DR Brush Scaling

[grayman]

A forum search for "scale" returned oodles of results, so I'll skip that time-sink and ask here ...

 

Does anyone use DR's Modify->Scale dialogue?

 

It works fine on rectangular brushes, but destroys anything else. Because of that, I've never used it. But today I found I needed it. I have a collection of odd-shaped brushes I need to scale to 3/4 size, and DR scatters them to the wind. Selecting any single brush and scaling either deletes the brush or provides wonky results.

 

Has anyone found a way around this? Maybe I'm using it wrong. I couldn't find any instructions on the Wiki.

 

I looked in DR's bug list and found nothing filed against this problem.

 

Thanks.

[Bikerdude]

I think Ungoliant does, I dont myself..

[Melan]

I have met the same results; the command doesn't work properly, and if you try to resize things manually, they get horribly distorted. This is one of the main features I would like to see implemented one day. Multi-sided prisms and cones are currently very hard to work with in DR, since you need to get the scale perfectly, and if you'd like to revise your work later, you can't just adjust existing brushes - you need to recreate the whole manually.

[Fidcal]

I never use it. Setting minimum grid size before scaling should help because I'm guessing every vertex might jump to a grid point. But ultimately, I think manual is the only way and even that is not easy with irregular shapes.

[fllood]

You can scale and shape any brush in DR like this:

 

o Select the brush

o (best) choose minumum grid size, but maximum 1 unit

o Put Vertices Mode for Edges ON

o Select all Verts of the brush which should be scaled

o Open Modify --> Scale, set X,Y,Z to the same numbers and scale each side the same amount (in case if you want a symetric scale)

o Use snap to grip if needed to put the scaled bursh tight with other brushes

 

is this what you're looking for?

[Fidcal]

Interesting... sounds like a nomination for tip of the month to me.

[grayman]

You can scale and shape any brush in DR like this:

 

 

You most certainly can!

 

Thanks, fllood!

[Melan]

If this solution works, could it be distilled into algorhytm form and placed on the DarkRadiant interface as a convenient button? All of the individual steps seem to be reproducible via in-editor commands.

 

(And if it is possible, fllood deserves high praise indeed! This is my Nr. 1 issue with DR right now.)

Edited July 6, 2011 by Melan

[fllood]

If this solution works, could it be distilled into algorhytm form and placed on the DarkRadiant interface as a convenient button? All of the individual steps seem to be reproducible via in-editor commands.

It had become the second important method for me in DR after Clipper. If you get used to it these steps are a matter of seconds and give you the flexibility to scale individual verts and axes. However a "scale all axes" option in the Scale Tool would be a helpful addition.

 

(And if it is possible, fllood deserves high praise indeed! This is my Nr. 1 issue with DR right now.)

Just passing the knowledge .... honor to whom honor is due: All praise is to be credited to ungoliant I've learned this from! Didn't expected this not to be common knowledge. I wonder how you guys did create your maps without?

Edited July 6, 2011 by fllood

[grayman]

I just performed this on a 32-brush object with grid size set to 64, and it performed as well as it did on the same object with the grid set on 0.125.

 

So it looks like the grid setting doesn't matter when performing the scale.

 

Marvelous. This saved me an hour's work.

 

Thanks again.

[Serpentine]

I always do my transforms on vertices where possible, there are a lot of places where they're just far easier to work with as you get things right the first time. The reason I use the grid size as 1 is because I snap them to grid once done, since if the starting vertices are not aligned you can run into rounding efforts, and then you start running into invisible polygons and all that good stuff

[ungoliant]

just found this little thread. looks like I should of posted my new tutorial video in the public forums. The use of the rotate / scale tool in this fashion is actually included in the video.

 

edit: here it is

http://www.gamefront.com/files/20443779/tutorial_wmv

Edited July 7, 2011 by ungoliant

[fllood]

You might like to add it here as well Ungoliant. Really some good stuff in this video.

[Tels]

@ungoliant: This is awesome. It makes it possible to use DR to do really fine-scale detail work:

 

[Mortem Desino]

Love it. When primitives got that small, HL2 map compiler always crapped out complaining about "microbrushes". Its calculations would occasionally mis-estimate, and tiny brushes could end up stretching an extra couple meters long.

[Bikerdude]

I like this tri-hole keys, very fancy!

[ungoliant]

It makes it possible to use DR to do really fine-scale detail work

 

very nice! I hadn't bothered attempting to convert large-scale work to super small. I figured it'd optimize out if you tried fine detail like that! lookin' good!

[Tels]

Love it. When primitives got that small, HL2 map compiler always crapped out complaining about "microbrushes". Its calculations would occasionally mis-estimate, and tiny brushes could end up stretching an extra couple meters long.

 

Well, the trick is to convert the result (here: 3 brushes and about a dozend patches) into an .ASE model with the script exporter Works like a charm, it's even a (working!) moveable with a collision model

 

Can do a visual tutorial with screenshots if someone wants it.

[Tels]

While working on these models, I noticed the ASE exporter does not have any way to not export any face of a brush, even when you caulk it, or add nodraw to it.

 

Now, exporting nodraw textures can be useful (so you can later add a skin that selectively enables parts of a model, like a moustache), but there is still the time where you want to omit a face of a brush, perhaps because it is embedded into another brush or flush with another face.

 

So I added a checkbox to the dialog and a bit of a code to not export caulked faces unless you mark that box.

 

The updated script is here: http://bloodgate.com/mirrors/tdm/pub/scripts/ as ase_export.py in case anyone needs it.

[Baddcog]

Good work Tels. That was probably the number 1 issue with the exporter, though probably not a big deal for one special key, having a lot of items with extra faces could get sloppy.

[Tels]

Good work Tels. That was probably the number 1 issue with the exporter, though probably not a big deal for one special key, having a lot of items with extra faces could get sloppy.

 

Yeah, it was only like 3 faces for this key, so not important, but for other models it can be quite handy. Now I just need to pick up enough Python to fix the "join geometries" bug so the models don't get so huge

[PranQster]

just found this little thread. looks like I should of posted my new tutorial video in the public forums. The use of the rotate / scale tool in this fashion is actually included in the video.

 

edit: here it is

http://www.gamefront...79/tutorial_wmv

 

Nice! I learned some new tricks from that tutorial. I wish I had seen that earlier because I made a very similar tower recently, but did it a much harder way. I may need to re-think what I did and rebuild the tower using your methods.... it's only the walls and roof I would need to rebuild and some vertex moving on the floors. But then I'd be able to put in better looking windows.

 

BTW, I replaced my towers with new ones built using this method. They are visually not much different and fit nearly exactly as my other ones did, but they sure showed me how uneven the geometry was on my old towers. Now I have symmetry and solid roofs instead of conical patches... can use 'attic' space in the towers now

Edited July 31, 2011 by PranQster