Hi guys,

yep its me again

I've had a look for some tutorials but I can seem to find any that show you how to make diagonal pipes - I pretty sure i've seen them somewhere in NS, but i just cant figure out how to make it look good.

If you use the skew function it looks strange, and rotating and clipping doesn't work (the joins won't match up). Vertex manip just goes very strange and creates a problem brush.

Say I want to create a vertical pipe which then joins to a diagonal pipe and then goes vertical again -
Like this side view :


EDIT: my picture doesnt work :S - great i can't even do a 2d diagonal pipe haha. ignore the fullstops , they are background, the pipes and slashes are the pipe

|.......................
|......................
|.......................
.\......................
...\.....................
.....\...................
......\...................
.......|..................
.......|..................

anyone made one before?

Look at this pic :



Here are three 45° pipes
You just need to adapt it in side or front view. Mine has been built from top.

You need to work with the vertex tool. With it, you're pretty sure you won't have any invalid brushes
You're not obligated to do a 45° pipe, but I think it's better.

Here's your pipe :

sweet as man, i'll give it a shot

Vertex manipulation + math = hawtsawce, as the kids say.

I believe Moconnor (I think?) used to have an excellent "pipe bending" tutorial, in case you want to make some 90 degree bends as well. Explained how to make really nice natural bends.

Basically, here's my tip: Work on as large of a grid size as you can for your pipe size, when you initially lay your pipe. Decrease your grid only as required. (With snap to grid turned on of course) It can help keep your vertexes in line. Of course, that advice really goes for any vertex manipulation. But, all the vertexes at the ends of a pipe need to be in a line when viewed from above.

Also if you're having trouble visualizing a pipe, work with a cross first. + instead of a O for example. Use wedges to fill in the corners to make it "round". Assuming you can make the rectangular boxes to not spit up errors, the wedges should fill the corners without problems as well. (Triangles are unbreakable, but it's the rectangles on the wedge that are breakable, working with pure rectangles though can be easier to visualize than the mix on the wedge.) Maybe. I dunno, it's how I learned'em. Then to make a nice clean pipe, use vertex manipulation to "fit" a shape around the pipe, like you were covering your cross and wedges with a spandex suit. It's kind of kinky ain't it? (That's something you can do down the road as well though)

When you figure out the eight sided pipes, then ya can go off and tackle sexy pipes with more sides (but hey, watch them r_speeds with them babies I tells ya!)