After carving my hole and installing the glass, I noticed (in-game only) these cracks in the texture. How do I get rid of them?

Make sure the vertex points are on the grid.

Avoid the carve-tool at all costs.

Ugh... don't use carve EVER.

hehehe carve = bad same with hallow

hand make the hole ^_-

Go to the smallest grid size and vertex manipulate it so all the vertexes are snapped to the grid...
You get those things because your hammer(.rmf) file uses floating point coordinates, while bsp uses fixed(integer) coords...
This makes for improper rounding of coords...and creates these 1 unit differences...

Thing is, it's easier to just create it right the first time then to fix the mess up that carve creates. It'll also give you a better idea of the mess you're creating.
Also, your example is far from optimal. Remember polygons work in triangles, so a polygon with 4 sides, as you used, requires 2 triangles each.

Attached are two better versions.
The first is what QuArK automatically generates after a carve operation, and although already nearly optimal is not suitable for Hammer users, since it requires floating point coordinates. Also, seen from the sides there are a few unnecesery polygons.
The right example uses the fewest polygons and doesn't have off-grid vertices, making it a legal structute for Hammer users. It has got 16 instead of 28 visible triangles from the front. Also from the sides it gives better performance.

one smart advice:

NEVER EVER CARVE!

create your brushes with the vertex manipultaion tool, that might seem a waste of time at first, but you will soon see the advantage of having 100% control of where brushes fit together.

Lt. Gravity

Use Pentagons or Hexagons and Decagons intstead of circles


>_>


<_<


What? It works!

I am trying to master vertex manipulation but when you're old it's tough to teach an old dog new tricks.

If any qualified mappers are interested in teaching a class on this view this topic.

I hear ya kwik, I'm on the lower end of middle age myself and I'm building my first map. Quite the learning curve it is.

Off topic a bit, but is Quark better than Hammer because of the floating point? Or is it a matter of Quark doing some things better, while Hammer does other things better?

i think its just a matter of preference, unless ur a QuArK user, then you'll say its because QuArK is better =]

QuArK is old and outdated, barely anyone uses it. Stay with Hammer, it'll also be used in HL2 so that way you don't have to learn anything entirely new.

The real answer is you use HLFix when compiling your map to convert your .rmf file to a .map file. HLFix will create a .map file that uses floating point numbers unlike Hammer's export feature.

Nem

carving tool = waste of your time. dont use it. PERIOD.

if you want to make hollow circles and such, use the arch tool, works 99% of the time without those lame gaps.