This thread has probably existed time and time again, but pthhh that's probably all outdated by now... right?

I really wanna beef up my BSP modeling after I release TD:PL so I was wondering if people could point me in the direction of an advance BSP modeling tutorial. The most I can seem to find on youtube is "use height maps" and a lot on halomaps are "make a box and move this poly there"

Ground, Structure Covy/UNSC/Forerunner, Cliffs, Ect. I'll take them all!

I learned without tutorials, sloppy warning:

Graphing calculators and the QuadReg function help when making arches:
--even when your highest point is off-center
--

Boolean helps if you want convex arches:
--Though I still had to rely on the rotate and transform tools
--
--WAIVER: You still have to delete the trace and check the triangulation to see if there are any rogue vertices
--

Texturing a curved surface(pathway-like):
--You could make a plane and insert vertexes where needed(and create edges if you care about triangulation) and texture that. Then delete the curved piece that you wanted to texture, and target weld this piece in its place.
--Or simply start with the plane, and then curve that if you have no ground in the first place to weld to
--

Sometimes the best way to texture a round surface is to texture just one slice:
--And then copy and rotate it until complete
--
--or just copy it instead of texturing every slice
--

Respect the Turn tool:
--It helps you find wasted vertices
--It also helps you find degenerate triangles
--
--It is great for fixing triangulation as well: Just click them rogue dotted-lines with the Turn tool!
--WARNING, Turn tool doesn't fix wasted vertices, use target-weld for v those v
--



Yes, I'm also in need of better tuts, I could prolly make one though
Edited by OrangeJuice on Jul 16, 2013 at 12:06 AM
Edited by OrangeJuice on Jul 16, 2013 at 12:13 AM
Edited by OrangeJuice on Jul 16, 2013 at 12:15 AM
STOP DELETING MY PICS, ImageShack! HALF OF THOSE AREN'T SAVED ANYMORE D':
Edited by OrangeJuice on Jul 16, 2013 at 05:18 PM

The absolute best tuts have been, and always will be practice. It's easy to model something, it's a whole other story to model for Single Player or Multiplayer. This takes into account things like layout, ramp angles, size of enclosures things like that.

What I think would be cool is if someone made some tutorials in succession of difficulty. I like the original halo map tutorial but it throws everything at you almost all at once. (Never did learn how to texture properly...) Often, if you work with a group, what you'll do is a small portion and then someone will do the next, etc. One models, textures, animates. But lately it would seem, however, mapping teams have gotten much smaller.

Until you end up reaching the point where you don't know how to do a certain thing like cutting out wall panels, making lots pipes that don't screw up lightmaps, portaling, adding more than 1 sky to a BSP without switching BSPs etc...
If nothing appears, I may just take up tutMaking. It helps now that I have no more fears of explaining things to people

A website maybe>? I could do that! I have a domain that I simply don't visit or edit anymore(in years!) I could wipe it clean and put up tuts there
Edited by OrangeJuice on Jul 16, 2013 at 12:40 AM

A few tutorials I've made in the past on modeling. One is environmental, the other a quick rough like we use to do in Lumoria's early planning stages of an encounter:

http://vimeo.com/11781231

http://vimeo.com/12915248

You should also check out the polycount wiki, which I have even been using latley, which gives a massive list of plenty of tutorials on any subject you could think of, from small props to animation and skydomes.

http://wiki.polycount.com/

Other than that like others said you just need to keep practicing and learning. Theres no better tool than that and coming up with you're own workflows that work. That being said, however, there are plenty of tutorials like the ones linked above that can speed you up to date and make your work even better. Talk to me on xfire or skype later, I can help you out more then.

At least you don't try to use "the roleplay experience" as an excuse not to texture properly