Beetle's Mapping Tips

[Beetle]

I am going to tell you some quick hotkeys and such that I know you will use often and will save you a lot of time. Its not like I created them, but I use them a billion times in a map. All of these can be found in documentation, but these are the ones I use the most.

Shift+A - This opens the texture application. If you have a brush face selected, that is what will change immediately when you click apply. If no face is selected you have to right click on a face while the texture app is still open.

alt+right-click - This combo isn't as well known but will make your textures seamless from one face to another. Say you want to 'paint' a texture around a cylinder. if you highlight a face then click the one next to it, it will seamlessly continue the texture to the next face. This is different than just right-clicking alone. This is best for arches or curves in general.

Ctrl+T - This converts a world brush into a brush-based entity. It will also open the entity properties.

Ctrl+Shift+E - centers the 3d camera to what you have selected. Its helpful if you have an item selected in the 2D and want to find it in the 3D window fast.

Ctrl+E - centers all cameras but the 3D camera to what you have selected.


Another note : If you have a box open (like entity properties) make sure you keep the pointer over the box the whole time. I often select the whole entity name text box but go too far and it deselects it. So you are sitting there typing and its not even registering because your mouse pointer is hovering over something else (Really annoying)

I'll add more later.

[HurTmePlentY]

these hotkeys are good to know, but i dont think im at the stage where i can effectively use them yet. lol