TrenchBroom - Make Q2 Maps the Fast and Easy Way!

[r1]

To create a door I'd typically create one side of the wall, then click ctrl-d to duplicate and move that as the other side of the wall, then hold down shift to select furthest face and drag to adjust it's length. With shortcuts this operation is pretty quick.

A faster way might be to use the 1-2-3 point clipping, which will let you do it in 3 simple cuts, which might be what you'll prefer. Create your wall in full. Click C to enable clipping mode. Then click and select one point on top of the wall along the door (you can select one point on the bottom but this is optional in most cases). Then cycle through the clipping modes by clicking Ctrl-Enter till you see the one that leaves both brushes intact in orange. Press Enter again to make the cut. Select another point on the other side of the door and make another cut (this time you don't have to pick the dual clipping mode since it should already be selected). Next make another cut above the door (with 2 points), and remove the bottom part. Here's the clipping mode example in a video, although you use Ctrl-Enter not Tab to change modes:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr9FR1W1JFE#t=10m55s

Boolean subtraction tends to create ugly geometry triangulation so it's easy to get non-convex shapes and  brushes that will not compile as bsp. This is fine for some game engines like CryEngine which can even load ugly geometry from sketchup. For simple box operations like a door this might work, but in other cases it'll surely lead to trouble. In editors like 3ds max or sketchup, boolean operations always result in ugly triangles everywhere, and sometimes even unattached faces.

[r1]

Kitsune who's never really mapped for Q2 in his life, managed to quickly create his first map entirely from scratch:
(He thinks the clipping options mentioned above make wall refinement super easy)




He's also mentioned that for the first time he's found an editor that he can use to make things quickly while having fun doing it! 
And however late in the game, I think this editor might still open a brand new chapter for a fresh line of exciting quake 2 maps! Anyone can do it!

[[BTF] Reflex]

Installing tonight.

When school routine gets all settled in I'll endeavor to crank out a map.
Looks like some kewl features to mess with. 

[quadz]

(He thinks the clipping options mentioned above make wall refinement super easy)

I'll have to play around with the clipping a bit more. The other evening prior to my earlier post I'd been using the plane-clipping to create some basic shapes like this:




But I wish the plane clip would optionally do a "split". I.e. if it can clip a brush, it could clearly split a brush (instead of deleting the clipped part.)

So when I was mentioning CSG in my prior post, what I had in mind was a series of plane splits. This is all stuff that could already be done manually with TrenchBroom. But the lack of a plane "split" in favor of only a clip (unless I missed it in the options somewhere) makes one have to go through lots more machinations to achieve effects like punching a tunnel through a large solid.

It's hard to tell from the picture above, but that floor is actually a very angular deep slab of ground. So I want to cut trenches in it, tunnels, etc.

Such a thing could easily be accomplished with a series of plane splits and then a delete of the unwanted portion. But with only a plane clip available, it's kind of painful. It becomes more of a clip, duplicate, rotate-reverse-mirror, join back together at the seam, blah, blah...

So that's the sort of feature I was hoping for. It's not full CSG, it's truly no more complicated than what TrenchBroom is already doing with the plane clip, if it just preserved the clipped portion.

(And one could then build on that to automate things further... creating a "digging" brush that performed a series of plane splits and a delete, so one could go tunneling thru objects...)

[PANTONE 7717C]

The biggest problem with clipping even the simplest of shapes and other geometry (not even mentioning terrain!) is that any further editing of those brushes is going to be almost impossible without creating gaps and misaligned vertices that are "off the grid."
Take that first screenshot of that thing kitsune did with the blue wall ornaments. If you want to make some changes later on to the height or width of those clipped brushes it's going to be a mess if you're not careful. Without a doubt sooner or later you'll create invalid/mangled brushes.
Invalid brushes and/or microbrushes may not even be visible to the eye thus hard to track down but could cause the compiler to find vis-related errors, which in turn could cause visual errors in the map like the Hall-of-mirror effect and oddly colored spots due to leaking light. Let alone the rendering performance of the completed map.

In other words keep it clean and tidy for as long as possible in this old game and you'll save yourself time and headaches... he spoke from experience. Clipping somewhat complex shapes is fine if: a) you set them as detail (don't do this with walls). and b) you know for sure that after the clipping you won't have to touch the brushes again. Second, texturing is so much easier when you've put your brushes and geometry tightly on a higher grid setting, eg. 8,16,32,64.

... it's kind of painful. It becomes more of a clip, duplicate, rotate-reverse-mirror, join back together at the seam, blah, blah...

Ugh! Tell me about it. But that's still the way to minimize the chance of glitches and errors and to get the best results in Q2 in terms of performance, compile times and visuals.

[NIN-IceFox]

The biggest problem with clipping even the simplest of shapes and other geometry (not even mentioning terrain!) is that any further editing of those brushes is going to be almost impossible without creating gaps and misaligned vertices that are "off the grid."
Take that first screenshot of that thing kitsune did with the blue wall ornaments. If you want to make some changes later on to the height or width of those clipped brushes it's going to be a mess if you're not careful. Without a doubt sooner or later you'll create invalid/mangled brushes.
Invalid brushes and/or microbrushes may not even be visible to the eye thus hard to track down but could cause the compiler to find vis-related errors, which in turn could cause visual errors in the map like the Hall-of-mirror effect and oddly colored spots due to leaking light. Let alone the rendering performance of the completed map.

In other words keep it clean and tidy for as long as possible in this old game and you'll save yourself time and headaches... he spoke from experience. Clipping somewhat complex shapes is fine if: a) you set them as detail (don't do this with walls). and b) you know for sure that after the clipping you won't have to touch the brushes again. Second, texturing is so much easier when you've put your brushes and geometry tightly on a higher grid setting, eg. 8,16,32,64.

... it's kind of painful. It becomes more of a clip, duplicate, rotate-reverse-mirror, join back together at the seam, blah, blah...

Ugh! Tell me about it. But that's still the way to minimize the chance of glitches and errors and to get the best results in Q2 in terms of performance, compile times and visuals.

In fact I had trouble with that very hall due to needing to move a little at one time and indeed it did leak, it was done messily more so than I should but I'm getting better and manged to fix it and re-align  and so far been getting increasingly creative at the mapping and have had good success now with compiling and lighting etc, first time for everything! When I do complex clipping jobs from here on I will try to be more final about it, having a clear idea of what you want out of map from start to finish before I begin is key to my style anyway as I do not wish to revisit maps very often and result in players on our server having to download repeatedly.

Nonetheless I never thought  I'd be mapping so quickly with no prior experience in doing so other than using map mixer for years to do everything. This changed everything for me! A quantum leap in extra simplicity yielding potentially even more than older more difficult editors. I do however use Quark to apply light and other related properties to brushes on the final result and I can handle using Quark for that but nothing more.

http://panjoo.tastyspleen.net/rust/quake2tutorials.html I had been doing a lot of reading at this link, a handy knowledge base I used for a long time during my map mixer tasks.

 http://kristianduske.com/trenchbroom/docs/ and in case anyone misses it this is a good place to start after reading the above info.

[NIN-IceFox]

(He thinks the clipping options mentioned above make wall refinement super easy)

I'll have to play around with the clipping a bit more. The other evening prior to my earlier post I'd been using the plane-clipping to create some basic shapes like this:




But I wish the plane clip would optionally do a "split". I.e. if it can clip a brush, it could clearly split a brush (instead of deleting the clipped part.)

So when I was mentioning CSG in my prior post, what I had in mind was a series of plane splits. This is all stuff that could already be done manually with TrenchBroom. But the lack of a plane "split" in favor of only a clip (unless I missed it in the options somewhere) makes one have to go through lots more machinations to achieve effects like punching a tunnel through a large solid.

It's hard to tell from the picture above, but that floor is actually a very angular deep slab of ground. So I want to cut trenches in it, tunnels, etc.

Such a thing could easily be accomplished with a series of plane splits and then a delete of the unwanted portion. But with only a plane clip available, it's kind of painful. It becomes more of a clip, duplicate, rotate-reverse-mirror, join back together at the seam, blah, blah...

So that's the sort of feature I was hoping for. It's not full CSG, it's truly no more complicated than what TrenchBroom is already doing with the plane clip, if it just preserved the clipped portion.

(And one could then build on that to automate things further... creating a "digging" brush that performed a series of plane splits and a delete, so one could go tunneling thru objects...)

Salutations! If I understand you correct, it does indeed do that, ctrl + enter toggles the clip modes on my end and the third one splits rather than delete any portion.

http://kristianduske.com/trenchbroom/docs/ (under shaping brushes, clipping tool)

you mention carving out trenches, sounds like what I was doing here below in my map, simply click where I want an edge of a trench to be, cycle with ctrl + enter, and then hit enter to confirm the split, and then go to where I want the other edge to be and repeat. Once that's done I select the newly cut out brush and sink it down to create my new trench like those glowy wire ones I got.
,

[r1]

But I wish the plane clip would optionally do a "split". I.e. if it can clip a brush, it could clearly split a brush (instead of deleting the clipped part.)
So when I was mentioning CSG in my prior post, what I had in mind was a series of plane splits. This is all stuff that could already be done manually with TrenchBroom. But the lack of a plane "split" in favor of only a clip (unless I missed it in the options somewhere)
So that's the sort of feature I was hoping for. It's not full CSG, it's truly no more complicated than what TrenchBroom is already doing with the plane clip, if it just preserved the clipped portion.
 

Then cycle through the clipping modes by clicking Ctrl-Enter till you see the one that leaves both brushes intact in orange. Press Enter again to make the cut.

   

[NIN-IceFox]

To quadz defense, I missed the quote too or I'd have pointed to it XD, and it's also worth noting that clip mode is sometimes glitchy and does sometimes the opposite of what the highlight indicates or simply fails to apply. Sometimes you've just got to try more than once, but usually it still works pretty good! I use it like crazy, just about nothing I can't do with that mode long as I plan ahead carefully with it!

[r1]

it's also worth noting that clip mode is sometimes glitchy and does sometimes the opposite of what the highlight indicates or simply fails to apply. Sometimes you've just got to try more than once, but usually it still works pretty good! I use it like crazy, just about nothing I can't do with that mode long as I plan ahead carefully with it!

I don't recall it ever doing the opposite of what's highlighted when seeing the split line. So it's important that you do see it, otherwise abort the split (since proceeding like this in some extreme cases can even result in a crash). And the glitch appears to be view point specific, so if you rotate your view, next time it should work just fine. Also sometimes you need to pick a second or third clip point, and make sure you do see the split indicator line every time. Again, if you don't, then just rotate your view or try again 

[r1]

The biggest problem with clipping even the simplest of shapes and other geometry (not even mentioning terrain!) is that any further editing of those brushes is going to be almost impossible without creating gaps and misaligned vertices that are "off the grid."
Take that first screenshot of that thing kitsune did with the blue wall ornaments. If you want to make some changes later on to the height or width of those clipped brushes it's going to be a mess if you're not careful. Without a doubt sooner or later you'll create invalid/mangled brushes.

I do constant updates and changes to clipped brushes in Trenchbroom all the time without worrying or engaging in some meticulous planning process. So are you talking about clipping in Trenchbroom or some other editor? I've even pasted clipped brushes over to other maps and continued reusing and modifying them later. That's what makes it fun and simple unlike some other editors. Quark for example appears to be perfect for wannabe rocket scientist pedants like faderjoke:

Agreed on QuArK though... you have to be sadistic to map with that thing!

some of us like it that way!

I can't really speak to how it is for mapping, but I gotta assume that mapping with it would be as useful as modeling with it. And QuArK absolutely SUCKS BALLS for modeling. If you're modeling very very simple shapes, it's doable, but it's gonna take you a while.

The beauty of Trenchbroom is, here you can just dive in on one end and come out with a finished map on the other a few hours later. So to put it in stark contrast, in Quark you can have faderjoke spending countless hours putting on mascara and makeup wishing he was easy breezy cover girl, while you just Get 'er Done and be doing laps around your map playing while he's still putting on his high heels crying out the safe word.

 

In Trenchbroom the only case I've ran into that would break precision was scaling angled shapes as a whole in brush mode. But there's a way around it to get exact height and grid positioning. If Trenchbroom doesn't let you scale to grid a brush that appears to be valid, just toggle the grid sizing using Ctrl-Plus, Ctrl-Minus. And then scale those in vertex mode by dragging the edges or whole faces instead. The vertex mode doesn't just offer vertex scaling but face and edge moving options as well that result in accurate and clean angled brushes. That way you'll get perfect on the grid shapes ever time!



Also clipping rectangular shapes for me has never resulted in invalid or mangled brushes. So perhaps you're talking about some other editor... To be safe as far as leaks are concerned, I'd just stay away from scaling angled shapes composing the outside of the map using the main scaling mode, and instead use the vertex mode face scaling for those and you should have no problems. Also if you intend to load your map in Qoole, avoid saving there afterwards since that editor doesn't do a very good floating point conversion and will result in a a leak unless your map is a box.

Another thing worth mentioning which I highly recommend taking full advantage of are the
live measurements and alignment markers which make precision work in Trenchbroom a snap!

[quadz]

Then cycle through the clipping modes by clicking Ctrl-Enter till you see the one that leaves both brushes intact in orange. Press Enter again to make the cut.

Ha!

Well since TB is open source, I guess I could try adding my plane-clipping digging brush feature... 

[r1]

Well since TB is open source, I guess I could try adding my plane-clipping digging brush feature... 

Yup that too, since I'm sure a lot of people would find this feature very useful!

Once that's done I select the newly cut out brush and sink it down to create my new trench like those glowy wire ones I got.

Wow you're really getting the hang of this now. I got to say your map is really coming along nicely! Check out all those details, and you've only just begun lol

Can't wait to play it on Whale 

[fdrjk]

Second, texturing is so much easier when you've put your brushes and geometry tightly on a higher grid setting, eg. 8,16,32,64.

haha! that reminds me of when i first started using a map editor, i turned off the grid because i thought it looked annoying. how fucking wrong i was using a large grid setting makes EVERYTHING so much easier, texturing especially.

although for the most part, i just liked to obsess over unnecessary visual shit since i already know how to create a general map structure. i remember i tried to use my own textures i imported from another game, which in retrospect would have been alot easier had i just used the fucking grid. i didnt even know that textures had to be a certain size for them to be usable in q2, and by the time i found that out, i had already developed like a quarter of the map and the textures were already scaled very specifically to make up for my grid-fuckery.  although looking back, i can definitely appreciate my valiantly misguided effort in trying to do something that could have easily been solved by just changing a few settings.

the one thing i that WILL give this editor credit for is making terrains a helluva lot easier to make. i still havent bothered to learn how to make terrains in quark. then again i havent made an original map in almost a year soooooo...

[PANTONE 7717C]

... without worrying or engaging in some meticulous planning process

I can't wait to see the results 

So are you talking about clipping in Trenchbroom or some other editor?

I was talking about clipping in general but what I really meant was to be careful with the CSG subtraction tool that he obviously used to create those shapes. See the attached pic of the same hall, there are more variations of good splits here but this is one example of how those brushes should be made.

I get that you're enthusiastic and at first it'll all seem fine and dandy to clip and subtract your way through the map and to finish your creation in two days, but eventually (that is if you're somewhat serious about what you're making) you'll be spending more and more time on fixing and redoing stuff that could have been prevented if you had just spent time on neatly building your brushes by hand and snapped and joined them together at the vertices on the grid. Of course if you don't experience these kind of problems yet then all the better. But even though map editors may be different the .map files all have to go through the same compilers.