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TROR Help - splitting, joining

#1

I'm progressing with TROR but have now hit the bump stops so hoping someone can help me out here.

Right, what I'm trying to do is take an area with three TROR sectors and create a walkway across the middle sector as per 1st attached pic, where the second attached picture is the starting point (I created the first one from a completely different start point that isn't always practical).

Have attached example map, room 'A' is start point and room 'C' is what I'd want to modify 'A' to be.

I know how to punch down through sectors, only snag is if I create a sector attached to a wall and try and punch that down then I get the rather cryptic "Didn't find any non grayed out CCW loop start walls" .. eh? (e.g. upper sector in room 'B', arrowed in attached picture)

Also, is it possible to split map A in half e.g. a pair of three-high TROR sectors ? And if so what is the magic keypress(es) and also how would one merge those two halves back together again ?

I have an inkling that selecting multiple sectors may have something to do with it, ['] and [;] keys being involved in which case I'm stuffed because these to keys have no effect when combined with right-ALT, be that regular standard sectors or TROR sectors.

TTFN,
Jon

Attached thumbnail(s)

  • Attached Image: CreateThis.jpg
  • Attached Image: FromThis.jpg
  • Attached Image: capt0004.jpg

Attached File(s)


0

User is offline   Paul B 

#2

Hi Jon,

I'll try to assist you with your question. I've used a substantial amount of TROR over the years and from what I have found sector punching TROR is pretty useless and just causes a lot of confusion when trying to make the desired effect you want. Basically with TROR the keys that you need to get the job done in 2D mode is "CTRL A" which toggles between showing all sectors at once or showing only certain sectors depending on your Z Axis. Page up \ Page down will toggle between the different heights of those sectors by setting the Z axis to whatever height you need depending on the height of your sectors in 2D mode. Having 2 sectors too close in heights (floor and ceiling) can cause confusion for Mapster and it will not properly grey out the different sectors on different layers but instead it will combine the view so you see everything on the same layer which makes it confusing for joining sectors. This function is the most important in my opinion so you know which two sectors you are going to join.

With this in mind, when building a catwalk like you want, in the middle of your big room your best off not trying to create the entire open area first. You want to carve out your catwalk not add your catwalk once the room has been created. By your image, it looks as though you've already created the big room and are trying to put the catwalk in the middle of that room. Rather than do that, I would create one side of the room first. Room A -- Room A would be one side of the catwalk. Then I would extend Room A's ceiling by selecting that sector and extending it up with CTRL-E. So now we have one sector, Room A1 being the lower bottom sector and Room A2 being the upper extended sector. Now you can attach another sector to your lower sector A1. We will call this new sector B1 and we will not be extending B1's sector at all. This sector will be directly below your catwalk. Create this B1 sector to be the size you want the width of your catwalk floor to be.

Now attach a new sector C1 to B1. C1 will be the sector beside B1 and it will be your second room on the other side of your catwalk. Set this ceiling height to be the same as the ceiling height as A1. Now extend C1's sector like you did with A1 to mirror the height of sector A2. Now that you have two extended sectors, you can carve out your catwalk. This is where you use the CRTL A key and Page up in 2D mode to toggle between your different heights. Make sure that your Z axis matches that of A2 and C2. Once you have only those two extended sectors visible go ahead and connect them together.

That should provide you with the desired effect you are looking for. Everything TROR is essentially built upon this method over and over again and its just a matter of making sure you are joining the right sectors at their corresponding heights. Otherwise its possible to join two sectors at the wrong heights and you run into problems.

If you want a third extended layer above everything like you've shown in your first picture just select only the sectors at A2 & C2's sector height and extend them upward. So you would be selecting 3 sectors in total and once they are selected you can extend all 3 selected sectors upwards into one big sector above. To do that, this is where the "F3" view comes in handy. This view allows you to select sectors at a specified height and extend them upwards. But you will need to be familiar with changing the angle and the perspective in that 2d isometric view.

This post has been edited by Paul B: 15 August 2015 - 09:16 AM

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#3

Many thanks Paul,

A good explanation there. That would enable a catwalk with just two levels. Ultimately though I want windows in my catwalk hence the three layers but I can see how you're method would extend to this.

I did it slightly differently (slightly longer perhaps). In the test map, I created two completely seperate normal sectors (marked 1 & 2). I then extended them both upwars, and then extended them both downwards. I created a sector between the upper two sections and another sector between the lower two sectors, et voila.

Thing is, if I plan a map at the very start then I can use your and my method. The snag comes in how to tackle the situation when a map is much later in the design and I decide I want to add a catwalk. In this case my example rectangular room would be the the outside world surrounding lots of buildings. If I could create an island (like in center of room 'B') that went right up to the edges of the overall room then adding the catwalk would be straightforward, instead it just I just get that baffling error message. What's so different about including an edge wall ?

Must admit I'm finding this TROR a double edge sword. On the one hand it has opened up some neat new effects, great fun, on the other hand it has fully excercised my extensive vocabulary of "colourful metaphors" - charities are on for a major windfall next time I get to empty my swear box ! Hopefully I may be able to tweak Mapster to do some of the jobs a little simpler.

TTFN,
Jon
1

User is offline   Paul B 

#4

Yea breaking TROR layers to join additional sectors is complicated its best to get really comfortable with using the basic methods of TROR before you try and add a TROR effect to an already enabled TROR sector. Basically what is involved is breaking the TROR layers adding the portion you need and re-joining them together again. But complications can arise with verticies needing to be added to adjust for the additional sectors before re-joining the TROR sectors.

This post has been edited by Paul B: 15 August 2015 - 06:13 PM

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