Sledge (Hammer Alternative) Alpha Build Created 11 years ago2013-07-27 02:24:39 UTC by Penguinboy

New thought.

Smart carving, shape carving?Nyuh?

I'd say go one step further and have an extrude option.
Creates a new brush given L and W of that area. BAM!
One step closer to 3DS Max

It would just cut out a shape in the brush, whatever happens from there could be anything.

TRUE!

I always like drawing geometry. I do it a lot in 3ds max and I would love to see it in a mapping sense for HL. I guess that's what makes the Spark editor so appealing is that its just so free-form. I guess I want to see mapping become even more convenient, in turn be more fun.

I don't know what the new Hammer really has because it just doesn't run too well on my lappy craptop.

I noticed a moment ago that 3ds max's power relies on all of the extras it has accumulated over a long period of time. 80 percent of the program is comprised of its Max Scripts that people have made for the program. If sledge could be scripted in such a way, we all could feasibly help its development rather than simply keep mentioning things we would like to see. Make a community effort of it.

I think I've read every single page of this thread. This program is amazing and the support you give it PG is insane.
I don't really have any suggestions right now, all you other people already got that covered. Someone mentioned Propper and twister addition which would be very handy if it was implemented.

Anyway, since I only really map for Source this isn't really for me right now, but when you are going to add support for Source I will want to help you as much as I can. (Even though it looks like you wont need it) With vmt and version 7.4 and 7.5 of vtf...

Anyway, keep up the good work! I'll be sure to lurk this thread everyday from now.

Thanks Mange for your comments and everyone else for the suggestions and discussion. Source support is still a while away, but it'll get there eventually!

I've been working on a really large change (I'm not even sure if it'll even work yet or not) to get support for Linux and Mac operating systems, plus support for multiple language translations. Sorry for the lack of updates/fixes, this is a massive and difficult change and I've still got a long way to go before it is usable.

suggestion: when using the Entity Report box, it would be great if you can select multiple entities (for easy deletion purposes) and even highlight them all if you hit "go to".

What would happen if you hit "go to" when multiple entities are selected? Just go to the first one in the list?

yeah i mean that could be a possibility, or just automatically move the grid to the size of the bounding box created by selecting all the entities. the more i think about it the more useless that would be haha. however, being able to select multiple entities in that Entity Report box would be very helpful in and of itself

also it would be handy to be able click on the grid/3D views when the check for problems box is up so that you can quickly edit/fix things and go to the next one without having to close the box, then fix whatever, and then open it back up (just to save time)

^ I've suggested this too COOBORKY

Just make it behave like normal Hammer PB, it's useful to select mutliple entries to delete or change the class en masse. I use it all the time

oh heh my bad, but yeah it would be helpful. also, is there any way to make sledge not be so sluggish when a lot of wads are being used? i use a good number (granted maybe more than i should) and it takes a good...4-5 seconds to open the texture browser sometimes.

EDIT: what else might be kinda nifty is a shortcut to rotate a texture 90 degrees when it's highlighted

Hey, have any efforts been made to fix carving so it's not... well, like carving? I was working on this a while ago but then uni came up and I never ended up submitting it. Came across Sledge today again after a while, so I'm wondering if there's still a need for it.

Wouldn't be surprised if PB had ended up implementing seamless carving with spheres and stuff in the meantime.

Penguinboy needs more staff I think

I've never really messed with carve too much, but the Devs must have added it--like the rest of the tools--for a good reason.. Maybe I will try playing with it.

PB has fixed A LOT of stuff, it very well may be working now.

Carve is still exactly the same as Hammer, so there's probably work to be done in that space. I'm in the middle of rewriting the UI right now, so I'm not working on that stuff for the time being.

I've had a couple of suggestions in relation to an improved carve method, but I haven't had the time to investigate if they are actually better or not.

Are all of those suggestions up on GitHub Issues?

No, they're just sort of rough concepts that I've thought about a little bit, but not tested to see how viable they are. I haven't written any down before, but here's a few options:

For example, say you wanted to carve a hexagon into a rectangle:The default carve behaviour will start at one of the faces of the hexagon and simply iterate all faces in a dumb way. This usually means the carve will rotate around the solids:One idea to improve this is to be smarter about picking the next face to carve - the one with the greatest angle between plane normals should produce a larger "chunk" per carve (I call this the "alternate" method, because it tends to alternate between sides):A second idea is to draw "lines" from the corners of the carving solid to the corners of the carved solid. This would form a more pleasing "bevelled" type look to the carve result and might end up easier to manage. There are quite a few gotchas in this implementation, though. Some corners would need multiple "lines", depending on the positioning of the corners, and a naive implementation creates more objects than the classical method. It also might not work so well when the carved object doesn't completely contain the carver, though it's probably possible to code that in. (I call this the "corners" method)Another idea is to first carve the bounding box of the object (keeping the result), and then do the full carve on that resulting object. This minimises the length of non-straight lines in the result, but potentially creates more brushes in the result. (I call this the "bounding" method)Again, I'm not entirely sure how great these ideas are (especially the "corners" one), and there are probably other (better) methods that I haven't thought of. These different methods can probably be combined to improve the results further (e.g. the "bounding" method and the "alternate" method can probably be combined quite easily).

Edit: corners might work if both bounding boxes are intersected and carved before the method is applied:First the two bounding boxes are intersected:Then both objects are carved by the intersecting bounding box using the "bounding" method. After that, the result of that carve then has the "corners" method applied:I dunno, it might work. "Corners" seems like it would produce the most desirable result in most cases, but it also feels like it won't work (producing invalid solids) in some situations, or that it might be the most difficult one to implement.

Pretty neat stuff! Again, I'm fascinated how you would code these things and how you are able to make changes so quickly. (I really want to learn to code, but I think I lack the patience)

My simple brain likes "corners" and "bounding" methods, because that seems how most users would do it

Except that when you carve a square shape, the result will be weird.

Yeah, that bounding method was what I had in mind some time ago, if you recall. I ended up trying to implement it (actually it was a mixture of the "bounding" and "corners" methods), but I remember it not working too well when the "carver" brush was entirely inside of the "carvee" on all three axes; the algorithm needed polishing. The code should still be in a local commit on my PC back home.

PB, Sledge will not let me clip this object laterally:Trempler's basemap

Also a small thing, I think this dropdown list should be in alphabetical order, and the default brush entity set to func_detail.

One more small thing, I wish To Enity did not result in the window popping up, or make it a toggle. (I realize this is the standard behavior from Hammer)

Last but not least, there is still considerable VM lag with semi-complex objects.

There's a setting in General > Interaction called "Open object properties when creating an entity" - you can turn it off. What's the error when you try to clip that object? Did "check for problems" say that anything was invalid before you clipped it?

Ok thanks! As for the clip, there is no error, it simply won't allow me to draw the clip line.

^

This happens to me sometimes too CapT. It probably means that Sledge (for some strange reason) don't know how to cut a specific series of brushes at once AND make every vertex snapped to the grid at the same time. So it just bypasses the process by not even trying to draw the cutting line (not sure though.)

@PB: Does Sledge already snaps the new created vertices to the grid when using the Clipping Tool, or you still have to implement this feature?

Oooh that sounds like a good improvement Alberto, though I don't think it's been implemented yet

BTW Thanks PB for adding that option to turn off 3D doubleclicking(also under interaction) . I like touching my brushes when roaming through 3D, and it's annoying when Object Properties keeps popping up..

I also like that you added the option to open Texture Properties when doubleclicking, though it's currently mislabeled in the dropdown:

I like touching my brushes

You perv.

^

You mischievous. You're the perv here SugarMan.

Ha!

Anyway, is there a way to have functional CLIPS in the 3d view? For instance: if you try to go through a brush, you get blocked by it like in-game.
Basically, I would like to see something like Mapster32 (Build Engine/EDuke32 level editor), where you can "play" your map in the editor, with minimal stuff like a jump function and real player height with map clips determined by the actual created brushes in the editor (without counting if they are brush entities or if they have been set as "Passable", etc...) I don't know if this is doable by the way, I'm just throwing some ideas for neophytes, experienced and professional level designers that will use Sledge.

Opinions time folks!

Not being able to clip some objects is becoming a dealbreaker for me in Sledge, anyone know a workaround to clip an object when it won't let you draw the clip line?

Here is an example map of 2 objects that Sledge won't let me clip

Try saving your map as RMF, and then close it and re-open the RMF. Something is weird with that VMF, but I'm not sure what the problem is yet.

That fixed it PB, thanks

I stupidly imported/converted my HLDM template from CSGO, probably that is causing the problem?

Here's an idea, will you be able to have something similar to an integrated Twitser?

Here's an idea, will you be able to have something similar to an integrated Twitser?

I've suggested that some time ago, I don't remember the answer though lol.
Even for Atom's Compilator 3 in Sledge.

Noticed an odd little quirk as I was doing a thing.While panning the view around the numbers sometimes flickered to other values. They're both the exact same selection in the above picture.

I might have reported that a while ago. If I haven't... I think it happened to me too. Once upon a time.

I admit I didn't bother seeing if anyone else had reported it, but I didn't remember it being mentioned. Better safe than sorry.

I've had that problem more than once, Jessie. But I totally forgot to report it lol.

It looks like a common issue, we're 3 now. Anyone else?

I know this doesn't have to do so much about Sledge but the latest CS:GO update makes it impossible to start Hammer for CS:GO.

I wish there was an alternative...

.>

<.<

<3

Well, you can create all your brushwork in Sledge and save as VMF, and den open your map up in CSGO SDK when u get it working.

PB: Any word on GS displacements?

Sledge doesn't support displacements yet, but until then you can create your displacement in Hammer 4 and use Twister to turn the VMF into geometry.

Good to know! Also, I forgot about Twister! I will definitely be checking it out for my next GS map

QuickHide Bug
If I Quickhide an object or group, Ctrl+S and then reload map, whatever I had hidden disappears from the VMF! Saving as RMF and reloading makes the objects visible again, so this like the clip error are inherent of the VMF format; I'll use RMF format instead for now to avoid these problems.

Edit

Just tested, and Visgroups also seem to work perfectly using RMF, which means half the errors I have been sending you only occur because I've been saving my maps as VMF format?

Object Properties window note
It would be nice if Sledge remembered where your last object properties was opened. Same goes for the check for problems window, compile dialog, etc. apologies if I missed the option for this

Func_button delay before reset note
I can only set whole numbers for the delay time?

Spraypaint Mode Suggestion
Holding down right click in Texture Properties would enter spraypaint mode, i.e., your current texture would apply to any face your pointer hovers over.

lower your open gl settings and restart?

I love in Sledge you can isolate WADs by selecting them in the texture browser, which makes managing tons of WADs easy. Also since I started using RMF over VMF, I have no major bugs whatsoever

Thanks again for this project PB.. Any updates forthcoming?

Craziest request yet:

Spline brush tool. A primitive-style brush tool which - rather than drawing a bounding box - allows you to draw a spline of points, define properties like width and instantly create a shape made of several legal brushes.
Example:Figure that one out, you sexy, sexy penguin.

That's not really all that crazy or complicated

@CapT: Still rewriting everything, it will be a while before there's an update.

Oh that'd be nice for supports and roads and quick hallways!

I loosely mentioned spline drafting on the 13th February 2014 at 07:28, page 11. In fact I've mentioned a lot of things. Possibly spline tools more than once.

No matter, not like I map anymore.

Rim, please make more maps. You're 1/2 of the reason i stuck around this site. The stuff you can do with the goldsource engine is a-fucking-mazing.

Altough. SMJ is awesome as well.
So.....
Yeah. Make a map lolz

As soon as you get good at something it loses it's magic...

Rim, you could easily have top maps on the workshop if you had the drive to make some new CSGO maps. Also on the workshop you have a chance to make real money if your maps makes an operation

What's the other reason?

No mapping still has a lot of magic, it's the fact that I just have other work to do. Though making money on maps through the workshop sounds like something EVERYONE would do... What are the chances of anyone actually making a good amount of it?