exactly like a regular world brush in terms of lighting and collision, but they get ignored for visibility calculations. This means you can build your level with very rough brushes and put func_detail brushes over them, thereby making your map compile much faster and run better due to simplified vis leafs (type 'mat_leafvis 1' in console, the red box you see is your current vis leaf, it determines what the engine can 'see', 'mat_wireframe 3' shows what polygons are being rendered).

Very good overview of BSP visibility as Quake-like engines handle it.

phew that was longer than I intended.

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o

Neat, thanks for the advice. It's a whole different ballgame going from non-realtime modelling to this type of work!

Good points, Baron, cheers for the pointers. The tunnels being cramped was deliberate, I wanted it to be claustrophobic for the player. This was supposed to be used on a single player map. The overview of VIS made for a good read.