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Interior Guide Pack Released

Name:	Apparatus
Date Posted:	Sep 11, 2008
Rating:	Not Rated
Public:	YES
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Blog post

I must say that Constructor is an elegant tool. Whoever tried Quark once knows what I am talking about. So I set out and put together a small guide, information available on TDN anyway but with more illustrations, a making of .. part for the Hangar interior, decals, props and an example mission to show just how an interior can be taken from Constructor and added / integrated into a mission.

The documentation included in this pack is free to download; Support files are available as a regular pack ($25).

More information and download link on the website

Contents:

Interior Guide PDF ~ quick introduction to Constructor basics, illustrated; Making of Hangar included;
Hangar and Warehouse interiors
Decals
F16 prop plane, Maya source
Wheeled Transport Vehicle prop, Maya source

Example mission (starter.fps)

Product page

Recent Blog Posts

List:	12/10/08 - Textures Pack Down 12/09/08 - Materials Bazaar ~ Metals Library release 12/07/08 - Materials Bazaar (II) update 12/03/08 - Materials Bazaar (I) 12/03/08 - TGEA Environment Guide 11/04/08 - Kork 2.0, halted work 09/24/08 - Constructor Pipeline (I) 09/23/08 - Interior Guide Pack Free Download

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Tom Eastman (Eastbeast314) (Sep 11, 2008 at 02:01 GMT)

Nice work!

Ian Roach (Sep 11, 2008 at 02:34 GMT)

Wow awesome pack, worth the price just for the amazing jet and apc models.

Mike Rowley (Sep 11, 2008 at 02:39 GMT)

Awesome resource.

Rubes (Sep 11, 2008 at 04:17 GMT)

By the way, do your interiors portalize correctly without problems?

Apparatus (Sep 11, 2008 at 06:08 GMT)

Rubes, what do you mean by 'correctly' ? If you ask if they have portals, the answer is yes. If you answer if portals work with Constructor the answer is yes again.
Edited on Sep 11, 2008 06:38 GMT

Kenneth Holst (Sep 11, 2008 at 16:52 GMT)

Constructor says that it thinks you're pretty cool too <3

Rubes (Sep 11, 2008 at 17:17 GMT)

I just meant 'correctly' as in, are they portalized, do they export without crashing, and do the portals function correctly when the DIF is imported into a game. Just curious, since a number of people (including us) have had a lot of trouble getting portals to work, and it might be nice to see some models that do have working portals.

Apparatus (Sep 11, 2008 at 17:55 GMT)

I see then; it works - no crash; but again, these buildings are simple and I understand if portals won't work on more complicated interiors. I use the latest patch for Constructor. If needed, we should probably centralize the information about this and debug the possible issues.

Michael (silentMike) Hall (Sep 11, 2008 at 18:55 GMT)

Nice tutorial, even had a few handy tips I had overlooked.

On a side note: I personally haven't had any issues with portals, but then I try to keep everything as clean and simple as possible.

Michael Perry (Sep 11, 2008 at 19:14 GMT)

I just finished reading through the free guide.

As Documentation Engineer for GG, this gets my seal of approval for the documentation alone:

The assets are awesome too!
Edited on Sep 11, 2008 19:15 GMT

Matt Fairfax (Sep 11, 2008 at 19:40 GMT)

Yay! I can finally take "write an awesome getting started guide for Constructor" off my todo list =)

Seriously impressive work!

The only thing that I would add to the guide is using Workplanes and the Rest on Ground tool to quickly align brushes and meshes to any surface in the scene (even ones not on the grid or at odd angles).

Apparatus (Sep 11, 2008 at 20:02 GMT)

thanks everyone!

this was a mere 'kick start' for anyone in doubt about using dif's - and constructor - for their projects. I have a lot of user experience with Hammer (pre-HL2) and I had a solid comparison model with Constructor; using Hammer for so long I need not use workplanes - nor do I know how to :)

I personally believe the industry should keep using rock-solid old industry great-ideas, such as the binary space partition thing. I said this I think before, Half-Life 2 is the best example for this;

Again, Constructor is an elegant tool and shouldn't be overlooked. If I hear one more time complaints about it I'll write a complete guide for it or recreate full CS or HL levels just for measures. Because it's possible.

Rubes (Sep 11, 2008 at 20:03 GMT)

Somebody start complaining about Constructor again!

;)

Jay Barnson (Sep 11, 2008 at 22:54 GMT)

Hey, I'll bite -

The legacy exporter works only about 20% of the time. But I've upgraded to a newer version of TGE, now, so I'm no longer going to have to worry about the quality of the legacy exporter.

Seriously - big kudos to Apparatus for this! I'll take a look at it later and see if I can get better edumacated!

Morrock (Sep 21, 2008 at 03:23 GMT)

Why can you not download the pdf for free any more?

David Janssens (Sep 21, 2008 at 08:40 GMT)

Yes, it seems the tutorial download isn't available anymore

it's a shame though. All these people talking about this very good quality document, and it seems the download isn't available any more. I knew I had to store it locally when I first saw this announcement, and not wait until I would have the time.

@Apparatus: is there a reason you stopped sharing the download? Just curious.

Apparatus (Sep 21, 2008 at 08:46 GMT)

It's going to be available as a free download, including the support files, for registered users. As soon as I get 10 minutes to fix something on the website.

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