Newbie Problems with Brushes/Vertex Editing/Buildall

[Ggd07]

Hello there.

I am very deeply sorry that I opened a second threat so soon, but I am in a bit of a trouble here.

I really read a lot before starting with UnrealED for Killing Floor (basically I read about UnrealED and watches some tutorials at 3d buzz).

So after a week or so of getting familiar with the basics, I started my own map.

As I stated in my previous threat, I have been mapping only in the Source and GoldSource Engine for quite some time.

I started my first map yesterday, because I had an Idea, and it all went so awesome until I started to get some strange problems in the editor.

For example, problem number one:

When I try to edit the vertex of a brush with Vertex Editing, when I select the vertexes, and CTRL+Click to move them, my brush teleports 128x128 units (I think) down.

A second problem is, I have grid snapping issues. Whenever I snap something to the grid, when I zoom in to the max, it seems it is off the grid like a little bit like this " || " really close, but not snapped. I tried snapping by right clicking and it sill stays that way. This problem wasn't an issue when I started the map.

Another problems is, when I clip the red builder brush, in order to achieve a desired figure, after I "add" the brush and then "Build Geometry", the clipped side of the brush appears on the other side of it. I mean, like if I clip it like that |\ - when I add the brush and build the geometry it appears like that /|.

This is really confusing me, and I can't continue mapping like that, because the 2D views are screwing up and everything is upside down and not correct.

Can anybody help me fix these problems, which weren't issues when I started the map. I guess I screwed something over big time in the beginning but do not know why. I guess the articles and material I have read and watched didn't explain something important about optimization.

P.S. Yes I know you have to use More static meshes than brushes, but I saw a couple of maps which ran smooth with 70% brushes and 30% static meshes. I am not a 3d modeler, as I can't make my own meshes, but I would be happy if I can transform my Idea into a reality in the KF Editor, without any of those annoying problems.

Thank you for taking your time to read my threat, and many more thanks if you decide to reply!

 

[Murphy]

Don't worry man. No reason to apologize. Once you run into troubles, come here. We're glad to help you out. The forum is big enough to hold your questions.

When I try to edit the vertex of a brush with Vertex Editing, when I select the vertexes, and CTRL+Click to move them, my brush teleports 128x128 units (I think) down.

Did you change the grid size to 128? Btw. to move things you don't click on them. You click on them to select them and then you click anywhere and move the mouse while holding down ctrl. I don't know if that caused it, but just give it a try clicking anywhere and see if it happens that way too. Then report back here.

A second problem is, I have grid snapping issues. Whenever I snap something to the grid, when I zoom in to the max, it seems it is off the grid like a little bit like this " || " really close, but not snapped. I tried snapping by right clicking and it sill stays that way. This problem wasn't an issue when I started the map.

Rightclicking a vertex MUST work. It snaps it to the grid and if you're in camera mode it moves the whole brush along by the same vector. If it was on the grid before (i.e. if its measurements fit on the grid) it will be on the grid after that. If it wasn't (e.g. if one side is perfectly horizontal but it's length is like 7.5301) then that's your problem.

If you rightclick a vertex in vertex editing mode only that vertex will snap to the grid and every other vertex you had selected with it will move by the same vector. The rest of the brush stays unchanged. You can use this to "straighten out" brushes.

Be careful not to create non-planar faces though as those cause BSP errors.

Another problems is, when I clip the red builder brush, in order to achieve a desired figure, after I "add" the brush and then "Build Geometry", the clipped side of the brush appears on the other side of it. I mean, like if I clip it like that |\ - when I add the brush and build the geometry it appears like that /|.

Click Brush -> Reset All and make sure the draw scale windows at the bottom right of your screen all read 1.000 when the builder brush (the red one) is selected.

If it doesn't help, delete UnrealEd.ini and see if that helps.

 

[Ggd07]

Hey

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation.

I was talking when I try to move the vertexes, I know how to move stuff around and how to snap to grid.

I didn't explain it right.

When I try to select a vertex and (vertex edit) this vertex, (when I right click on it) to snap it on the grid, it suddenly teleports somewhere around 128x128 down or even more. and the position where I right clicked to snap it, its pivot (I think) goes there, and the brush is somewhere else far.

And I wanted to post screenshots for what I mean - the clipped brushes.

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/2199/33878812.jpg
For example I want to make this brush

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/9108/38090754.jpg
When I add it, it appears like that, screweing over my 2D views, making it very hard to continue, because for example I would like to make something near that brush to make a figure, and I can't because everything is upside down in my 2D views..

I am going to try out what you said and reply/or/edit my post

Thank you again very much for taking your time to respond in a so detailed way.

 

[YoYoBatty]

Hey

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation.

I was talking when I try to move the vertexes, I know how to move stuff around and how to snap to grid.

I didn't explain it right.

When I try to select a vertex and (vertex edit) this vertex, (when I right click on it) to snap it on the grid, it suddenly teleports somewhere around 128x128 down or even more. and the position where I right clicked to snap it, its pivot (I think) goes there, and the brush is somewhere else far.

And I wanted to post screenshots for what I mean - the clipped brushes.

[url]http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/2199/33878812.jpg[/URL]
For example I want to make this brush

[url]http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/9108/38090754.jpg[/URL]
When I add it, it appears like that, screweing over my 2D views, making it very hard to continue, because for example I would like to make something near that brush to make a figure, and I can't because everything is upside down in my 2D views..

I am going to try out what you said and reply/or/edit my post

Thank you again very much for taking your time to respond in a so detailed way.

This has happened to me on one of my maps when make a pathway, I had to rotate the entire thing 90 degrees and work backwards to get it to work properly.

 

[Ggd07]

Yes, that was I though too when I noticed this problem.

But I find it very hard to continue like this, as the map gets more complicated, I will have problems finding my way through everything, because everything will be upside down.. and backwards..

PS. for this post I wanted to say that Reseting the Brush didn't fix the problem.

 

[Murphy]

When I try to select a vertex and (vertex edit) this vertex, (when I right click on it) to snap it on the grid, it suddenly teleports somewhere around 128x128 down or even more. and the position where I right clicked to snap it, its pivot (I think) goes there, and the brush is somewhere else far.

I think I'm still not sure what is actually happening there. I'm not one who insists on correct usage of terms because usually it's enough to get the general idea across and everyone can read what the buttons are literally called themselves, but in this case I must admit I'm a little stumped.

You click on the Vertex Editing button (this one ->

. NOT this one ->

), your cursor changes. Then you click on a brush to select it. You can now edit the vertices of this brush. To do that select them.
I find it's most comfortable to draw a selection rectangle around them. Hold crtl and alt and draw up the rectangle. To add to the selected hold ctrl, alt and shift and draw more rectangles. Note however that this selects every vertex in the rectangle. I.e. if you do this over the corner of a cube in top-view you get the top and the bottom vertex! Usually, that's what you want anyway though.
Once they are selected they can be moved around like any other actor. Don't place them on other vertices of the same brush though as this will crash UnrealEd.
Rightclicking a selected vertex snaps it to the closest grid crossing.

The pivot doesn't even come into play here. Sometimes when you move a vertex you get a little shadow vertex where it used to be. This is just a little helper for you so you can move it back easier and you can see better how far you moved it. You can ignore that.

The pivot is snapped to the closest grid crossing when you leftclick a selected vertex in Vertex Editing mode.
eftclicking a vertex of a selected brush in Camera mode (this one ->

snaps the pivot to that vertex, regardless of the grid.
But you can just forget about how to move the pivot because you can just rightclick anywhere and chose Pivot and move it from there. No need to memorize weird clicking combos.

Rightclicking a vertex of a selected brush in Camera mode snaps it to the closest grid crossing and moves the rest of the brush along by the same vector.

That's all there is to it, I think.
Try doing it exactly as described here.

If your vertices still teleport to places that are NOT the closest grid crossing and if the pivot of the brush (to see if it's the pivot or something else rotate the brush in the top-view and see if it rotates around that point. Just so we're using the same terminology as there are a couple of red points floating around that may or may not be the pivot) moves unexpectedly report back and tell us exactly what you did and exactly what happened.

the clipped brushes

Brush -> Reset All should fix this but apparently it doesn't. Hmm. Do it anyhow and if it doesn't work open the properties of the Builder Brush (the red one) go to Movement -> Rotation and set Pitch, Roll and Yaw to 0. That should fix it. If not, post here again.

 

[Ggd07]

Hey Murphy!

I can't express how thankful I am !

Your last statement fixed the problem. It seems something was wrong with the pitch,yaw, roll..

go to Movement -> Rotation and set Pitch, Roll and Yaw to 0. That should fix it. If not, post here again.

I am very sorry You couldn't understand me, my explanation sucked.

I will try to explain with a picture

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/7663/70996269.jpg

I select the vertex with CTRL+ALT.

After which I want to move it, by CTRL + Left Dragging,
The moment I click with the mouse (by holding CTRL ofc), the brush goes down, (I said 128x128 as an example, because the first time it was this much), it just moves down.

and When I try to go catch it, and CTRL + left click to drag again, it teleports again, which makes me chase it all the way down and not be able to catch it in the end.

This and the brush clipping problem.

It seems all of this was a problem with the pitch, roll, yaw.

I checked what you said, and it seems everything is ok now, but I have to go around every brush to fix it.

As you can see in the picture, I pasted a screen of the problem you reffered to. I swear I do not know how this got like that..

The yaw was -32767.. how? I do not know..

By fixing everything to 0, the vertex problem, and the brush clipping problem, and the accuracy problem, all of these problems were solved!!

Again, I do not know how to thank you. Greatly appreciated for your detailed explanations, not only you fixed my problem, and I can continue on my map, but I have learned a few things.

Thank you very much!!!!! (bow)

PS: I don't know why my posts have to be approved, this makes terrible timing when I post

PS2. I hope this thread also helps others with the same problem, if any..

 

[Murphy]

PS: I don't know why my posts have to be approved, this makes terrible timing when I post

This is just for the first couple of posts you post on here. Sometimes advertising robots come by and post ads for nike shoes or worse, but they usually just drop in, leave a post or two or three and then they're off to a strafing run on another forum. With the approval the moderators here hope to catch those posters before they can do damage (i.e. post). After a couple of posts they assume you're not a bot or you would a) have stopped posting by now or b) be banned already for the content of your first posts so they just let you post then.

You don't have to apologize in every post, btw. This forum exists explicitly to help people with UnrealEd. Even if you had stupid newbie questions and by stupid I mean technically easy to figure out on your own (and sometimes you're staring right at the solution and can't see it regardless. Happens to everyone) you wouldn't have to apologize. And you had a legitimate problem that was NOT easy to track down and fix by any means.

So welcome to the forum, I'm looking forward to your future posts. Be they on the helping side or the asking side.

 

[Ggd07]

Okay then . I apologize because I had experience in other forums where I ask something and they boycott me, which is unpleasant.

I always spend hours and hours in searching around for a solution, but If I can not find, I ask.

In fact, I want to ask something else in this thread.

I have searched a lot in this forum about a certain problem I have. Skybox lighting.

I found a couple of threads and spend like 4 hours tweaking options in my level, but in the end, I am stuck with problems.

I made a skybox with 256x256 texture on a 512x512x512 brush. I aligned them perfectly and everything is fine, it displays perfectly. After that I added a Sunlight in the skybox brush and tweaked it into my liking.. I have my BSP brushes No Backdrop tags, and the skybox brush - Unlit tag.

When I ran the map EVERYTHING was so BRIGHT, it blinded me, I couldn't see anything.

For four hours I have been searching these forums and other like beyondunreal and 3dbuzz for solutions. I have tweaked several settings, I have set bloom to off in the level info, I have lowered the ambience brightness settings in the level info and skyzoneinfo, I have lowered everything I find in the light category, I have tweaked the fog settings, I have played with every single settings, with no luck.

Until I found out your reply:

Just don't make your skybox objects Unlit and use the SkyZoneInfo's Zone Lighting to light them. No need for a black sphere.

I quickly went, disabled unlit, and made a lightning in the skyzoneinfo, went into game, and it was perfect.. except for one thing..

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/1811/20323242.jpg

These leaks.

Do you have any idea what is causing them. Didn't see anyone else with this problem on here while searching.

In the mean time, I will try playing with SpecialLit

EDIT: I actually found out what was causing the problem. The Sunlight placed in the skybox cube.

Is there anyway I can make the sunlight not lit up the skybox, but only emit the light from the backdrop to the level ?

EDIT2: I moved the SunLight in the actual level, but I have some shadow issues like that. If I can still make the sunlight in the skybox cube, I think it will emit the light more efficient. If anyone has an answer please let me know.

Other than that, here is my project. I know it is ridiculous to port such a map for KF, but I find it an excellent first project to get me started to the basics and foundations of the editor, since I have a couple of great ideas. It will be great fun making this

Screen: http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/7669/shot00000di.jpg

I am trying to be as exact as possible to the original.

 

[Olivier]

I can't help, but thats a nice skybox

 

[Ggd07]

I can't help, but thats a nice skybox

Hey Oliver, Thank you for replying.

Unfortunately, I can not take credit for it. It is not mine

If I succeed with this map I will show some screenshots. Just having fun for now

 

[ro_sauce]

well, i dont know if you want to do this, but judging the way you are doing your skybox, you could just go unlit on the skybox surfaces, then you wont need a light...

 

[Ggd07]

well, i dont know if you want to do this, but judging the way you are doing your skybox, you could just go unlit on the skybox surfaces, then you wont need a light...

I don't think you read my post correctly.

I have done this, and my skybox appears very very very bright. I have wrote in my previous post what have I tried to reduce it, and nothing helped :\

Thanks for the reply though..

 

[Murphy]

Your sunlight is lighting up the skybox, now that it isn't unlit anymore.

Tick the "Special Lit" tickbox in the surface properties of the sides of your skybox. With it ticked they won't be affected by normal lights anymore. Only lights that have Lighting -> bSpecialLit set to True. As this is not the case on your SunLight they won't be lit by it anymore.

This probably means that after a rebuild they are black. Use the SkyZoneInfo to light them up now. Open its properties, go to Zone Lighting and change the ambient brightness value until it looks as bright as you want it (this works even if they're set to SpecialLit!). You can even use this to give it a color filter if you change the Hue and Saturation value as well.

 

[Ggd07]

Your sunlight is lighting up the skybox, now that it isn't unlit anymore.

Tick the "Special Lit" tickbox in the surface properties of the sides of your skybox. With it ticked they won't be affected by normal lights anymore. Only lights that have Lighting -> bSpecialLit set to True. As this is not the case on your SunLight they won't be lit by it anymore.

This probably means that after a rebuild they are black. Use the SkyZoneInfo to light them up now. Open its properties, go to Zone Lighting and change the ambient brightness value until it looks as bright as you want it (this works even if they're set to SpecialLit!). You can even use this to give it a color filter if you change the Hue and Saturation value as well.

Thank you, I knew what the problem is yesterday, I edit my last post.

By Ggd07 - Edited Post

EDIT: I actually found out what was causing the problem. The Sunlight placed in the skybox cube.

Is there anyway I can make the sunlight not lit up the skybox, but only emit the light from the backdrop to the level ?

EDIT2: I moved the SunLight in the actual level, but I have some shadow issues like that. If I can still make the sunlight in the skybox cube, I think it will emit the light more efficient. If anyone has an answer please let me know.

Other than that, here is my project. I know it is ridiculous to port such a map for KF, but I find it an excellent first project to get me started to the basics and foundations of the editor, since I have a couple of great ideas. It will be great fun making this

Screen: http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/7669/shot00000di.jpg

I am trying to be as exact as possible to the original.

The special lit fixed it, it looks awesome now

Thank you again, I really learned a lot, from this thread, and also checked out your awesome tutorials

PS. Question: In one places I read that it is not good to convert brushes to static meshes in UnrealED, in other I read that it is good for optimization.

So, what parts should I convert to static meshes, and what not. Deformed geometry, small pieces of geometry ?

 

[Murphy]

Converting is generally good for performance (and also for your BSP geometry! StaticMeshes can't cause geometry problems like bsp-holes!), when it's possible. When people say it isn't they usually mean that making the model in a 3d program like Maya, Max or Milkshape is even better. The models made that way can look better (thanks to UV maps, the possibility of lighting baked into the skin, smoothing groups and controllable triangularization) and they perform better too (since you can delete never seen surfaces).
StaticMeshes made in UnrealEd also have weird white dots along their borders. Apparently they aren't water-tight or something. I don't know. That's just the way it is. It's not too bad, but if it can be avoided...

Making StaticMeshes in UnrealEd is a bit like making textures in MSPaint. It's possible, but there are better alternatives.

If you already HAVE the objects though and you are just deciding whether to keep them as BSP or to convert them to StaticMesh the latter is the better choice for performance and stability. StaticMeshes are lit per vertex, which doesn't look as good or accurate as the lightmaps with configurable resolutions that are used to light BSP surfaces. So converting objects to StaticMesh can result in a degraded visual quality, but most of the time it's worth it. Especially for small or complicated objects which would a) suck as BSP, performancewise and b) have their vertices relatively close together so lighting per vertex looks good enough too.

The TL;DR version: Small or complicated objects should be converted to StaticMesh if possible.

 

[Ggd07]

After intense use, and mapping, I almost finalized my map.

I have a strange problem that occured just now.

Whenever I want to click on a brush to change its texture in the 3D viewport, the UnrealED gets to a "not responding" state for 30 seconds and more, and if I click something in the viewport again, it does it again...

What did I do wrong now

EDIT: It seems that if I select a brush in the 2d Views it does the same thing. Freezes for 30-50 seconds.

It worked fine and now this.. :|

EDIT2: I fixed it. I upgraded to the latest nVidia drivers in the morning. Reverted back and it is fine now.

Note to nVidia Users. Don't upgrade, I got problems with Steam and UnrealED with them