After a year with no updates at all, I decided to redo Twister completely from scratch. Now it's smaller, faster, and better!

Better how?

• Spherical displacements! (because I could!)
• Brushwork displacements! (so you can make them into entities!)
• Goldsource displacements! (that's right!)

Note that you can't make spheres in brushwork or goldsource modes.

Download here! Don't use the autoupdate feature in previous versions, as a bug will make it download the wrong thing. Get it here.

Comments please! Read the bold below.

There will never be a "3D preview" or any kind of other preview in Twister. Ever. The 2D preview in the last version was dumb and pointless. If you want to preview something generated in Twister, download Nem's Crafty, which is a BSP, VMF, MAP, etc viewer. It shows the textured displacement (or brushwork) in 3D.

Next up on the to-do list is: import a displacement .VMF file and convert it to brushwork or goldsource!

Concentrate on that 3D preview for the next ver.

Shutup >:(

DO EET.

Awesome though, Twister is sure to become one of my regular proggies, right up there with VTFEdit.

Very nice. Beter get that Projects feature for TWHL finished.

How about some more grafix?
The about window still has "(C) Penguinboy - July 5th, 2007". Should'nt it be 2008?

oops. I'll fix it next release. Not like it's important

Goldsource, you say? You just made an awesome tool alot more awesome!

Yah! Goldsource!!

If you want i could make a small help file for those people who don't understand it?

EDIT: Bug Reports...

1) When i try to generate a map an load it i get an error: Texture axis perpendicular to face. But anyway its "fixable"

2) its just actually a complaint. Why are spheres only for source?

Perhaps a setting to make the backsides null or bevel, and the top aaatrigger for easier replacement?

I'm going to see I can make something nice with it. It's by far one of the best generators I've experienced. It's easy and it uses the tetra method, which makes it better. Everything has been done right!

okay, i'll put null onto the bottoms of the brushes.

HLG: i'll look into texture alignment later. spheres are only for source because of the way that they are done, it is incompatible with brushwork methods. if you want a sphere you can combine two domes.

first version i tried;

first version i fell in love with.

fantastic.

That heightmap thing.. Fucking amazing.
I'm seriously considering using this for terrain in a certain map I've been working on for a very long time. ;o

I was going to make a pure organic map using the Tetra-Terrain method, but got irritated with try to mold it on a grand scale. This speeds things up alot, and I'm considering to continue that idea.

Oh yeah, if anyone makes anything good, provide an example for that tutorial. It needs some awesome examples, at least some much more polished product screenshot.

Here's a new screenshot of features to come:The random heightmap does exactly what it says: generates a random heightmap image based on the variables in the boxes.

The stats box will have information on brush and side counts for goldsource and brushwork mode, and stuff like triangle width and some other junk.

The convert tab on the bottom left will let you import a VMF file and convert every displacement in it to brushwork, and then save as a new file.

Soon you will also be able to embed your generated displacement directly into a VMF, so you don't even have to open the new map and copy/paste into the map you are working on.

Its just so cool....

How do you get Twister to generate a heightmap? There's probably a lot of code involved, right?

As a programmer like yourself, I'd love to see your code...

The algorythm itself shouldn't be too complicated. Code required to execute it may be a whole different story though..

You know, Muzz, .NET assemblies are decompilable back to what's basically the original source code, minus local variable names, comments, etc. Take a look at Reflector.

As for a height-mapping algo: http://nehe.gamedev.net/data/lessons/lesson.asp?lesson=34

Thanks, Caboose (Do you like train cars btw?.

Not that im going to make a heightmap application myself, i was just wondering how Peng did it.

3D preview plz.

I just realised - can someone using a language that uses commas instead of decimal points test twister?

Works great for me.

I'm experimenting with domes right now. (next i'm guna see how they "like" being VMed...)

They're error free and look pretty good, and one thing i've noticed is that tha domes are almost paper thin--which is pretty cool and hard to achieve in hammer--, which could be good or bad, depending on your application. Is there a way to make them thicker? Is that what the power button does or what does it do?

Anyway, cool stuff Penguinboy, and thanks for not forgetting us Goldsource gypsies. (might base a geometry compo using twister in the future, could be cool!)

)

Because Twister is primarily a displacement generator, it makes more sense when used that way. The power of the displacement is the number of triangles in the displacement.

Wow that's seriously pretty neat. I shall experiment a bit more. = )

Here's another dome; Nuthing too special but I still am awed by how easy and nice it works:

Cound you post a small instructions for the goldsource heightmaps? I dunno how to make them work but your heightmap images looked cool.

Thanks for creating another neat misc toy for me to play with, to suck yet more valuable time away from my responsibilities. = )

lol...yesterday i thought about that zelda-like-twisted-corridors...and now ... jeesus :/

Holy cow....This is really cool!

Tell me when the next version is avaible...

oh and won't the use of this add a lot to r_speeds ?

it sure will

capt: goldsource heightmaps work exactly the same, except the "displacement resolution" is the number of displacements on each side of the whole heightmap. so if you set the power to 3 (8 triangles) and the displacement resolution to 4, that's 8 x 4 = 32 triangles on each side. the width of each triangle would be the width you provided divided by 32.

Shutup >:(

hahaha

...

sooo, i guess since i've never tried it i should?

EDIT: exactly what is this program, and what does it do?

Lol!!
You're still tring to flog this program!!! While I will admit it's good for Source, I still think Gensurf is better because it has a shearing tool. This will attempt to save brushes by turning trianges on the same plane into one big triangle.

i hate gensurf D;

Why!?!?!

EDIT: and here we go:generated with this string:

200 * cos(((xval-(res/2))/3)*((yval-(res/2))/3))

here's another:

400*cos(((xval-(res/2))/2)) * sin(((yval-(res/2))/2))

and finally the one from the gensurf website (modified):

5000-(radius/16+256*sin(radius/256))

i just looked at gensurf and because it is incompatible with newer versions of Excel so the formula function doesn't work, it seems pretty useless. besides, Twister's purpose is different to gensurf's, except for heightmaps.

so now i'm going to try to put an excel formula parser in Twister that doesn't depend on excel. go me.

Go pengu i can't wait

Messing with goniometry is fun:P Love doing that.

BTW, looks pretty damn sexy! I would hate to make those shapes by hand.

lol, i've done it and its boring as hell!!! I kinda had no willpower to actually finish the map it was for!!!

#EDIT# Allright, for discrimation purposes i will try your twisty program

mmm...twisties...yum...actually i'll try in a little while

An update to Twister has been released. If you already have Twister, just run it and the auto-updater will take care of everything. If not, the download link is on the first post of this thread.

Additions:
Statistics box: Pretty self explanatory.

Random Heightmaps: You can tweak the settings to change a few of the options of the heightmap. The default values are pretty good for a nice smooth heightmap.
Frequency controls the number of high areas in the heightmap.
Persistance controls how "smooth" the hills are.
Octaves represent how sharp the image is.
Amplitude is how quick parts of the image go from black to white.
Coverage changes the ratio of white to black areas.
Density changes the distance between high areas in the heightmap.

Convert to brushwork: Here you can import a Hammer VMF with displacements and convert them into brushwork for exporting to brushwork VMF or to goldsource MAP. Note that entity data is not yet converted. Visgroups aren't either, but all brushwork is.

Formula generation: You can put in any mathematical formula and twister will generate a displacement based on it. You can use variables as described on the right panel of the formula tab.
Valid formulas use -,+,/,*,^,!, as well as sin(),cos(),sqrt(), and some other regular maths functions. Some examples are provided above.
Be careful of divide by zero errors or trying to take the sqrt of a negative. These will stop your displacement from being generated. (remember that radius is 0 at some point, if you want to divide by radius you can use the hidden variable "nzradius" which will equal 1 when radius equals zero. "nz" stands for "no zero" :P)

I hope you enjoy the new toys in the update, and I would really like some more feedback after you've played with it a bit. I've implemented some suggested changes like the statistics box, and putting NODRAW (or NULL) on the underside of brushwork.

regedit

Aww....:( i don't know/undersand these formulas...bad for me...

All right, i tested it and while l liked the creation of the complex shapes, ie slopes and hollow spheres, i didn't like it for creating displacements for both engines. I will keep it though if i want any tricky shapes but ill still use gensurf.

i didn't like it for creating displacements for both engines

...Huh?

Dang nab it Penguin!! You know what I mean, creating terrain for HL2 and HL1...why cant we just call them displacement terrains for both, huh? Otherwise what do i call it when i make a terrain for HL1???

Penguinboy: Hey,can you make a tutorial about twister. Especially for the formula thingy? I dont quite get it.

so what, you don't like the fact that it can make terrain for more than one engine? why not? that's like hating an ice cream store because they sell both chocolate and vanilla, even though you don't eat vanilla.

HLgenius, i wrote a tutorial on how to use the formula thing above. it's not my fault if you can't understand the maths behind it.

its alright. i'll eventually figure it out. maybe i just need some further information

You just need to finish 5th grade.

An update to Twister has been released. What changed? 3D preview!

Okay, so I know that I said that Twister wouldn't get a 3D preview, but I changed my mind. Just start Twister and the autoupdater will do its thing.

After you have the new version, you can click the preview button. The first time you try, it'll ask you to install the CSGL library, which is an interface that lets C# use OpenGL. It's only 20kb (the text that says that it's 400kb is wrong). Twister will restart, then you can preview for real.

Controls are the same as Crafty: Right click to mouse look, WASD to move. Press R to reset the camera.

Here is a screen of the preview:NOTE: This has only been tested on windows XP, so Vista users please report if it works or not.

I give this update my tick of approval! I was the 'beta' tester and the new features rock. Solid program, so damn useful.

renders & works perfectly in 32bit vista.