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Making
Arches (end cap method)
This tutorial will teach you how to make yourself an arch, how to
texture it and how to optimise it. This method of making arches can
result in sparklies, lots of people prefer the bevel method as that
doesnt cause many if any. Sparklies are the little white dotted lines
you might see where brushes join in game.
| 1. |
First
off we need to decide where our arch needs to go, ive made a
tunnel I want to place mine in, Fig 1.0
(Fig 1.0)
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| 2. |
You
dont have to make that exactly, but you will need to make brushes
around the arch, so make something similar, a floor, a ceiling
and 2 walls.
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| 3. |
Now
we know where our arch needs to go, we need to create a brush
in the gap, not the full length of the tunnel mind you, just
a square like shape, fig 1.1
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Fig 1.1 |
Fig
1.2 |
Here in Fig 1.1 we can see in top view ive made a brush and
went only a few units into the tunnel, if I make it longer the
arch we create will be more taller in shape.
If we look at fig 1.2 you can see ive drawn out in green where
the arch shape will be made, we will be rotating it to face
the right way obviously, but if the brush went further up, the
arch would be a taller shape like in fig 1.3
(Fig 1.3)
Excuse the horrible diagram (fig 1.3), but you can see the arch
is taller because the brush is longer. Anyway we have our brush
inserted like in fig 1.1 and fig 1.3a
(Fig 1.3a)
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| 4. |
Now
with the brush selected, choose "curve" and then "end
cap" from the toolbar, now an arch will be created like
in fig 1.4
(Fig 1.4)
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| 5. |
Currently
its facing the wrong way, what you need to do is use the rotate
buttons to rotate it so its facing the correct way, fig 1.5
(Fig 1.5)
First I pressed the X>x and then Z|Z so its now facing the
proper way for me, (Fig 1.6 & Fig 1.7)
I also then moved the arch up a bit as it was too large for
the gap. Just re-size it like a normal brush, it might need
lifting up or down a bit.
(Fig 1.6)
(Fig 1.7)
So theres an arch, as I said earlier I have resized it slightly
so it fit into the gap properly, I only needed to resize the
height not the width, fig 1.7
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| 6. |
Now
I want my arch all along the tunnel, so ill lengthen it out
like in fig 1.8
(Fig 1.8)
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| 7. |
Now
you can see only one side is viewable you cant see the top,
this is because it would never need to draw the top part of
the arch, so its optimised for the game engine.
One thing that we do need is something on the front and the
back of the arch, because we have the gaps at the moment. This
is often called capping.
With the arch selected go to "curve" and then "cap
selection" a new window will pop up like in Fig 1.9
(Fig 1.9)
These 4 choices will fill in caps on the arch. The parts in
blue are the patches it will add to the brush. The parts in
white are the empty parts. So if you look at fig 1.8 you can
see we need the top right and top left parts filling in so to
speak,to give our arch a front and back. Ive chosen "Inverted
Endcap" (when you are capping brushes and patches, once
you have clicked ok it creates the patches, you cant undo it,
you need to delete the patches if you made a mistake)
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| 8. |
Now
it has put caps on like in fig 2.0 and fig 2.1
(Fig 2.0)
(Fig 2.1) z view
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| 9. |
So
now we have our arch made, thats not the end of it though, Aligning
textures on curves is different to on brushes. I couldn't see
my texture well enough so I changed it to a castle wall one.
You might notice the textures on the end parts we created are
all muffled up like in fig 2.2
(Fig 2.2)
Obviously we need to sort this out, to select the end caps of
the arch, select the arch, then just use the "tab"
key to cycle through the arches patches. So your left with just
one cap selected like in Fig 2.2.
Now to align the texture im going to "hold ctrl and shift"
and then press "N", I need to do this 3 times in order
for it to line up, you may need to press it more or less times
for it to line up.
You can also try using the the curve texture application (hold
shift and press "S")and try using "natural"
amongst the other normal methods. Remember that the "ctrl,shift
and n" method often works best though. Unfortunately sometimes
for some reason its impossible to line up the textures and you
may need to start again or use something else.
So now the texture is aligned properly, see fig 2.3, you need
to repeat this for the other side.
(Fig 2.3)
Texturing is now done for the arch, but thats not all we need
to do...
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| 10. |
Our
arch is almost finished, but there is one last thing you need
to do. First off hide the arch, (select it all and press "H")
Now we are back with just our tunnel Fig 2.4
(Fig 2.4)
Now what we need to do is apply the "caulk" texture
to the sides which wont be seen like in Fig 2.5, its essential
to do this for the arch wont be optimised properly without doing
this.
(Fig 2.5)
Now unhide your arch, (press shift and h) and the arch is now
done, see Fig 2.6, you can see white through it at the moment,
but you wont be able to in game,
(Fig 2.6)
On occasion you might see little white dots coming through,
these are called "sparklies" by most people and theres
not an exact way to stop them. If you want you can make arches
using two bevels not end caps, which often means no sparklies
and you can align the textures more easy, if you can follow
this tutorial you might be able to understand how to do the
2 bevel method, I will probably write a tutorial up about that
in the near future. |
Problems, Comments, Queries > Forum
Tutorial by eyeronik
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