Part 4, Pillars
This is not so much a tutorial, but more a guide to adding detail, and hopefully helps get your creative juices going so you can create your own variety and style. Let’s get started.
Pillars
Pillars are great. There a good way of sprucing up a room relatively cheaply. Even simple rectangular blocks can make a good pillars, but in this guide, I’m going to show you some more complex (so to speak) examples. Don’t forget there are pillar props available to use, as well, but making our own is more fun. So lets start with a rounded pillar.
Rounded Pillars
Alright, I presume you’ve got your room and everything set up already, so go ahead and make a 32x32 block where you want your pillar to be. Make sure it stretches from floor to ceiling. This is our guide for the pillar; we won’t see this in the final result. Next, enclose this guide cube with 4 more blocks:
Next create a cylinder that is double the size of the gap for your corner, cut it into quarters and move them to each corner, A la screenshot:
and that’s the curved pillar! There you have it. A nice, simple curved pillar that defiantly looks better than a square one! In the example, I used an 8 sided cylinder, which is not really ideal. I would suggest a 12 sided cylinder for your corners.
Other Examples
Now a round pillar may not fit in with you’re geometry in your level, so here’s a few more examples I whipped up to get you’re creative juices flowing.
As you can see, the only limit is your imagination.
Notes
• If you have a funny shaped pillar that the player could get snagged on, remember to enclose it in the player_clip texture.
• I shouldn’t have to say this by now, but func_detail your pillars! (Or blink will forcefully stick his big penis in your arse. I’m not joking. It's huge.)
Next Time: False Ceilings.
matt3h
