Mapper-arsenal

Mapper's Arsenal
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A mapper using Radiant needs to understand that modern standards require much more than the software is capable of. Radiant is very capable from a scalability point of view and can keep up with polycounts and even textures, but it's an old tool, despite advances in the new versions. Radiant's strength is in its fundamental workflow, but it really is just that - fundamental.
Therefore, the tool itself almost always needs to be used in conjunction with other software, namely gMax and Blender. Not just that some things are outright impossible, such as carving holes into patch-meshes, but many other things can be done much faster, to minimise drudgery and allow the mapper to continue creating worlds.
In adapting to this fully iterative workflow, it's impossible to not be working blindly, tolerating unfinished and unpolished work in front of you, perhaps relying on others if the documentation isn't elaborate enough, but with faith to believe that these issues will be resolved for a desired result, and wait will be worth it.
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Not necessarily even knowing where to begin doing these things, mappers should keep in mind:-
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Vertex colour. (Blender/MAX)
- by far the most common practice, colourising vertices for decoration and variation, and even blending 2 completely different materials together. Painted on and/or textured, vertex colours can achieve greater variation with less content and memory.
(uses: darken debris for variation, colourise decals (brown/green), material-blending (terrain/rust), etc)
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_vertexpaint.gif
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Knife & Boolean. (Blender)
- unlike CSG subtract in Radiant, Blender's "knife" tool operates on all triangles, so it includes patch-meshes, even after LOD, and even mapobjects. Boolean subtraction is another technique, essentially working the same as CSG subtract.
(uses: saves time cutting out holes or organising multiple objects to create a cavity, or quicker articulation)
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_knifetool.gif
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_boolean.gif
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_boolean2.gif
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Physics littering. (Blender)
- let software do the work for you by (to various degrees) setting up objects with physics properties, letting the gravity take effect and get faster accurate results of things falling into place.
(uses: having a lot of debris hovering in the air that you want resting in a pile on the floor, etc)
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_physics.gif
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_physics2.gif
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Impacts & Fracture. (Blender)
- a combination of physics and softbody deforms can quickly achieve the effect of damaged metal, bent railing or even melting, while fracturing can destroy content into pieces, as elaborate as needed for the desired result.
(uses: impact-damage on metal or an entire wall destroyed, let physics do that work for you)
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_fracture.gif
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_softbodydeform.gif
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Chamfer & Bevel. (Blender/MAX)
- having softer corners everywhere is nice but sometimes you just can't do them all, and resorting to better software is worth the time that can be saved, although should only be resorted to (for less important areas) and not relied upon.
(uses: solving 'secondary' sharp edges that don't necessarily need perfect texture alignment)
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_bevel.gif
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_bevel2.gif
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Bandaids. (Blender/MAX)
- deriving 'shells'/'hats' from pre-existing geometry is much easier outside Radiant and UVs are taken care of too. Having an elaborate long decal following arbitrary geometry doesn't need to be tedious.
(uses: quickly extrude, expand and fold layers of extra geometry used for bandaid decals)
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_shrink.gif
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_cloth.gif
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Bending/Twisting/Tapering. (MAX)
- sometimes complex and/or large pieces of content need these operations done in a precise way that is simply impossible in Radiant but is an otherwise basic procedure, especially in gMax.
(uses: roads and objects following a terrain, or curving a hallway that was built as straight)
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_bend.gif
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_bend2.gif
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Auto edge-trim. (MAX)
- some edge rings and loops can be derived to create a 'trim' object, extra geometry that expands from those infinitely small edges, even if those edges belong to entirely separate objects.
(uses: easily create features like guttering from a building that derives the feature from its shape)
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_autotrim.gif
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_autotrim2.gif
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Mapobject bombing. (101clips)
- this technique involves automated pasting of a collection of different pre-defined sets of mapobjects or prefabs, and can be done using Radiant but relying on external software, such as this.
(uses: quickly and easily scatter debris and trash around in a more intentional way)
www.violationentertainment.com/temp/VE_Radiant&101_1907.mp4
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Decal splatting. (Blender)
- again used for making a mess, this technique allows you to play Blender like a first-person shooter and use a predefined set of (random) decals to shoot on the walls, or even carve out of the walls for accurate articulation.
(uses: for mass contamination of filter decals, typically, although can be adapted for anything)
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_bombing.gif
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_dynamicpaint.gif
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Ivy generator. (Blender)
- exactly what it says.
(uses: grows ivy on your map)
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_ivygen.gif
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Displacement & sculpting. (Blender/MAX)
- can be used for taking simple geometry and baking the heightmap of the material to articulate the tessellated surface. Techniques using InkScape and layers of derived vectors, with Blender remeshing techniques, makes this approach very useable.
(uses: typically to instantly turn a flat surface into an actual brick wall from the material it uses, and much more)
www.violae.net/temp/arsenal_displace.gif
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Step-by-step recipes will be in the 2023 devguide and all of this only good news for mappers.
This doesn't include the terrain-decoration stuff and really only scratches the surface, pun intended!