ok, im making a map that is going to have a beach on it (cant decide between beach or grass hill) but im REALLY bad at doing terrain to make it actually look realistic and still work nicely. so could someone please help me with it (or do it for me) I will probobly make it a grass hill with a forest behind it, cause that isnt very common, so it will be different...

Thanks

I was terrible up until a week ago when I actually gave it a go, its no where near as bad as I thought.... Its pretty easy tbh :P just work out what you wanna do b4 u set out and make it happen, random triangles FTW!

i tried it on an earlier map and i find i keep doing the same thing over and over and over and cant get out of it and it looks real bad...

HL1 Engine or source?

If hl1 use triangles and vertex manipulation.

its for hl1, and i tried that, but like im trying to say, im real bad at it. it always turns out looking REALLY badly and i hate it.

lol, don't worry bro, we all go through it. my suggestion is to get the basic shape of the hill, then move on to the rest of your map. whenever you get inspired you can add details.

here are a couple of hints (in case you don't know):

make a spike with 3 sides. then use vertex manipulation on it. as long as you don't turn it inside out you can do anything you want with them without making them invalid. for an example of them look for my crater.rmf (somewhere in this forum).

I find it easier to make a somewhat blocky shape in the general shape of what I want, then lay the triangles over the top of it to add the detail. if you end up covering the block completely, you can delete it when you are done to save polies.

yup triangles are best if you want to play safe,
for instance, you can add stuff like this:


/|\
/ | \
/ | \
-----------

2 triangles next to eachother, to create a simple 'bump'

you can do all sorts of neat stuff with HL1 triangles. Cant wait to get back into mapping on the source hammer

Originally posted by travis
you can do all sorts of neat stuff with HL1 triangles. Cant wait to get back into mapping on the source hammer

all I can say to you my dear friend is displacement maps :p get those babies working when you get back to the source ;)

PS, hows the bub going?

all good buddy =)