JOINER - An automated Brush Generator - Developers

[B]JOINER [/B]1.0.3 06-04-2012 Created by Timothy 'YM' Johnson [URL="http://www.subtleallusion.com/joiner/"][B]Click here to download[/B][/URL] [IMG]http://www.subtleallusion.com/images/joiner_main.jpg[/IMG] You can load in any VMF you like, as long as it has a brush textured in dev/slime Joiner will do it's work. Joiner will never ever modify your input VMF, so it's totally safe to put in your working VMF, no need to create a new one. Joiner works by finding volumes defined by single brushes textured with dev/slime. To create supports for a room, create a single dev/slime brush that exactly fills its entire volume. You can have as many of these volumes in a map as you want, they can adjoin or intersect in any way. Joiner will create one set of supports per volume it finds. The output will be completely func_detailed too. Joiner [B]will not[/B] work with any angled faces. Sorry folks, that's a feature for the future. Joiner [B]will not[/B] account for touching faces being the same room. That's another feature for the future. Here are some before/after shots: [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2126504/autobrush/ym_autobrush_gif.gif[/IMG] [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2126504/autobrush/aly_autobrush_gif.gif[/IMG] If you have any problems let me know what you were putting in, what the console said as it did it, and what you got out so I can try to fix it. (or chastise you for being a fool) If you make anything using non-default settings, consider taking a before/after shot for me, I'd be grateful. [URL="http://www.subtleallusion.com/joiner/"][B]Click here to download[/B][/URL] [B][B]Enjoy![/B][/B]

That's pretty sweet!

[I]Shit.[/I] I wanna use it but I'm worried that it'll have some horrible problem like Carving.

It doesn't modify your input file at all, and makes a separate output vmf, so you can see exactly what it made before pasting it into your map. The biggest current downside is each brush is an individual func_detail not entire rooms. That's on the to-fix list.

Pretty neat tool there. I'm being kinda nit-picky here but it looks like some of the beams are too low and hang in front of doorways in the second pic, but it's not like you can't just clean it up. However this is obviously more about getting most of the work done for you.

Door detection isn't something it can do so you'll need to tiny up any results. But as far as beams being to low, you can customise all the dimensions it uses so you can have no divisions, or lots of divisions, only diagonal suupports, only horizontal ones etc. Since it can ad beams to the whole map at once it's way faster even after you do the clean up. In the next version I'll have an option for texture grain so it works with horizontal as well as vertical textures. Config files and player clip support are also pegged for future versions.

This is extremely cool but I don't know if I would use it. Good job though!

I don't exactly see how this could be useful yet but one thing is for sure, THIS IS AWESOME.

So... It makes boring and bland rooms look a ton more realistic. That's amazing. Hopefully this'll get used more (if it works how it should). I would make the insides of certain buildings look, you know, good, and it would require minimal effort to make it that way. If this actually works how it should, and I have no reason to think it won't, then it's a huge time saver for things like this. Well done.

This is fucking brilliant! I love it! So going to start using this in my future maps! Well done! Also, pics: [quote] Before: [img]http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/4204/beforeei.jpg[/img] After: [img]http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/74/aftermwc.jpg[/img] [/quote]

This seems amazingly useful for TF2 maps or barns, thanks man!

Dymon it looks like the textures are all rotated 90 degrees for you to what they should be. That's a coming change in the next version, you'll be able to tell it the orientation of the texture grain.

No, don't worry that was my fault, I assume the path it uses is relative? So the Joiner.exe has to be in the same folder as the .vmf? Cause I had it in my documents folder, and obviously the materials are no where near there. So I just stuck a wood texture on the whole lot. Wasn't really trying to make it look awesome, was just testing it out, but great work!

Paths are relative, but "..\" works for "up one folder" so you could store joiner.exe in mapsrc/joiner to keep all of the files it makes away from your own vmfs and then use "..\input.vmf" This is actually a pretty good idea since as of the next version it'll have config files and a log file on top of the _clean and _result files. The texture file path are just taken from materials, exactly the same as what hammer uses: [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2126504/autobrush/texturepath.JPG[/IMG]

Combine this with propper and have awesome but not resource intensive maps. Nice tool man.

@Youme, So as long as joiner.exe is in the src folder or somewhere close to the materials folder, it should work fine? Cause my "My Documents" is on a completely separate drive, might explain why they keep coming up as missing textures.

I've been running mine from my documents just fine. Make sure you're using\ and not /, that's important too. If all else fails wait until next version and send me a log file to check.

2 second displacement job. This is awesome, god. [thumb]http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/9061/mine0001.jpg[/thumb] [thumb]http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/1383/mine0000.jpg[/thumb] May I request a feature for ceiling supports?

This is pretty awesome. Makes some brush work incredibly a lot easier.

"Clipping in fourth pic!" Nah, just kidding, looks really nice and useful.

[QUOTE=Viper123_SWE;35410872]"Clipping in fourth pic!" Nah, just kidding, looks really nice and useful.[/QUOTE] aha yeah well spotted I asked for before and after shots when I handed out a prerelease, in her's she got the volume of the room wrong slightly so there's a little z-fighting at the back: 'user error'

I will be honest with you here. I love it! Definitely the best tool I've used for a while! Although as you pointed out before, my textures are 90 degrees off, but it's fairly easy to fix for now. Not sure why it's like that though. Definitely going to start using this a lot! Thanks, you absolute legend!

[URL="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2126504/autobrush/Joiner-1.0.2.zip"]Right here's a new version[/URL] Sorry for updating so soon after the last release but I'll be taking a break for at least a few weeks so it wont be happening again soon. It's worth updating to the new version for these reasons: It now creates a log file, which is important to me if you encounter errors since it allows me to use your exact settings and seed to recreate the error. It can make a config file of your custom settings and load that if you want so you can use the same settings without typing them in every time. It allows vertical textures to be used, previously they resulted in horrible badly rotated textures. (Fixes Dymon's issue) And best of all, it groups each 'Room' into a single func_detail which is far better than what it was doing before. Enjoy :)

Quick update, It was skipping the final room now it's grouping them into sensible func_details. This has been fixed. (Still taking a break, this was a 2-minute fix) [url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2126504/autobrush/Joiner-1.0.3.zip[/url]

This is pretty damn neat. Would be cool to see more things like this from you!

I'm surprised there aren't more VMF tools like this, I mean, its a pretty simple and well documented format. (By simple, its really just a .txt file with things like brush locations / types / materials on faces in a formatting)

The images in OP dont work, so I have no clue what this does. Could you please upload them somewhere else?

Sweet Jesus!

Now my crappy maps will look slightly presentable!

I always have mixed feelings about tools like this, propper, distributed compiling... On the one hand, it's quick and convenient easy detailing. On the other its usage is pretty damn limited and I'd have to go around tweaking it anyway to get what I want... so why not just make what I want? I.e. I wouldn't use it and then other peoples comments make me wonder if it's going to just end up as a crutch for poor lazy mapping. (see several comments in this thread) Don't get me wrong, it's a nice idea, and the effort put in is admirable, but it won't ever quite replicate the feel of doing the same thing by hand I think.