Building With CSG
This page covers making Architecture the old-fashioned way: with CSG brushes that compile into a BSP.
For a gentle introduction to the concepts of unreal building, see Mapping Lessons, Unreal World & Unreal Geometry.
Creating Shapes
All building starts with the red builder brush. This is in a way a 3D cursor, which the mapper shapes and edits before using it to imprint a new brush on the world.
The red bruilder brush can be given new shapes with:
- Brushbuilders, the standard brush shapes in the toolbox
- Custom Brushbuilder
- 2D Shape Editor, a simple & powerful tool for making more complex shapes
Once you have a basic shape, it can be edited with the following techniques:
- Intersection and Deintersection
- Brush Clipping
- Vertex Editing
- Brush Transformation
It is important to align brushes and vertices to grid, to reduce chance of BSP holes:
- Keeping brushes snapped to the grid
- The Snap to Grid feature
Brush shapes can be saved to disk and reused in other maps:
Creating Space
Making world brushes out of the red builder brush:
- Subtraction And Addition
- Brush Sinking
- Brush Order
- The Build process
Technical
Technical specifics on the objects and tools used in creating architecture.
Architectural features
Techniques for making complex architexture.
- Making Curved Corridors
- Making Stairs
- Making Terrain (UT)
- Making Arches
- Making Trim
- Making Trim with the Extruder
- Making Flames
- Building A SkyBox
Effects
- Invisible Collision Hull: Glass and masked textures.
- WarpZones
- The SkyBox
- Making Liquids
- Aquariums & stuff
- Making waterfalls
Special surfaces
Facts & Techniques
- General Scale and Dimensions
- The Snap to Grid feature
- UnrealEd tips: add any general tips here for now!
- Brush Duplication (more of an interface thing but here for now)