Worldcraft Wind Tunnel Tutorial - by Matthew 'Bushboy' Trow
Worldcraft Wind Tunnel creation tutorial
By Matthew 'Bushboy' Trow.

This tutorials aim is to enable you to create a basic wind tunnel set complete with a tunnel, a corner, a fourway intersection and a pipe cover.
The final prefabs will have the lowest brush count possible.

This tutorial can also be applied to other editors, although certain steps might have to left out or new steps added and terminology might be slightly different - the same basic concepts apply though...

You might be asking "Why would I want to create pipes when Worldcraft already has prefabs for them ?"
The answer is simple - what if you want 5 or 16 sided pipes ?
Also, the teqniques for creating the pipes are a useful insight into efficient level creation.
This tutorial assumes that you have a basic understanding of Worldcraft - ie: - rotating, carving etc.
If you don't then check out the tutorial at The Forge, the official Worldcraft editing site.

Ok, lets do it.....


[step1]
Step 1 - top view.
[step2]
Step 2 - top view.
[step3]
Step 3 - top view.

Step 1.
Start a new file, on a grid of 32 (or 64), create an eight sided cylinder 192x192 in the Top view.

Step 2.
Very Carefully rotate the cylinder in freehand mode (zoom right in) so that the 'bottom' part of the cylinder is exactly flat at 180 degrees. You don't have to do it this way - but it looks better.
You might find a problem rotating the cylinder exactly in older versions of Worldcraft (I think the exact rotation is 21.5 degrees) but the latest version of Worldcraft does this just fine.

Step 3.
Now stretch the cylinder until it is once again 192x192 - position the cylinder so it fits exactly into a 64x64 grid.
At this point you have a few options - you can copy the cylinder and paste it into a new map or put it to one side - that is because this copied cylinder becomes our pipe cover.
Another thing that can be done is to create a block around this pipe cover with the same width, and use the pipe cover to carve away the block, leaving you with a handy wall insert for your finished pipes.

But forget that for now -


[step4]
Step 4 - top view.
[step5]
Step 5 - top & front view.
[step6]
Step 6 - top & front view.

Step 4.
Now, looking at the top view, copy the cylinder and set your grid to 16 - make the copied cylinder 16 smaller on each side.

Step 5.
Align the smaller cylinder exactly over the larger in the top view, and looking at the front view, sticking out 16 on either side.

Step 6.
Use the smaller brush to carve the larger and then delete it, we now have a hollow cylinder.
Why didn't we just use Worldcrafts hollow facility ?
For some reason, with the new version of Worldcraft, if you use the hollow facility, when you do a check map it will tell you that there are invalid solid structures (on my puter anyway), and that can cause a lot of trouble in a level - so rather do it exactly as described above to avoid hastles later.
At this point, do a check map to make sure there are no invalid solid structures - if there are, then it's possible that in the front view you did not have the smaller cylinder sticking out on either side - no prob, just undo and reposition the smaller cylinder.
Delete the smaller cylinder leaving you with your hollow cylinder.
Now the important part - Make a copy of this cylinder and either paste it into a new map or put it over to one side - this becomes the tunnel part of our group.


[step7]
Step 7 - top & front view.
[step8]
Step 8 - all views.
[step9]
Step 9 - top view.

Step 7.
Make sure all the brushes in the cylinder are grouped and then Rotate your cylinder until it is lying flat in the front view - now is the time to check that the length of the cylinder in the front view is 192 - set your grid back to 32 if you want.

Step 8.
We now get into the corner part of the prefabs.
Create yourself a Wedge in the top view which fits exactly into the cylinder.
Check your front view and also make sure that the wedge fits exactly into the cylinder.
The wedge should now be 192x192x192, and your views should look like the step 8 picture above.

Step 9.
Now use the wedge to carve away half of the cylinder - you did make a copy of it before carving ?.
Now you have your corner piece - once again, copy the corner and put it to one side or into a new file.
Make sure you leave the wedge and the original corner exactly where they are.


Ok, now we should have a tunnel and a corner so now the final step is to create the four way intersection.




[step10]
Step 10 - top view.
[step11]
Step 11 - all views.
[step12]
Step 12 - top view.

Step 10.
Rotate the wedge 90 degrees anti-clockwise (use shift) and carve.

Step 11.
Now delete the wedge and you should have one quarter of what will be your four way intersection - make sure that all the brushes in this quarter are grouped.

Step 12.
Copy and paste the quarter.




[step13]
Step 13 - all views.
[step14]
Step 14 - all views.

Step 13.
Rotate the copied cylinder quarter (using shift) 90 degrees clockwise and position it in exactly in the top and front view, so that it aligns with the other quarter - you now have half of your 4 way intersection.

Step 14.
Copy, paste, rotate and position twice more and you hopefully should have your four way intersection !.



You now have your pipes prefab group - they can pretty safely be scaled up or down - for instance you might want to create a grenade wind tunnel, so you would scale down the prefabs to 32x32 or even 16x16 (I've scaled the 4 way down to this size with no problems)

Known Problems
Assuming that you did the above step by step as explained, there should not be any problems with the map.
If you used Worldcrafts hollow facility and do a check map, you will most likely have about 10 invalid solid structures.
If you did not rotate the cylinder in step 2 exactly, you're pipes will be a skew.
Other than that, you should now have a perfect tunnel, corner piece and four way intersection.

Return to the The Quake Prefab Park,
Check out the Worldcraft Page or go to The forge - the official Worldcraft editing site.