[TUTORIAL] Crunk Rally / Race Course Mapping

[msleeper]

Race Course Mapping Tutorial

-Open Photoshop, PSP, paint, whatever. Draw out an outline for your map. This is a good idea so you can look back at it when designing it and not forget any major curves or turns.



-Start up Hammer. Start out by making the straight portions of your map with the block tool. The track should be 512 units wide, which will comfortably fit 2 buggys side-by-side.



-Lets start with the first curve. The best an easiest way to make the turns in a map is with the arch tool. Draw the bounding box how big you want the turn to be (in this case, 2048x2048) and press enter to bring up the Arch Properties dialog. Fill out the box to match the image. Depending on the size and "sharpness" of the turn, use different numbers of sides. In this case, we are using 8 since it is a fairly big curve.



-Make the next curve. This curve is going to be tighter and smaller, so adjust your number of faces.



-The next turn is where things start to get tricky. You will probably have to adjust the straightaways when making your track, by either lengthining them or moving them altogether.

Copy or make another 90 degree curve like the previous one, and line it up to the end of the straightaway.



-Copy that turn to where the next curve will be and rotate it appropriately. In this case, rotate it -45 degrees on the Z axis.



-Turn on "Solids" selection and delete the last two brushes of the third curve, and the first and last brushes of the fourth curve. Select the straightaway and turn on vertex editing.



-Vertex edit the straightaway so that it lines up with the edges of the arch brushes. You may have to get really close in on a small grid (4, sometimes 2), but it should line up easily on the grid.

Sometimes on odd angles or more complex tracks, the arch brushes will have to be vertex edited slightly. Try to keep them as close to their original position as possible.




-Making the final turn is similar to the last two curves. Make a 180 degree turn (either with the arch tool, or by copying the very first turn) and put it even with the long straightaway. The other end of the curve will probably not line up with the other part of the track.



-Select the upper portion of the track so that one of the last segments of the final turn comes close to lining up with the adjacent straightaway.



-Delete the excess arch brushes so that the arch and the straightaway come close to matching up. Vertex edit them together like before.



Your track is complete. Throw a sky box around it, place a player start and a buggy, and have fun.



You can view the massive Crunk Rally thread here for more info:
http://www.flamehaus.com/bbs/buggy-spinners-vt73572.html

[pyro5hit9rind]

omg i want to help somehow..
i cna model an escalade.. but someones gotta rig it

[msleeper]

Quote:

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pyro5hit9rind opened his big mouth to say:
omg i want to help somehow..
i cna model an escalade.. but someones gotta rig it

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EDIT: Scratch that, the guy doing the escalade said he didn't like doing it. Go ahead, it's yours.

[Senji]

Nice tutorial!

[Privo]

This is great if you want a flat piece of ground that goes around a few corners.

Try making a huge displacement, "painting" the road on the overlay, then slightly lowering it down to result in banked corners, dips, and ramps. Top if all off with a couple of concrete barrier walls, or corner pylons, and you have a much better, more complex, and more realistic track.

[msleeper]

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Privo opened his big mouth to say:
This is great if you want a flat piece of ground that goes around a few corners.

Try making a huge displacement, "painting" the road on the overlay, then slightly lowering it down to result in banked corners, dips, and ramps. Top if all off with a couple of concrete barrier walls, or corner pylons, and you have a much better, more complex, and more realistic track.

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Or you can not be a pussy and clip your brushes to create more complex structures.

[Privo]

It's still a flat piece of road.

[msleeper]

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Privo opened his big mouth to say:
It's still a flat piece of road.

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Not if you clip it correctly. You can make it slanted and/or hilly.

Not to mention that you will never, ever get a flat piece of displacement.

[FisHyBulBy]

As for textures, does it matter if all the maps have the same textures? Or is any fine?

And for guardrails, i can't find the texture that half life 2 used, unless it was a model which i doubt.

[Raminator]

Try metal/metalrail006a or metal/metalrail006b.

Oh, and you can only use Flash signatures if you're a premium member.

[msleeper]

We will be getting some custom guard rail textures, and we might even go for models instead (because the brush ones are kinda gay). But Ram posted the right textures.

[karl101]

this is the first time I've opened hammer in 4 months, you should be flattered.

[Ein Stein]

Have you got vehicles working?

[FisHyBulBy]

On the figure 8, i was going to have the track go up over the other road where they meet, but lumbergh told me to make it flat so you will crash in the middle. I did that, but you could so easily cheat because once you get in the middle you could just cut half the track. Could you stop people from doing that any way?

[msleeper]

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karl101 opened his big mouth to say:
this is the first time I've opened hammer in 4 months, you should be flattered.

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Much love. You should start coming back around buddy.

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Ein Stein opened his big mouth to say:
Have you got vehicles working?

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We are still looking for a programmer, sadly. If you know anyone who might be interested, please let me know.

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FisHyBulBy opened his big mouth to say:
Could you stop people from doing that any way?

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Yeah, don't do that. Make it go up and over, and tell lumbergh to get bent.