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CSG Subtract


killhour

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It's just a tool really, not the kind of thing that I like or dislike. If you need to make a hole in something, its the best way to do it.

 

Its easy to go overboard and mess things up. Occasionally I'll get to using it too much and end up making way more brushes than I needed to, or end up with like 1px thick faces on my walls or something, but if you are careful then you'll be fine.

 

Doorways and windows are the two main reasons I use it really. Though, you do well to plan your building with windows in mind, and not end up with 40 pieces in small area. I have arched windows that uses a triangle at the top to square it off with the wall, problem is when I subtract it the wrong way I end up with a ton of diagonal pieces. the best way it seems is to have all your windows lined up perfectly so that you can subtract all the surrounding square boxes at the same time and make the least number of brushes possible, or just put the windows in first and rebuild the walls around it.

 

I think that is why a lot of people might not use it, in most cases if you plan well enough you won't actually need it that much, but if you are like me, you will. I think people might just like more control over what they do.

 

Just a piece of advice (assuming you even need it, I'm not that good myself), if you do need to make holes that are not perfect squares, make whatever non-square object you are working with with a square frame around it, and fit the square frame into the wall. I learned that the hard way trying to put a circular vent into a wall and ended up with about a billion pieces, so that is probably just a good way to do anything (also makes reproduction easier).

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In some worst-case scenarios I've had it cause BSP holes in my map. drove me mad, but luckily deleting said brushes fixed it.

 

I don't use it mainly from force of habit now, but as long as you backup often it should be ok. Nonetheless, cutting it yourself gives you more control.

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In my opinion it's best to think in additive terms, not subtractive ones. You don't need to carve things out of solids like you would if you had to rebuild the cave church of Petra.

 

For me that's the natural approach to things anyway, but then again I never was a DromEd or UnrealEd user.

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In my opinion it's best to think in additive terms, not subtractive ones. You don't need to carve things out of solids like you would if you had to rebuild the cave church of Petra.

 

For me that's the natural approach to things anyway, but then again I never was a DromEd or UnrealEd user.

 

I think in terms of "Make the outside of a building, carve out the inside", so subtractive just makes sense to me.

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Well, to each his own, I guess. :)

 

The "nice" thing about DromEd isn't the "subtractive" vs. "additive" building style. The real nifty thing is that DromEd had "real" boolean logic in building things.

 

Look at the following image:

 

post-144-1221759108_thumb.jpg

Now try to build this with either subtractive or additive geometry and you will find it will be easy with additive:

 

* just make a solid 8 sides pyramid

* stack another, less high, solid 8 sided pyramid inside it

* add two (triangle-shaped) wedges laid out in a cross

 

And you have your church top.

 

Building this with subtractive geometry is...UGH.

 

But, now if you want to add the interiour to that tower, it is easy to "subtract" the airspace in the inner parts by just adding the same brushes in a slightly smaller version as "air".

 

If you wanted to build such a thin shell in additive geometry, you would end up with a lot of brushes. But since D3 leaves you no choice, building such a tower top is quite complicated. (or you need to use the clipper tool and end up with a lot of small brushes anyway)

 

The beauty of DromED is, you kept the original solid/air brushes that form your geometry in your map, so in total you had only 6 brushes (3 solid, 3 air) and the actual map geometry was calculated from that.

 

You can't do this in D3 since you only have solid brushes and need to careful construct the outer shell with them. Yes, you can build 1/4 and clone the others, but it is still a pain.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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The "nice" thing about DromEd isn't the "subtractive" vs. "additive" building style. The real nifty thing is that DromEd had "real" boolean logic in building things.

 

Look at the following image:

 

post-144-1221759108_thumb.jpg

Now try to build this with either subtractive or additive geometry and you will find it will be easy with additive:

 

* just make a solid 8 sides pyramid

* stack another, less high, solid 8 sided pyramid inside it

* add two (triangle-shaped) wedges laid out in a cross

 

And you have your church top.

 

Building this with subtractive geometry is...UGH.

 

But, now if you want to add the interiour to that tower, it is easy to "subtract" the airspace in the inner parts by just adding the same brushes in a slightly smaller version as "air".

 

If you wanted to build such a thin shell in additive geometry, you would end up with a lot of brushes. But since D3 leaves you no choice, building such a tower top is quite complicated. (or you need to use the clipper tool and end up with a lot of small brushes anyway)

 

The beauty of DromED is, you kept the original solid/air brushes that form your geometry in your map, so in total you had only 6 brushes (3 solid, 3 air) and the actual map geometry was calculated from that.

 

You can't do this in D3 since you only have solid brushes and need to careful construct the outer shell with them. Yes, you can build 1/4 and clone the others, but it is still a pain.

 

Indeed. Unreal Ed works the same way (Except with only solid and void - the materials were added with entities between portals). I loved that you could just rearrange the order of the operations too, in case you needed to, say, add a hallway without disturbing other solids.

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