Vertex Manipulation 4 - Realistic Cliffs

This is the next tutorial in the series of this tool! Now, having read (or not read!) the tutorial on realistic terrain, you may be thinking that this is going to leave you with a high brush count. Well, you're right. That was an introduction as to how you can use triangles to make uneven surfaces. Used in the right areas, its not noticeable, but in areas where a lot of combat is going to happen in your map, its not going to be very nice to play!

Cliffs can be made with lots of triangles, but using different brushes to make other 'types' of cliff can pay dividends. 

I will be using the cs_cbble.wad for this tutorial.

So, we shall create ourselves a 6 sided cylinder with dimensions of 256x256, like this:



Next, move the corner vertices to form a square, like so:



Now, this is done, since there are many vertices that can be moved to make a cliff face. A normal block square doesn't have these, so this is useful to do.

Next, we shall rearrange the vertices to form a shape like this:



In picture 1, the bottom left vertex has been moved half way up the solid.
In picture 2, the bottom-middle vertex has been moved left 2 squares.
In picture 3, the top-left vertex has been moved down 2 squares and right 2 squares.
Picture 4 is the finished product.

This has produced an error free brush, great! Now, lets create the bottom of the cliff.

Create another 6 sided cylinder, with the same dimensions as before, and make it into a square. Then, align it exactly below the one that we made above, like this:



Now, edit this with vertex manipulation until you get a brush similar to this:



Picture 1, the top middle vertex has been moved to connect with the previous brush.
Picture 2, top-left vertex has been moved down 3 squares and right 2 squares.
Picture 3, the bottom right vertex has been moved up 6 squares, and right 2 squares.
Picture 4, the bottom middle vertex has been moved left by 3 squares.

And there you have a realistic cliff! Now, this has been done in the Top (x/y) view, so rotate both brushes by 90 degrees in the X plane to make them appear correct with the rest of the map.
Now, this can be expanded upon to make cliffs of different looks, etc.



Here's a simple example, with a normal block just clipped.
This can easily be expanded to make a whole set of cliffs. 


All I've done here is copy the existing one and rotate it by 90 degrees. With a bit of clipping, a 90 degree corner has been created.
By moving existing vertices, a rougher look can be given to the cliff, i.e. more realistic.

This could go on for a lot a long time, so ill leave it up to you as to how you make the rest of the cliffs, with paths, etc. Here's one that I made using a different texture for the cliffs that I found on the net:



All I have done here is to create a path up onto the ledge using the good ol' triangles. Looks pretty neat, but can be made a hell of a lot better with some more work. This ones just a quick example.

That covers all of my tutorials on vertex manipulation. Just remember what you can and cant do with certain brushes and you should be fine with the tool. I hope that I have given you some inspirations and ideas of what you can add to yr maps.

A good tutorial for uphill s-bends for more vertex manipulation practise, is located at the following site:
http://maps.hlrally.net/index.php?page=tut_uphillcorners 
Be sure to check it out, and good luck :) 

The GOD.

Comments?