Jagged Walls
by Morrock · in Constructor · 04/16/2008 (6:43 pm) · 6 replies
Does anybody knows a good way to make a cave with rounded, jagged, etc... walls? I tried making a rough layer with hollow cube brushes, then using cylindars and spheres to cut away chunks of the wall to make it look very randomly edgey. I looked kind of nice but after 2 cuts my brush count jumped from the 50's to 500! There has to be a way to avoid right-angled cave walls but still keep the brush count away from the millions...Right?
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#2
1. Create outter "shell" made of Collision brushes
2. Create inner Detail geometry for the cave walls/ceiling (I happen to leave the floor flat, but could also be jagged)
For the walls, etc....
2A. Create a series of wedges in a grid pattern with the 'triangle' sides facing the direction that you want to push in / pull out (the walls)
2B. Go in and start grabbing verts ... only bringing them straight in / straight out from the original location (if you move them in 2 directions, you get the red lines and bad geometry). The exception is that if you move ALL verts of corresponding axis, you can avoid the grid-looking pattern. In other words, if you have 4 brushes touching each other and want to bring the middle verts out and down, make sure you grab the 2 verts for EACH brush (so 8 total) and move them down, then only the inner wall part (4 total, 1 from EACH brush where they meet) to create your jaggies... if you understand that... hard to explain in text, I guess.
Don't have time to post a picture right now, but if it's not clear, let me know and I will when I get time.
04/21/2008 (12:16 pm)
I've been making cave sections that eventually get put together with this basic format:1. Create outter "shell" made of Collision brushes
2. Create inner Detail geometry for the cave walls/ceiling (I happen to leave the floor flat, but could also be jagged)
For the walls, etc....
2A. Create a series of wedges in a grid pattern with the 'triangle' sides facing the direction that you want to push in / pull out (the walls)
2B. Go in and start grabbing verts ... only bringing them straight in / straight out from the original location (if you move them in 2 directions, you get the red lines and bad geometry). The exception is that if you move ALL verts of corresponding axis, you can avoid the grid-looking pattern. In other words, if you have 4 brushes touching each other and want to bring the middle verts out and down, make sure you grab the 2 verts for EACH brush (so 8 total) and move them down, then only the inner wall part (4 total, 1 from EACH brush where they meet) to create your jaggies... if you understand that... hard to explain in text, I guess.
Don't have time to post a picture right now, but if it's not clear, let me know and I will when I get time.
#3
I get what you're saying, thanks.
I had an idea while away though, and was wondering how well this could work, if anyone could tell me. I would feel more comfortable working on uneven surfaces such as this in a modeling program. So:
I could make the cave in a 3d modeling program, like blender. I texture it, do everything and export it as a dts. Then make a very large, hollow block in constructor with an exit on one side (or however many my .dts cave has.) On each exit add a portaling brush. Now export, load TGEA and load them both in. Place the cave inside the large hollow DIF, line up the exits, and enable polysoup for the cave. This way the cave would be inside the portaling of the DIF, and once entered the portaling would make being inside the cave more efficient that a just a .dts, but I could design it without having to worry about convex shapes.
Am I understanding this right, or...?
04/22/2008 (1:00 pm)
@Woody,I get what you're saying, thanks.
I had an idea while away though, and was wondering how well this could work, if anyone could tell me. I would feel more comfortable working on uneven surfaces such as this in a modeling program. So:
I could make the cave in a 3d modeling program, like blender. I texture it, do everything and export it as a dts. Then make a very large, hollow block in constructor with an exit on one side (or however many my .dts cave has.) On each exit add a portaling brush. Now export, load TGEA and load them both in. Place the cave inside the large hollow DIF, line up the exits, and enable polysoup for the cave. This way the cave would be inside the portaling of the DIF, and once entered the portaling would make being inside the cave more efficient that a just a .dts, but I could design it without having to worry about convex shapes.
Am I understanding this right, or...?
#4
04/22/2008 (1:20 pm)
If everything lines up, that would work well. 
#5
04/22/2008 (1:59 pm)
If you're going to turn on polysoup collision, make the models in pieces and only turn it on for the pieces that the player will have contact with. It would be horrendously useless to calculate collisions for the top of a cave that the player cannot reach, especially with an uneven, higher-poly than a smooth surface structure.
#6
Yeah, it would work great. I agree. We haven't made the transition to TGEA 1.7 yet, but I saw it now has polysoup. At some point (assuming it's not too slow) we will likely convert too. The big thing to remember, however, is that portalling a 'tunnel' type piece doesn't work in some cases. I've had mega trouble with them in the past, although maybe the new Constructor 1.4 handles it better(?). With good design though, you maybe be able to make the tunnel ends never see each other and it would work great.
04/23/2008 (8:41 pm)
@MorrockYeah, it would work great. I agree. We haven't made the transition to TGEA 1.7 yet, but I saw it now has polysoup. At some point (assuming it's not too slow) we will likely convert too. The big thing to remember, however, is that portalling a 'tunnel' type piece doesn't work in some cases. I've had mega trouble with them in the past, although maybe the new Constructor 1.4 handles it better(?). With good design though, you maybe be able to make the tunnel ends never see each other and it would work great.
Associate David Montgomery-Blake
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