I’ve always found it very easy to work with brushes in Hammer, the map editor for Valve’s Source engine. You have the top, front, and side views, and you can actually resize them with handles like how you can resize things in pretty much every other program. And you can also easily duplicate a brush by holding Shift and dragging it. The quickest way I’ve found to duplicate a brush in Unreal is by pressing Ctrl+W, and even then it gives it an unnecessary offset that you’re going to not need 99% of the time, that’s seemingly there just to show that the object was duplicated.
I know Hammer doesn’t have subtractive geometry (and the closest equivalent function in Hammer, the “Carve” function, is generally not used because it’s inefficient) but look how easy it is to build a box-shaped room in Hammer:
Okay yeah, it looks like I messed up somewhere judging by the top view (on the top right) but the 3D view looks fine so it might have just been a glitch. The main things I’m looking for are:
A 4-way split view (3D/top/front/side)
A means of resizing objects (mostly cuboid-shaped ones) by using handles on the sides, and not scaling it from the center (if I already know one side is lined up properly, only being able to scale it from the center is annoying because when I scale it to fix the other side, it won’t be lined up anymore, and I’ll have to do the math and offset the position myself.)
A way to duplicate one or more objects that’s as easy as moving them (not counting, of course, the additional effort of holding down one key or whatever.)
To get the 4 views like Hammer, just go to Window->Viewports, and open up a few more viewports. Then just click in each new viewport and set it to the view you like. Look for where it says “Perspective” and select a Top, Side or Front view. Then just snap the windows to whatever place in the editor you like them.
As for resizing, I dont know if there’s a way to get handles like Hammer has. I wish it had them, too, but instead I think you can grab verts and move them.
As for duplicating, just copy and paste to make them appear in the same spot.
Better yet, hold Alt and drag to duplicate them but only move along the axis you drag them.
Thanks for the post. Iam including a pic that has a little bit of clarification about how to change the viewport sizes as well as how to work with editing BSPs.
the small squares that are in the upper right corner of each window minimize and maximize their respective viewports.
In order to edit the BSP brushes you need to select the edit mode by clicking the picture of a BSP with one face selected. (says “To edit:” in the picture)
Once that is selected, you can grab any combination of vertices by clicking them individually (hold ctrl to select multiple)
If you would like to drag-select hold Ctrl and Shift while dragging and all vertices within the area will be selected.
If you would like to extrude a face from the brush, click on the face that you would like to extrude and use the widget to pull it in the direction you wish.
I already accepted JigglyToes’ answer, now it’s saying yours is accepted…I call shenanigans!
Still, thanks!
(Don’t be offended that I un-accepted your answer; I did already accept the other guy’s answer and I don’t want to take it away from him. I’d accept both if I could!)
Don’t try to use the BSP in UE4 like the Brushs in the Hammer Editor.
The Hammer Editor, or better the Source Engine works with Brushs most of the time. You only add Meshs if you need a lot of detail.
BUT!!!
In UE4 it is way different. These BSP Brushs are not yet designed to be used as a Mesh replacement. You can use them to box out your Map and plan it, but you will need to remove it late and replace it with meshs made in 3D programs.
You may use one or two BSP for floors, but all in all you shouldn’t use them at all in your final game.
But Epic is working on BSP2.0. These BSP should be more friendly and maybe you can use them in your final game a bit more often.
PS: I’m going ahead and reaccept Benjamins answer. Have a news weekend guys and girls.
