Mr.Math on 4/1/2016 at 22:10
Hi dromeders,
so I started my first attempt to create serious mission. I have never worked with dromed before, however watched/read a good portion of tutorials. I knew it was going to be slow process before I get the hang of it, because I worked with Quake engines before. However after 2 months of trying, it is really driving me crazy. One can get use to awkward camera manipulating, but how in-the-name-of-all-that-is-holy do you rotate/resize brushes without breaking your keyboard in half and throwing the mouse out of window? I just spent like 10 minutes to fit the wedge between other brushes and did not manage. And from what I read, the editor used to be much more buggy and problematic before Newdark. How so many great designs and large missions were possible with such a tool?
Also, is there some trick to make caves/rocky/mountains? I probably cannot get rid of Quake engine thinking (building, not carving), but mine looks terrible.
Thank you
R Soul on 4/1/2016 at 23:13
My preferred method is to click and drag from HBP or DWH letters till it's close to where I want it, then move it at bit in a 2d view so it snaps. Rotation snaps in large increments (22.5 degrees) so expect any finesse. In the 2d views you can hold Alt to rotate, or Ctrl to resize, but resizing takes the rotation into account, which I find awkward, so I don't do it very often.
Yandros on 4/1/2016 at 23:38
I mentally calculate and manually enter most of the dimension and coordinate values, as I find it the simplest way to get things where I want them and the size and orientation I want them. R Soul's tip on slightly dragging in a 2D view to snap to grid is also very useful, but you'll want to drop the grid size down to 12 or so, at least if you're working with smaller brushes.
Xorak on 5/1/2016 at 06:29
I also manually enter new digits when resizing things. I find once you get the hang of it, it's rather quick and easy. I don't think I've ever used Ctrl to resize a brush. I even tend not to use Alt to rotate things, as I don't like the Heading value to be something other than 0. Why make dromed have to calculate a heading of 90 degrees rather than 0 degrees? Not that it likely matters at this point anyways, and it can't be helped with wedges and such. For me personally when I started out, the wedges did take a lot of time to figure out how best to manipulate them, but it's gotten much easier with practice. I wouldn't mind seeing a screenshot of what you were doing with the wedge, to visually see what problem you were having with it.
For caverns, it's easiest to use the dodecahedrons and just throw in a whole bunch at different sizes and shapes so they make all sorts of interesting niches and holes. But you can also use things like 12 or 16-sided triangles to carve/add more interesting floors, ceilings or walls, or to add things like stalactites and such. 7, 9 or 11-sided cylinders can also look good, as can using wedges to make gashes in the walls and other details.
AntiMatter_16 on 12/1/2016 at 22:35
I've found the Shift, Alt, and Ctrl modifiers to be very useful when manipulating brushes. If you select a brush, hold shift, then click-drag, you can move a brush anywhere, depending on which 2D view you are clicking on, top, front or side. Doing the same with Alt allows you to rotate the brush similarly. And Ctrl allows you to resize the brush in the same way. Resizing and rotating can be a bit tricky because it isn't relational. Zooming in or out can be helpful to give you more or less movement/accuracy. And as Yandros mentioned, resizing the grid is a must.
Unna Oertdottir on 13/1/2016 at 09:19
You can use grid 11 or even grid 10 (if you're desperate; only for a couple of brushes). This will make grid snapping more accurate.
