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The Little Things
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This
is just a list of those little tips and tricks that can
help you to work with Worldcraft a little faster, and a
little smarter. You may have discovered many of these
things on your own as you've gone through the tutorial.
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The
Texture Browser
No mysteries here, just more useful features.
Filter: Type in a word, such as
"floor", and the browser will only display
textures with floor in their name.
Mark, will cause all the brushes or faces in
your map with the selected texture to be selected
(highlighted).
Replace, will
allow you to replace any instances of a particular
texture in your map with another texture. Replace opens
with the current texture displayed. You can also select
any portion of your map, and choose to replace only the
textures within the selected area. Excellent for making CTF maps and re-texturing
the opposite base.
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Toggle
Texture Lock
! Texture Lock doesn't work on brushes that
are being rotated.
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Texture
Lock
This will allow you to move existing objects around
the level without losing their texture alignment.
For best results, keep texture lock off until you
need to move parts of your map that have aligned textures
on them. This way textures on adjoining surfaces will automatically line up
while you are moving and resizing them as you create
rooms.
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Toggle Select by Handles only
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Selection
Handles
Every brush in your map has an "x" at it's
center, that x is called the "handle" the handle
can be used to select that brush.
When you toggle select by handles only you will
only be able to select brushes only by their handles, as
opposed to by their handles and their edges. This is
sometimes necessary when you have many brushes close
together and it's not easy to get ahold of one particular brush.
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Clip
Brushes
Now these are something that every truly
"finished" map should have. Clip brushes are
just invisible walls, except that you can shoot through
them. They are used to smooth all the "sticky"
spots in your map, and are important for single player,
and even more so for multiplayer maps. When you have
little lights sticking out where the player can get stuck
on them, or ribs in a hallway, adding clip
brushes is always a great idea. They will make the
playing experience a lot more enjoyable. After you have
completed your level, you should do testing, and put in
clip brushes anywhere players get stuck.All you have to do is make a brush, and give the
it the "clip" texture, it will become invisible in your map, but
players cannot pass through it.
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Paste
Special
Now this is a nifty little feature you should
try out. Paste Special can paste multiple copies of a
particular object at regularly spaced intervals. You
won't find Paste Special on the right-click menu, only at
[Edit => Paste Special]. Super handy for stairs,
beams, lights, and more. Make a new map and spend a
moment playing around with this. Be careful with multiple
rotations, I've have had some bsp errors pop up using
that.
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Quick Copying Items
I just found this little gem by mistake. Select any
object, then hold [shift] while click-dragging it. A copy
of the object will be created in the spot you drag to.
Super fast for lights and stuff. Alt-dragging
Holding [Alt] while dragging items will
temporarily disable "snap to grid". Another
fantastic time saver.
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Back Clipping Plane
Back Clipping Plane controls how far in the
distance the 3D view will draw. Big maps can make the 3D
window crawl, and if you're too lazy to use VisGroups to
speed things up, then you can go to [Tools => Options]
on the [3D views tab] you'll see a slider labeled
"back plane clipping", if you reduce the number
to say 2000, you will get a speed-up because Worldcraft
isn't having to draw your whole map. The best course is
to use both Back clipping plane, and VisGroups. |
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