Anyone have any suggestions for block work on houses?

I'm about to start the Houses on my Canal map. I was just looking for any info from seasoned mappers about doing the layout for block work on houses.

I really like the houses in Donner, dod_expire and dod_market.

Thanx in Advance!

PLEASE don't make it as chirpy and clean as in dod_donner on Source..

Try making your roads and sidewalks first.

then, start adding houses.

if your just making block houses, start with 128x128x128 square chunks and assemble them.

Window and door models on the front, add a lamp or electric wire hanger, a decal or two, and booya, you have a house.

Save that house to its own mapfile, so if you decide to use it for another map you can simply copy and paste it in.

Is mapping hard when you first start? I'd love to make some ******* maps for me and mates to mess about in..

Tips?

dl sdk, click on teh hammer, open, click help topics, clicks the "FIRST HLDM RooM"

Basic room, thank you. lol!

ok I've built my Roads/bridge/water/canal doors/ect.

I was talking more about Scale of a house and general block shapes to line textures/window modles up properly.

Hollowing out a box to make a simple room is NOT making a house. Although you would use this process to start :D

Originally posted by amstehpwn
Is mapping hard when you first start? I'd love to make some ******* maps for me and mates to mess about in..

Tips?

I would say yes hammer is hard to get used to. I've used it for about a year now and I would say I know what i'm doing but I still learn something new about hammer almost everytime I open it and there is much I still don't know how to do.

So for someone who hates tutorials, and learnt things like FlashMX by fecking around, making maps wouldn't be a good idea..

I suppose it's just this whole bs with waiting for more maps to come out making my brain frazzle. :/

I'll wait.. *sigh*

Originally posted by omni
Basic room, thank you. lol!

ok I've built my Roads/bridge/water/canal doors/ect.

I was talking more about Scale of a house and general block shapes to line textures/window modles up properly.

Hollowing out a box to make a simple room is NOT making a house. Although you would use this process to start :D
(Grr second time making this post damn net)

Ok um I said something like... :

NEVER USE THE HOLLOW TOOL. ITS TEH D3VIL. Only for skyboxes and leak testing.

Ok helpful texture filters :
"Dev" - use the orange door and wall textures, they have scaling on them which most textures work on.
"Building_template" - Full of perfect (reasonably) WWII style building textures, I've used only textures from here for my buildings and they look great.

what's wrong with the hollow tool? i hear people say all the time that its bad, but why?

Try to stick to standard wall dimensions. 128 is 1 story, 256 is 2 etc etc. Also if you work on a 16 grid, which i recommend for basic type houses, stick to the same types of dimensions for length and width too. Say a house 256 high by 256 wide by 512 long. Textures work better for one, as they are mostly 128, 256, 512, and look alot better. Aslo don't forget a few nice details, but don't overdo it. Taking your time is important, if it doesn't look good, then keep trying different things. It is worth the effort. Don't be afraid to experiment though with differnet house style, different roof pitches (especially with the displacement tool makes it simple) and heights of the same house, such as balconys and whatnot.



http://www.justfungaming.com/es/house.jpg

Originally posted by eddi.
what's wrong with the hollow tool? i hear people say all the time that its bad, but why?

The hollow tool has its place, and it isnt bad, but it's not something you would use for making basic houses.

Originally posted by Propaganda
The hollow tool has its place, and it isnt bad, but it's not something you would use for making basic houses.

its the carve tool thats the devil, never EVER use that one, adds to many problems.

Thankyou Prop!

That's the post I was looking for lol :D
aswell as watchtower/Chicken!

Hi out of intrest which would be the best way to add damege to bulidings like that cracks and holes etc ,is thier specific way of doing this? thanks

Originally posted by sydslag
Hi out of intrest which would be the best way to add damege to bulidings like that cracks and holes etc ,is thier specific way of doing this? thanks

jsut cut a section of wall into a square of say 128 high by 128 wide, then cut that up again into sections, delete some of them, then make some into displacements and make them look damaged etc etc.

Meh bad explanation buts its the general idea.

Cheers m8

How thick do you usually make house walls?

Originally posted by cobaltgrc
How thick do you usually make house walls?

I do 16 thick walls, I can't speak for the rest, but I think thats pretty much the standard.

I'm converting to 16 as well, thats valve standards and it allows you to use all the windows.

I'm sticking with 8 for interior

your walls should stay multiples of 8 whenever possible. Depending on the props you use you'll need 8, 16 or 24 units wide walls. Most would be 16, but the bigger arches require 24 units.

Originally posted by Twigee
I'm sticking with 8 for interior

What do you mean by that?

considering the dod doorframes are made for 16 unit thick walls, you'd be best going for 16 units both interior and exterior. having them 8 units would also affect the bullet penetration with the walls acting like paper.

i always use the hollow tool anyway, carving is too much work. just hollow the basic brush, resize any brushes that need to be, and use the vertex tool to mitre the corners. i've never had any errors at all from the hollow tool, and especially with the way the cut tools works, never actually cutting where you click but a few pixels off, it's much easier to use.


the best way though is to use references. it's a lot easier to make something you can see than to make it up as you go along. watch some ww2 films like SPR, BoB, etc, google for ww2 pictures, or french towns like bayeux or caen (mostly old, tudor style architecture) etc. another good site i found a while ago though is this one. they sell 1/72 scale models for dioramas or whatever, and have photos of everything they sell. they've got a lot of bunkers, fortifications etc aswell, which are useful if you're making those:

http://www.tracks-n-troops.com/shell_hole_scenics.htm

Originally posted by cobaltgrc
What do you mean by that?

When you click on a brush in hammer it shows you the dimensions in the center of the view your looking at - I use 16 units for the exterior walls and 8 for interior

I'm sticking to 8 because the penetration of a drywall, wood stud wall would be like paper ;)

The sizes of an exterior wall would be larger than an interior one as well, to me it just looks better like this - ignore the fact that the exterior wall is 8 as well at this moment, its going up as we speak

http://www.geocities.com/canadiantwigee/8units.JPG
This is far from finished as well, dont take this as an indication of how my map will look

okay cool, thanks for your knowledge. ;)

Originally posted by Watchtower
Try making your roads and sidewalks first.

While we are at it what is a good unit width for roads and sidewalks?

And I'm sure this has been discussed before but: What makes a good layout in DOD:S? A middle, a right flank, and a left flank? Should there be long stretches of roads for sniping and back alley ways for SMG's? How should we think about MG positions when creating a layout?

What I use for roads is much the same what I use for walls, its a matter of what works for you. The numbers that I use is so that the sidewalk texture fits perfectly at 0,0 texture shift

Road - 256
Sidewalk - 64

http://www.geocities.com/canadiantwigee/road.JPG

In terms of layout - thats your call and only experiance and having someone playtest it and say yep thats good or nope that sucks will say what a good layout or bad one it

wow, great thread, lots of useful tidbits.

Originally posted by TheSurgeon

http://www.tracks-n-troops.com/shell_hole_scenics.htm

nice site this might just well come in useful :)

Mmmm just been looking through it properly, holy crap theres some nice stuff in there might be going to add some more to my map ;)

thats a pretty good site surgeon, thanks! it never occurred to me to check model sites. I'm working on a map based in norway so I've been collecting pics of houses there. here are a few I've collected so far:
heavywater houses (http://josh.whatsupslc.com/map/heavywater/pics/reference/houses/)

I always map in binary now.

2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256 etc.

Originally posted by Scooty Puff Senior
I always map in binary now.

2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256 etc.

you mean 1000100001 ?

:p

Something you might consider doing to learn is to decompile the 4 official maps. The Vmex (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Vmex) program does a great job of decompiling the maps. I personally don't think this is "evil" - in fact it's hugely instructional for getting you familiar with how Valve's maps have ben structured.

Decompiling also lets you get in and see what materials are used, which can be pretty useful.

Originally posted by Waldo
I personally don't think this is "evil"
oh in that case. its always to see how someone else maps, maybe learn from it even. thats the whole point.

that's sounds cool, i'll try that now.

been having some doubts about lighting and how to place the skyboxes.. i'm 100% new to mapping and just have no idea how it's done, seeing some examples of official maps will no doubt help loads.

Great post Waldo that will help lots thanks

Originally posted by Waldo
Something you might consider doing to learn is to decompile the 4 official maps. The Vmex (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Vmex) program does a great job of decompiling the maps. I personally don't think this is "evil" - in fact it's hugely instructional for getting you familiar with how Valve's maps have ben structured.

Decompiling also lets you get in and see what materials are used, which can be pretty useful.

I don't think he was saying that decompiling itself is evil, its just decompiling a map, changing a few things then calling it your own custom that is evil. basically pawning someone elses work off as yours.

thanks for the link btw. nice to know there is a good decompiler out there. also nice to see you guys checking in on us mappers ;)

Originally posted by Waldo
Something you might consider doing to learn is to decompile the 4 official maps. The Vmex (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Vmex) program does a great job of decompiling the maps. I personally don't think this is "evil" - in fact it's hugely instructional for getting you familiar with how Valve's maps have ben structured.

Decompiling also lets you get in and see what materials are used, which can be pretty useful.

I decompiled the official maps and use only textures from them because the rigged sdk setup won't filter just dod textures for me.

Originally posted by Sly Assassin
its the carve tool thats the devil, never EVER use that one, adds to many problems.

let me just clear this up, the crave tool is only a bad tool in the hands of a non experienced mapper, but for someone who knows what he's doing and knows were he can do it, it certainly is not, i used it and use it, yes even on donner source. :)

The vertex tool can produce some delightful errors, including infinately long bricks.

Mr. IR can you share your knowledge?

Originally posted by Apo||o
The vertex tool can produce some delightful errors, including infinately long bricks.

Thats if you don't know how to use it right, its probably my most used tool though

In terms of Carving

http://www.geocities.com/canadiantwigee/carve.JPG

A typical use that it can be good for it something where the vertex are set on a point, IE a door - imagine that ;)

The first thing to do is get a good door size, IE 64 * 112 which fits the wooden frame well, once you have that door make sure its set on the proper vertex you want and then carve it, simple ones like this it can do as well as the mapper but be carful it extends the cut all the way along the brushes you have selected, be careful that it will double cut on you where as the mapper doing this you wouldn't

Its not hard to use but its hard to use correctly IE the vertex tool

i use the carving tool quite often

Same, especially for curves in the wall and cutting up the ground into even squares to make displacements smaller.

Now don't confuse the carve tool for the clip tool, they are two quite different tools. I don't like the carve tool because it carves anything touching the brush, its annoying to have to move the brushes away then back agian. Also (im not sure with the new hammer) it changes the colour of every brush in the 2D windows, kinda odd really. Seems buggy. But I use the clip tool with almost every brush I make, just duplicate, clip and fix and your done :D

What about roofs? I'm having a little trouble with them. What's the easiest way to create good looking roofs?

Make a bursh, use the clip it to make a triangle using a 45 degree angle.(do both sides to make sure it looks like a triangle) The do the samthing again but moving 1 unit to the left or right to get the thickness of the roof. When thats done, u make it a displacement and dent the middle in or so. THats a very breif and vague way to do it. I am not a very great tutorial creator, then again, i dont really try.

Seen as you'll probably want your roof to block VIS for obvious performance reasons, the way I do my roofs is this:

Make your roof the way you'd do them out of a brush, and make it the exact same size as your upper floor, so that the edges meet. Make it all no draw, and of any angle you want (from 0 to 90°) that is, with 45-75 being a nice realistic range.

Then make a 8 units wide brush that is the same height as your roof. Make it so the inner face touches the outter face of your nodraw roof brush (to cover the nodraw).

Then select the faces of that brush that are visible (all of them) and turn them all into displacements. Give your roof the bumps you want it to have, including a gutter for the face below.

Once that's done, make a thin skybox brush at the very peak of your roof, that will span from within the displacement touching the nodraw roof brush to the skybox brush above.

The upside is that you can easily copy and paste that one displaced side over to the other side of your building.