I know that portals are used for rendering and for fog and environment sounds, so they are very important. But I find the HEK tutorial doesn't explain them as well as I would like. Does anyone know any tutorials on creating portals, exact portals, and fog planes in a level or can tell me themselves?

Update: OK, i can create portals in 3ds max easily now, but i still have problems. Tool has a lot of problems. it says stuff about portals out of the bsp and portals that don't divide any areas. All I did was basically make a 10 by 10 honeycomb of rectangular planes and capped it off at the top and bottom, attached them into a single object, welded everything, and made sure all the lanes that were going the same way had normals facing the same way, like the tutorial said. I did use editable poly's "bridge" tool a bit, which created some 2 sided polys (actually faces together with opposite normals), but I'm pretty sure i deleted them all and fixed all the errors. i could be wrong. But sapien shows everything as one big misshapen portal thing. And what does the tutorial mean by "Vertices and the associated edges and faces were aligned along major edge boundaries in the level."? I'm not sure if I did that part right. I moved some things around so the portals were mainly in the cliffs that divided up the level.


Oh, and is there any fire and plasma fire scenery? Or dead bodies scenery other then the elite corps?


Please help me if you know how to make portals!!!!!!!
Edited by Vick Jr on Aug 15, 2008 at 03:04 PM

For portals, ive never done the terrain but I always portal doorways and such. to do this creat a poly the cover's the door entrance and make a material call it +exactportal ( I think )
and apply it to the door way. if theres two entrances to the interior you must close both or it will not work.

So, combined with the map geometry, portals must form a closed area. Should the +exactportal plane form an exact match with the door geometry, or just intersect and close it off? I know that things like water can form portals just by intersecting and forming a closed area with the geometry under the water, and the water, or am I mistaken?
Thanks!

If you +portalled a doorway, you'd need a vert in the middle, and the outer verts scaled out beyond a little. Each edge should bisect the bsp no more than once.

The exact portals must be the exact size and shape of the doorway/window or whatever they are sealing. The easiest way to do it is use the create polygon tool to create a face covering the door, then detaching that face as a separate object. Make sure the portal's normals are always facing each other to define each volume. That is, it's going to be a one sided plane, the portal. You would want the sides where you can see the plane all facing say inside the building, while the part you can see through is pointing outward.
Edited by rentafence on Aug 13, 2008 at 03:24 PM
Edited by rentafence on Aug 13, 2008 at 03:24 PM

When I go to "create" in editable poly or editable mesh useing polygon selection mode, I can only create new polygons by connecting vertecese on open edges. How do I allow the use of verts that are in my doorway for creating polygons?

So let me get this strait, exactportlas must match up with the level geometry and create closed volumes with all the normals facing the same way (in or out). Regular portals just intersect the level geometry and can have extra faces that form no closed volumes like in the example tutorial, if I remember.

Now when I create a water material, i should name it something like "water!&", and then it can intersect the level geometry and the closed volumes it formed can be used for water fog? i tried that and it didn't work.

You'd think there'd be some tuts dealing with portals specifically.

First off, you're correct with the part about exact portals. Secondly, I'm not too sure I understand your problem with creating new faces. It should be as easy as clicking the verticies you want to form the new face. For the issue with water, it should be that simple. I know you have to do additional things to the fog plane in Sapien to get it to work correctly, but I'm not sure what. There should be a tutorial for fog planes somewhere on the site.
Edited by rentafence on Aug 13, 2008 at 04:03 PM

I go into editable poly, and under "selection",I select "polygon". I can now select polygons in the map. Normally, if I ,say, delete one of these polygons leaving a gap or hole, i can remake it by clicking"create" and clicking connecting the vertices that surround the hole. That requires that those vertexes register and I can use them to create polygons. But only vertices that are on open edges can be used to create polygons, for me at least. The other vertices, like the ones in the door, don't do anything. I put my cursor over them, and nothing happens. That little cross that let's you know that you're creating a polygon from that Vernice is not there. WTF? Does 3ds max have an option like "create geometry from closed edge vertices" or something?

Also, for water, it's good to have the surfaces under it have a material with "water" physics? Would it be possible to use a slice planeto slice at the same plane as thewater, cut everything off, and then have perfect polygons matching the water level? (Inwhichcase the water could then match exatly with the level geometry, if you want.) Then use a water pysics material on all tose polygons? if so, how do I use slice plane?
Edited by Vick Jr on Aug 13, 2008 at 04:42 PM

Ah, I see now. Select triangle instead. See if that works. Editable poly is weird like that. Try creating the new face with editable mesh instead. That, or you have some vertices's/faces overlapping and it's being weird. I tend to switch back and forth between editable poly and mesh just for mesh's create polygon mode. Just a pet peeve of mine.

Yep, it works! Thank you very much! I thik i can make portals now.

However, making them right is a different thing... any more help on exactly how to make portals?

I still don't get exactly get how they are placed in the level.

Edited by Vick Jr on Aug 14, 2008 at 07:30 PM
Edited by Vick Jr on Aug 15, 2008 at 03:06 PM

hi.

Hola, que pedo, que cuentas?

Yo si decía que te conocía, ¿te volviste mapper? que buen mapa el de antes amigo bien por eso

Pues hago el intento, trato de esforzarme pero ya ves como es la respuesta que a veces te dan

Acá todos son así, como si hicieran algo mejor, pero no te preocupes muchacho lo haces muy bien.

No te habias muerto?

Morir de que?



Wut? Obsession? of what?

IDC. If you speak any other language than these you are pretty much a Mexican. - .

Tosk
French
Italian
German
Armenian
Russian
Slovene
Hungarian
Croatian
Azerbaijani
Belorussian
Dutch
Mayan
Serbian
Bosnian
Setswana
Chinese
Japanese
Blackanese
Mandarin
Czech
Danish
Estonian
Finnish
Icelandic
Arabic
Jewish
Latvian
Lithuanian
Tajik
Vietnamese
Thai
Uzbek
English
Edited by SS Flanker on Jul 19, 2015 at 07:02 AM

The world by Halomaps:




And


Edited by TheJohnlex2 on Jul 19, 2015 at 12:22 PM
Edited by TheJohnlex2 on Jul 19, 2015 at 12:22 PM

ROFL he spelt mexico wrong. How is that possible.

Because he isn't mexican or an english speaker. Why don't you go back to your basement and type about how much you love the concept of rape.

Basement. You know me so well don't you???

What's wrong with a rape btw? It's the best thing to happen to our geologically unstable planet since wind farms.
Edited by SS Flanker on Jul 19, 2015 at 12:43 PM

Dafuq is up with you guys honestly?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapeseed

He is colombian, learn the diference. Why is so much ignorance here? Besides he is right, you should learn more or Pau attention to geográfic or social classes

LMAO from now i love Meixcans

Do you always act like an ignorant manchild when you are called out are do you just live a pathetic life. You know perfectly well what I referred to.
Edited by General_101 on Jul 19, 2015 at 04:28 PM

Mmmmm Because no one cares ?

*or

And you got me on both.

"Look into my words, you'll see who I am, my name is flankerrr, please take my hand"