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Memfis

Making symmetrical areas

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When making heavily symmetrical areas, do you like draw one half and then flip and copy-paste it to get the full area or do you draw everything by hand? The former sounds more reasonable and efficient but drawing just half of the area without seeing the entire picture is hard maybe and also you can get lots of broken linedef references and stuff after copy-pasting, but maybe I just don't know how to do that correctly.

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I think this is what I do:

- draw outline of entire room
- draw rough room detailing (eg. place a 64x64 square where pillars will go, etc)
- adjust detailing position / overall room size
- completely detail half of the room (or fourth, or eighth, or whatever type of symmetry)
- delete other half, replace with flipped copy-paste of the completed portion

I don't tag anything until structures are completed, and using db2 I've never had any issues with linedef references getting fubard.

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I don't copy-paste. I draw everything by hand. If the result is symmetrical, it just goes naturally.

But I am a very inefficient mapper, you should know. I sometimes spend hours meddling with geometry of just one area until I'm satisfied with it, and even simple maps usually take me 20+ hours, so I'm not a good example to learn from.

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I tend to start with a square-ish room, then add stuff one step at a time on one half, then once I'm happy with the result I delete the other half of the room and copypaste the first half. Rinse and repeat about a dozen times.

Like you say, I find it hard to get an idea of the entire room without that, so I frequently copypaste stuff if only to get a look for a moment. Sometimes it ends up being deleted ten seconds later.

Plus, you can't very well playtest half a room. Getting everything right on the first go is way beyond my abilities.

I don't have trouble copypasting even gigantic rooms in DB2, but it did take a while to get used to. It can be helpful to use dummy linedefs for clean, error-proof boundaries, and dummy vertices for easy snapping.

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Draw by hand and relish the little inconsistencies that happen.
Many times I go in and adjust things a little to work in the inconsistency as a part of natural construction.
It looks symmetrical at first glance, but the longer you look the more differences can be found.
If there is a passage to the right, don't have to put a matching one on the right. Could adjust things on the left so it is similar but not a passage.

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wesleyjohnson said:

Draw by hand and relish the little inconsistencies that happen.
Many times I go in and adjust things a little to work in the inconsistency as a part of natural construction.
It looks symmetrical at first glance, but the longer you look the more differences can be found.


This is how I do it and personally I find the results to be great. Some maps can have you experienceing false de ja vu, because the area feels similar, but you know you haven't been there yet.

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Unless it's for repeating elements, like complicated wall-sconces, or identical prison cells, etc, I draw everything by hand.

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Copy and pasting is great when it works the way you want it to. However, I usually avoid doing it, because I end up creating more work for myself in the long run when it mess up.

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I never seem to get copy paste to do anything useful. Draw by hand usually. If you can make one half of it, repeating the pattern is usually pretty easy.

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