New mapper question

[Krimzer]

Hello all,

 

As the subject implies, I am a new initiate to the ranks of mappers. I'm finding the tutorials that are available to be helpful for most of my problems, and my first map is coming along fairly well. However, I am having a problem that I would like to take care of now, and I have not found the solution in any of the places I've looked thus far.

 

Anyhow, my problem is essentially visible "seams", if you know what I mean. In the space between some brushes (not all), I get tiny "cracks" that are very visible and extremely ugly. Any advice on how to avoid these "seams" would be very appreciated.

[Xcom]

Curious. It's difficult to answer this straight away w/o additional info

1)

The first that comes to mind are curves. Are you using any patch meshes/curves and do you see the cracks on them or you see those cracks on 'normal' brushes as well?

 

2) What exactly do you mean by cracks? This can be tiny little dots/sparklies (white or black which appear on the edges of your brushes) or like real cracks, holes as if your geometry don't fit.

 

Anyway, if you are using curves you must caulk the areas behind them. That is, apply system/caulk texture to the brushes behind them.

Btw, it would help if you could make a screenshot!

[Krimzer]

Well, here's a screenshot example.

 

 

It's not easy to see, but you may notice a line of pink dots across the middle. The problem becomes more visible while moving.

 

As for the questions, the "cracks" are perhaps the sparklies you refered to. They lie between brushes, or between brushes and patch meshes. They sometimes appear as a full line, other times as a dashed line, always where two brushes meet. They are pink colored, most likely because I'm using the Bespin skybox.

 

The example above is where a brush meets a patch mesh. I did caulk the side of the brush, and I've seen the same problem between two brushes.

[Xcom]

I think I know what might be causing this. I don't know what adjustments Raven did to the engine, so I can't be very sure.

 

Anyway, this sparklies appear because the side of a brush is not equal to the side of a curve. They have different amount of splits. See following image:

 

http://home.planet.nl/~xcom/art/sparklies.gif

 

In this example in pic A, there are two brushes and there will be sparklies (most likely). In pic B, the brushes are cut to fit the endcapped bevel and ideally, there will be no sparklies. So, in other words, you'll need to adjust the structural geometry to fit the mesh.

 

Another example:

 

http://home.planet.nl/~xcom/art/sparklies2.gif

 

Hope this helps.

[Krimzer]

Ah, I think I understand. I'll try that when I have the time and see if it works.

 

Thanks

[RichDiesal]

Sparkles between brushes most often occur when you haven't caulked both sides of the brushes that are touching each other. Take the time to lift up one of the brushes and visually double-check that both sides are Caulk.

 

The most common time this occurs is when you have the face of a brush partially exposed and the other half not... meaning when you auto-caulk it, the unexposed half of the brush face will remain textured, causing that sparkle effect. The only way to fix this is to clip the brush with both sides intact (Shift-Enter)and retexture the covered surface with caulk and the uncovered with your chosen texture...

 

If you do this, it will also often reduce compile time, so it is advantageous for all.