So I've hopped back into JED/ZED lately, and I've began a rather ambitious level project. I'm getting the look i want, but of course, CC (consistency checker) is bombing me with errors. My main problem is JK doesn't like it when you play with vertices it seems. I've made a basic terrain in a small sector (sort of like a large potted plant) and its giving me Convex and Planar errors. I know what that means and how to fix it, but fixing it eliminates what I am trying to achieve it seems. I don't know if cleaving up the sector that i messed with into sectors would help?

More info on that ^

I made a sector, selected the floor, carved it into a grid, and went to town on the verts.

I dont know if cleaving the whole sector into a grid would help it or not? Perhaps make a series of surfaces that would be flat instead of one surface with all sorts of bumps in it.

Help would be appreciated. I used to know my way around this software well, but that was 5+ years ago. So assume I don't know what you're talking about just to make sure any advice makes its point.

THANKS!!!!

what kinda grid are u carving it into? make sure you're carving it into triangles, not squares, cuz with squares you will get planar problems.
Cleaving up the sector might help with convex problems and cleaving surfaces into triangles should solve all planar issues...
Another option would be to make the terrain as a 3do, and you wouldn't have to work about having convex sectors.
Idk if this helps, theres a tutorial on the JK Editing Manual on natural terrain.

You'll have to cleave the sectors, just cleaving surfaces doesn't work for some reason lol

I'll give the triangle idea a shot, I still might have an issue with one particular surface even after that that isnt related to the terrain sector. Thanks for the advice guys!

I think the current thinking would be to use a 3do for the floor in this case. I think there are a few gotchas to watch out for with this method, though, so you're probably best asking over at JKHub, or dropping in on the IRC channel (irc.synirc.org I think is the curret chat server, channel #jkhub).

For the traditional sector based way, these tutorials might be of use:
http://www.massassi.net/tutorials/ground/ground.htm
http://www.massassi.net/tutorials/advanced_terrain/


[ Edit: Errr, yeah, what lexen said :$ ]

Thanks for the tutorial links, triangles and sectoring it both failed. So me level is looking great so far, but doesnt CC haha. I'll surely be back for more advice soon.

use terrain 3do's for complex ground with a flicker cog and texture lighting. I never bother with normal archi.

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

Texture lighting wouldn't be a big issue as it will eventually be a dark mossy 16-bit texture. Being a 3do though won't it have the clipping glitch or is that what the 'flicker cog' fixes? I would go 3do if that can be prevented, especially since this area wont be a primary walk space.

There shouldn't be any clipping as long as it doesn't overlap and you lower the floor of the sector far enough that even at a distance you don't have to worry about the z-fighting with it.

Hopefully I will get a chance to try that out this weekend. The earlier mentioned terrain techniques should help me at a later point when I'm doing larger scale terrain. Working in a .2X.4pt box on JED/ZED isnt big enough for good 'ground' to be made.