Using a spreadsheet for cutting patches

[SteveL]

Haha. Thanks for the vote of confidence guys Better deliver on time now, hadn't I? So far, so good.

 

Now if we had a way to weld/unweld verts on neighboring patches and vertex paint texture in the editor in real-time without going through placing brush objects and exporting! (and on a side note, being able to setup Cordon Bounds in a map for troubleshooting would be freaking wicked.)

 

I agree! Patch stitching should be easy if the patches are similar enough. Vertex painting, I wish, but I had a look and I don't think patches hold any vertex color data. I don't know what cordon bounds are...

Edited March 15, 2014 by SteveL

[Lux]

Cordon Bounds are a feature of the Hammer editor. They're basically, in the editor, a rectangular volume wire frame comprised of bolded red lines that you can resize to whatever size you want.

 

When you dmap, this area defined by the rectangular boundries of this tool is basically like creating a world spawn brush room (that seals to the void) around a specific area of the map you want to test, and deleting everything else in the map so its not compiled. So when you dmap, only the area within the cordon bounds limit box would be compiled and sealed from the void with a simple caulk brush.

 

You can probably see the usefulness of this. You have a large map and you have an issue but you don't know where. You can basically use the Cordon Bounds to select a quarter of the map and then compile and run the map. You can do this in quadrants till you find the offending quadrant. Than you can make your Cordon Bound box 1/4 the size and test the offending quadrant by dividing it up in to 4 quadrants again, and again until you find the area that is the issue.

 

You could also use this to test new sections of a map you're working on by just setting the cordon bounds to that specific area, etc. Shortens compile times particularly if the map is large.

 

I don't know how it would work in relation to AI pathfinding where paths from node to node might be cut off however its probably possible to dmap without AI pathfinding simply for the sake of troubleshooting geometry in a specific section of the map.

Edited March 15, 2014 by Lux

[RJFerret]

I don't know how it would work in relation to AI pathfinding where paths from node to node might be cut off however its probably possible to dmap without AI pathfinding simply for the sake of troubleshooting geometry in a specific section of the map.

 

They just stop. (You can currently do what you are describing by saving selected as a map.)

[SteveL]

I've not tried it but I think that's exactly what "Save Region" does in the DR file menu. (Is that the one you meant RJF?) I did read somewhere that it even adds the caulk cube for you.

[Lux]

They just stop. (You can currently do what you are describing by saving selected as a map.)

 

I've not tried it but I think that's exactly what "Save Region" does in the DR file menu. (Is that the one you meant RJF?) I did read somewhere that it even adds the caulk cube for you.

 

Wasn't aware we had that functionality! Thanks to both of you for pointing that out.

[SteveL]

Final update from me tonight: It works as advertised!

I'm now adding code to handle situations where the user asks the impossible: cuts on the existing seam of a sphere/cylinder, cuts at the edge, diagonal cuts, green-line cuts, that kind of thing.

After 15 straight hours though I'm going to take a break and a beer and finally go and play A Noble Home! I'll be back in the morning with a demo vid and the script.

[mmij]

Hello. I know I'm reviving an old topic, but could someone help me out. I want to make several patches by computation for a project. I've been doing my homework, but I don't want to guess at this point.

When I open the map file and look at an existing patch, inside a set of parentheses I see the xyz coordinates followed by two more places. What are these places and what do they affect? I think it might be something with the texture, but I'm not 100% on that. My experimentation is not satisying me.

 

patchDef2
{
"textures/common/caulk"
( 3 3 0 0 0 )  <---This is patch size, 3x3, but I'm not sure of the trailing digits either.
(
( ( 16 0 6 0 0 ) ( 16 4 6 0 -0.03125 ) ( 16 8 6 0 -0.0625 ) ) <---Texture orientation maybe? But how do you align it properly?
( ( 20 0 6 0.03125 0 ) ( 20 4 6 0.03125 -0.03125 ) ( 20 8 6 0.03125 -0.0625 ) )
( ( 24 0 6 0.0625 0 ) ( 24 4 6 0.0625 -0.03125 ) ( 24 8 6 0.0625 -0.0625 ) )
)

Edited August 20, 2020 by mmij
Append

[mmij]

On a brush there is a different format:

( 0 0 1 -8 ) ( ( 0.0078125 0 0 ) ( 0 0.0078125 0 ) ) "textures/common/caulk" 0 0 0

Again, some numbers I think have to do with texture, but I have no idea what to do with them.