Last Revised :
7 February 2000
  drakaza@planetquake.com
                           
Simple 90 Degree Arches
    In this tutorial, I will show you how to make a simple 90 degree arch.
   
The first thing we are going to do in this tutorial is to change
the gridsize to 16.
    That's the setting I use for creating brushes, no matter how complex it ends up.
    Later on we will change it to a more accurate setting for bending.
   
Now create a brush that is 4x4 (12units high), like this:
                       
     

                       
               
Top View
                       
     

                       
             
Front View
    Now click on the
Curves
menu, and under
More Cylinders
, click on
Square Cylinder
                       
         

    This will create a cylindrical mesh for our arch so that we can
transform it. We then
    start the bending process for the brush. Make sure the brush is still selected,
    and press
'B',
or click on the
"Patch Bend Mode"
button
                       
                       

    You should now see some purple dots, which represent the points at which
    you can bend the brush. Now press Enter
and you will see one of the dots
    turn blue. Now look in the Top View, and press TAB
until the Middle-Right dot
    is selected, like so:
                       
                   

                       
                       
         
Top View
    Now change the gridsize to the smallest setting and in the Front View,
    hold the left mouse button down, and drag the mouse up until the arch is
    exactly at right angles to its original position (Zooming comes in handy).
                       
         

                       
                       
       
Front View
    Press Escape to unselect the bend mode. Now select the brush, and click
    Y-Axis Rotate
three times to put the brush at the correct angle.
                       
               

                       
                       
       
Front View
    After you select the texture, press 'S'
to bring up
Surface Properties
, and click
    on Natural and click OK. This makes the texture be drawn correctly.
                       
         

    And there you go, a brush simple enough to be an effective arch, without effecting
    performance by much. A good balance, which makes a difference in a large map.