Perhaps try making one large wall, then cutting it into 8 or so pieces (using the clip tool and keeping both sides after the cut), then selecting all the pieces at once and using the vertex mode to drag some of the vertexes where the pieces join. That way they naturally conform to the shape of each other and hopefully its a quicker way to get natural looking rock. The more you cut up the wall, the finer the detail you will get. 

I think I found a good method, make a kind of "palette wall" that I work on to ensure it looks good, then duplicate chunks of it to make other walls. The first result was too angular but a repeat with smaller brushes should turn out well. 

I use hexenmapper's method and I'm quite proud of the rockwork I can build. I usually use either 16x16 or 32x32 (i think - going off memory here) brushes. It does take a loooong time but in my mind the results are well worth it. It would definitely be quicker if you used larger brushes, which would be fine depending on your aesthetic. 

Got a pretty decent looking wall this way: https://s31.postimg.org/wv6wbz3d7/spasm0000.png 

looks decent, but take care with light.

The dark blends show the lightfall is crossed creating the dark blur.
Changing the light to one "light40 wait 0.04" and another "light 200" could result in a more blended effect. 

Kim if youre using:

http://ericwa.github.io/tyrutils-ericw/

...turn that wall into a "func_group" and add "_phong" as a key with a value of 1.

This will smooth out the lightmaps on that specific wall. 

http://simonoc.com/pages/articles/rockwall1_1.htm

Looks like a good start, I'd try to stick with quads rather than triangles and maybe make the scale a bit bigger 

Hey everyone, I'm doing some BSP2 mapping for hexen 2 and I ran into a little snag that's driving me crazy.

I have a fairly decent sized level, and the amount of detail requires I use bsp2, but I'm getting "reached occupant at <coords>" whenever I try to add this new area

http://i.imgur.com/FPsiXoR.jpg

There's nothing different about it construction wise, it's not off grid, it's connected to this main area here:

http://i.imgur.com/rd3OGON.jpg

The cliff wall on the left, I cut the brush in two and started making a hallway.

Now it throws reached occupant and points to an entity on the other side of the level, and loading the pointfile it does not draw a line to any hole.

At first i thought i was just missing the hole, but if i move the new room away from there and section it off and put the wall back together, it compiles fine!

I tried making a smaller cave-type entrance in the same spot with there being more wall, and that compiles fine too!

It's literally if i just connect the path using the same sky, and I'm really confused as to why this is happening 

 

...by making this cliff face on the other side of the map a func_wall

http://i.imgur.com/a2UU7WL.jpg

???

Could it be the way the brush was constructed and the verts were positioned were causing qbsp to shit itself? Early today I got a couple QBSP crashes too randomly until i restored a backup 

QBSP shitting itself would not be a big surprise. I've had brushes that should be fine cause issues before, although that's often because I got too ambitious with stretching them out to thin points and other bad ideas... 

TB's Vertex editing makes it easy to create invalid brushes. Might be a very short edge or just too many faces. Make sure to check the issue list, too. 

What's a better way to construct an irregular outdoor area? Starting as a box room and adding in rock brushes and func_details over it to produce the illusion of a round area? Or cutting up your brushes that are touching the void and modifying their shape directly?

Or is it down to preference? I've been doing it both ways but I'm not sure which is better 

Func_detail shouldnt touch void. Throw a brush behind any that do. 

My Method is to start by grouping each brush to keep things workable and then cut them in half longways (http://i.imgur.com/iqJiGyt.png), make one side into a func_detail and then cut like so: http://i.imgur.com/CyZOHmx.png

and then etc. etc. for your detailing. I make sure my floor/ceiling brushes extend out to meet the outer walls.

It takes a bit of practice to make stuff look good but effects like phong with the lighting go a long way to a good looking finished product. 

Trying to compile a test map in Jackhammer, getting the following error:

************ ERROR ************
Error opening C:\Quake\Id1\cb_deco.wad;C:\Quake\Id1\cb_obj.wad: Invalid argument

Bullshit, invalid -- the files are in the directory. There was something you had to do to link the .wads to a map back in the Radiant days, wondering if it's needed still? 

Try "wad" "\quake\id1\cb_deco.wad;..." maybe. 

Well, that information's already in the mapfile:

{
"classname" "worldspawn"
"sounds" "1"
"worldtype" "0"
"mapversion" "220"
"wad" "C:\Quake\Id1\cb_deco.wad;C:\Quake\Id1\cb_obj.wad"
"_generator" "J.A.C.K. 1.1.1064 (vpQuake)"
{ 

Reinstalling TyrUtils (which I thought I was using anyways) apparently solved the problem. Sigh. 

Getting an issue with qbsp:
************ ERROR ************
Degenerate edge at (0.000 0.000 0.000)

However even after seeing nothing suspicious - and moving everything in the area to be sure - it persisted. Some searching revealed it's apparently an issue with the editor accidentally creating a brush with a size of 0 in all dimensions, and that most editors should have built in tools to remove it. How do I go about doing this in Trenchbroom? 

Huh, nevermind, the issue is gone after I removed my rock wall to have a crack at making one following the guide ericw posted. 

Huh, nevermind, the issue is gone after I removed my rock wall to have a crack at making one following the guide ericw posted. 

In Quake 1, is it possible to have a func_train damage and kill players when it touches them, without having to push them into a wall for the damage to actually be applied? It seems like it will only kill the player when they've been pushed into another surface. 

I'm not really able to test it, but it could be as simple as adding
"touch" "train_blocked"
as a key to the train.