General Half-Life 2/Architecture
description
Creating realistic destruction effects.
keywords
brick, displacement, destruction, crack, broken wall, destroy, vertex.
1. Find references/motivation
Before you start out making this destruction you need to know what you want it to look like. I used google, searching for abandoned and found this:
2. Block the wall out
So now that I have my reference shot I will start to block out the destruction. I chose to do 64 unit wide sections, but it is up to you what width you want. Make sure you have to right height as well, whether it be for a 1,2, or 3 story building.
3. Vertex Manipulate/Cut for broken section of walls
After you have it blocked out we will create the sections that we want to be broken. First cut/vertex manipulate the separate sections so that the top right of one brush touches the top left of the next brush.
Cut the top of the walls to a triangle. This will help keeping the process cleaner and easier.
4. Cut horizontally to fit with the texture for the designated broken sections
Now that you have the designated broken section made, you can cut (horizontally) to separate the numerous layers of bricks of each triangle. The size of the cuts you make depends on the texture, just cut to where the mortar is.
5. Go through the each brush of the designated broken sections and cut them to create the broken wall
Now this is where it will start to look like destruction. Go through each brush that you just cut, cut it again this time with vertical cuts. Differ how much each brush sticks out of the wall, this will help with the destructed look.
6. Func_detail
After you have the wall done and how you want it make sure you select all the destruction brushes and make them into a func_detail. This will help with optimization.
7. Additions
Now a broken brick wall all by itself wont look good. You can add a concrete center with another broken brick wall on the opposite side.
Or you can put more bricks in the middle with bricks on the opposite side.
After you do that you can add some broken re-bar props to the concrete.
Adding to the detail, you can use graffiti decals, cut out some windows, add floors, add supports. Also use some displacements for the rubble. I mixed 2 textures for the displacements so that it does not get too repetitive, one for actual rubble and the other was a dirt texture. You can also throw in some some destroyed props in with the displacements.
And in-game:
Thanks for reading, please post comments or critiques below.
-Fight-
