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How to Create Roads in Hammer Source Part 4/8:
Creating 180 Degree Turns

January 22, 2011
Category: Left 4 Dead 2 Mapping, Left 4 Dead Mapping, SourceSDK/Authoring Tools

How to Create Roads in Hammer Source is 8-part series covering various beginner and advanced techniques on creating roads.

Part 4 is focused on:

• 180 Degree Turns, U-Turns. Single brush for 180 degree turn.
• Texture alignment

VIDEO: PART 4/8

180 DEGREE TURNS

We'll be using the arch tool to create our 90 degree turns.

Select the Block Tool,

Under Objects, select from the drop down menu, arch

Stay on the grid. 8 or 16.

Set the road texture before creating the arch.

Create a template block, with Block Tool of 1024x1024:

We need to create a full arc (360) in order to create 180 degree turn. We will then delete one side, half of the circle. We will then end up with 180 turn.

Creating an arc of 180 will not work for this. We need to create a full arc first then delete one half.

• Note: Reason we create full 180 degree turn and not using 2 90 degree brushes will become clear in the part 5 of the tutorial series. Where we create sloped curved roads.

• Wall Width: size of the road (256 in our case)
• Number of Sides: 90 degree turn we had 8 sides (brushes), 8x4=32. How many brushes will the arch be made out of
• Arc: 360, full arc. Do you want a full, half or quarter of an arch
• Start Angle: none.
• Add Height: None. Each brush will be raised x number of units, creating a spiral staircase.

Our full arc:

Clip the full circle in half. Use the clip tool:

• White = will be kept
• Red = will be deleted

APPLYING TEXTURE ALIGNMENT TO CURVED SURFACES

We apply the same technique as in Part 3 to align our textures to a curved surface.

We need to have our road texture, curve along with the surface. This is simple to do.

Select Previous Brush, one next to curved road.

Open up the Face Edit Sheet and select Top Face of the previous aligned texture brush:

Hold Alt+Right Mouse Click on the side face of the straight brush:

Next, select the side face of the straight brush, and hold Alt+Right Mouse Click on the side face of the curved road brush.

Sides only for now. Make sure to hold Alt+Right Mouse Click.

Select the first face on the side of our road brush. Hold Alt+Right Mouse Click to the top of the face.

This is the key. Select side first, Alt+Right Mouse Click top.

Do this for every brush on the curved surface. One brush at a time. Side, Alt+RMB top. Side, Alt+RMB top etc.

TURN COMPLEX CURVED GEOMETRY TO FUNC_DETAIL

Make sure you turn all complex brushes, our roads to func_detail. Select the brush and press Ctrl+T.

• Select the Brush
• Press Ctrl+T