Best ways to begin creating large outdoor sections?

On 10/30/2019 at 4:35 PM, phoo said:

is it common practice to just draw out a large working area first, raise the ceiling (to serve as the sky) really high and then working inside the perimeter of that space to make your map?

I don't know if it's common practice but it is a good way to ensure that you will have the full space to work inside without having those linedef issues, at the cost of having possibly lower performance due to more lines. If you're not making a vanilla compatible map I say go for it. You can always trim down the excess later. Making areas smaller is a ton easier than trying to expand them.

I'd only do this for large outdoor areas without any kind of overhangs or full height bordering walls.

5 minutes ago, Nevander said:

The one issue will be if you want free standing buildings outside too.

 

You probably don't want a crazy high building so you'll need to cleverly design it so you can lower the sky around the building to the desired height and not encounter the sky thing where it shows overlapping other walls.

 

To do this, check all angles that you can look at the building from, at all heights the player can reach without noclip. If the sky covers any other geometry, you'll have to figure out how to make it work on a case by case basis.

That's a good point. Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. :)

2 minutes ago, Nevander said:

I don't know if it's common practice but it is a good way to ensure that you will have the full space to work inside without having those linedef issues, at the cost of having possibly lower performance due to more lines. If you're not making a vanilla compatible map I say go for it. You can always trim down the excess later. Making areas smaller is a ton easier than trying to expand them.

 

I'd only do this for large outdoor areas without any kind of overhangs or full height bordering walls.

Sounds good, thanks :)

The one issue will be if you want free standing buildings outside too.

You probably don't want a crazy high building so you'll need to cleverly design it so you can lower the sky around the building to the desired height and not encounter the sky thing where it shows overlapping other walls.

To do this, check all angles that you can look at the building from, at all heights the player can reach without noclip. If the sky covers any other geometry, you'll have to figure out how to make it work on a case by case basis.

Large outdoor areas can indeed be problematic.

It is best to draw out specific sections on paper and then translate into the editor.

Avoid creating large sectors, break them down into several smaller ones. This also helps with varying the height of terrains.

53 minutes ago, Kappes Buur said:

Large outdoor areas can indeed be problematic.

It is best to draw out specific sections on paper and then translate into the editor.

 

Avoid creating large sectors, break them down into several smaller ones. This also helps with varying the height of terrains.

Good points, thanks :)