CSG Hollow

[ix-ir]

What are the dangers of using this tool? People seem to tut furiously when it's mentioned. If it's broken has anyone done a plug in that hollows correctly? Preferably mitred.

[Foo]

It works but it either creates overlapping edges the brushes that form the edges of your box overlap, or the way those brushes butt-up against each other leaves the faces of the brushes partly buried against one another.

The optimum way to make a hollow cube is to have the 6 brushes all mitreted against each other like so:


There's little reason that the hollow command couldn't be coded to do this, it just isn't.

The reasons against using CSG carve are pretty similar too.. it works, but the brushes it creates aren't optimum and will cause the resulting in-game object to be glitchy and/or take more resources to display than by doing it manually with an eye for optimising the final shape for tris splits and overlapping edges and stuff.

[wviperw]

What Foo said.

(although technically you could get away with it and you wouldn't notice the difference, but it's just good practice)

[GODLIKE]

It's still a good tool.. Mostly we use hollow when we want to use the interior of the space, so mitering isn't required.. Just push all the brushes 'out' a bit after you use the tool. It's not like you're ever "done" with the brushwork after you hollow something anyway..

[ix-ir]

I use it in the opposite way to turn blocks that make up a level into a 16 unit thick 'canvas'. One of the few things that annoys me about GTK 1.5 is the inconsistant behaviour of vertex editing that can make creating something that's mitred in 2 dimensions a pain in the arse.

[pjw]

creating something that's mitred in 2 dimensions

Typically, you'll want to use 3-point clipping for that, since yes, vertex dragging is asking for pain. Although I don't think I've dragged a vertex on a brush in years, so maybe it's improved a bit.

The clipper is kind of annoying at times too, but it's gold compared to vert dragging, IMO.

Edit: CSG hollow/subtract/etc., on the other hand, are tools like any other (granted the implementation could be better). I don't ever use it for anything more complicated than quickly turning a cube into six brushes, but you could obviously do more with it. Just be sure to accompany it's use with plenty of snapping-to-grid, and be prepared for something unexpected and horrifying occasionally if you use it a lot.

A hammer is a great tool, but far from universal; if you try to use it to perform a colonoscopy, then you deserve what you get.

[boilingoil]

Like pjw said, the clipping tool is priceless. Take a little more time to do, but very handy indeed.

Vert dragging in 1.5 has never worked out well for me, except for... well yeah never.

[dnky]

Hollow can be quite useful. Foe slapping a quick sky box arounf a map for test compiles it is priceless. For general work, it obviously requires you to tidy things up, but it still can be useful....unlike subtract of course, which inspite of the best efforts of so many people I still find mappers using with gay abandon. From what I've seen of QW:ET edit, that tool at least seems to have gone:)

[GODLIKE]

Granted, I prefer to clip.. But vert dragging works pretty well for me, especially when working with odd angles..

[Fjoggs]

Vert editing in 1.5 prevents you from creating duplicate planes. so you have to split the brush into 2 triangles.