Tutorials
Displacement Sculpting
A new set of tools and features were released for the Left 4 Dead 2 Authorizing tools with the release of The Passing.
In this tutorial I will show you how to use the new "Sculpting" tool for displacement surfaces.
Hotkeys
Hold down right click and move mouse left or right to decrease or increase the brush size.
Hold down Shift and paint to smooth geometry.
Hold down Ctrl to paint geometry in the opposite direction.
Hold down Alt and right click on a displacement surface to change the direction of the brush parallel to the displacement surface. (Only available in Normal Direction: Selected mode)
Push Tool:
Push is similar to the raise and lower tool but with a few tweaks that make it much much better, for one it doesn't have a spherical effective radius, instead it only effects the surfaces in the falloff position radius. You also have a lot more control over how it manipulates the surface which I will get into below:
Offset Modes:
-Adaptive: (Displacement amount adapts to the size of your brush) Uses the offset percentage to calculate how much to displace the displacement. Percentage based on the size of your current brush.
-Absolute: (Displacement amount is absolute, or a set value that doesn't change.) Uses the offset distance, in hammer units, to displace your displacements. Brush size does not influence the amount that gets displaced, just the area of its effect.
Offset Distance: The distance in units in which to manipulate the geometry.
Offset Percent: The percentage of your brush size in which to manipulate the geometry.
Smoothing: The percentage of smoothing applied to the brushed geometry. 0% Hard edges - 100% Smooth edges
Bounds Limit:
Additive: Gradually applies its displacement amount to the surface over time.
Attenuated: Applies the set displacement amount to the surface, no more, no less.
Normal Direction:
-Brush Centre: Uses centre of the brush and displaces parallel to the face you've displaced from.
-Screen: Moves geometry in direction of your current camera in the 3D view.
-X: Across the X plane
-Y: Across the Y plane
-Z: Across the Z plane
-Selected: Your specific selection. Alt+Right click in this mode on a displacement face to point the brush parallel to that face.
Falloff Position: Percentage of the brush that will give the full offset amount on the vertices's inside. For example if your using the absolute offset mode and set it so you displace 64 units in one stroke everything inside your falloff position (Inner brush circle) will be raised the full 64 units.
Falloff final: Percentage of offset height remaining by the end of the fallout zone. 0% means there is none left, so in the fallout area make a gradual incline from the full height to 0% of that height. 100% would mean you lose no hight in the fallout zone making everything in the outer circle the same height as your inner circle.
Carve Tool:
The carve tool uses a single plane to manipulate the geometry, in the direction of the brush motion. You can create your own brushes to change the way the plane effects the geometry, for instance raise the geometry on one side and lower it on the other.
The carve tool differs from the push tool as it acts as a flat brush, not a circular one. You can also choose the indentations the brush makes in the displacements.
Project Tool:
I have no idea what you need in order to have this option available, so until then that will be it for this tutorial!
- whiffen