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Meshes

Convert to Brushes

Convert to Brushes turns a placed static mesh (.v3m) into brushes you can edit in Brush mode. Each part of the mesh becomes one brush, with the mesh's textures and texture coordinates. Converted brushes are level geometry, so the lighting bake lights them like the rest of the level. Use it for a prop that must sit in baked shadow in the game: the game cannot shadow a placed mesh with the level's geometry.

Where to find it

Select one mesh object, right-click in a view and choose Convert to Brushes, just below Morph. The command is greyed unless exactly one mesh object is selected.

How to use it

  1. Select the mesh object.
  2. Right-click in a view and choose Convert to Brushes.
  3. If every part of the mesh converts to a closed solid, the brushes are made straight away. Otherwise, if the mesh can be converted as surfaces, the Convert to Brushes window asks how to convert the open surfaces (see below). Choose and click Convert.
  4. Read the message. It says how many brushes were made and what was repaired or closed.
  5. The original mesh stays where it is. Hide it or move it to see the brushes. While it stays visible in the editor, it also casts its own shadow in the lighting bake. See Mesh shadows.
  6. Switch to Brush mode (Shift+B) to edit the brushes. They are selected after the conversion.
  7. Rebuild the geometry (Space). See Rebuild Geometry.

Edit, Undo (Ctrl+Z) removes all the brushes of one conversion in one step.

One brush per part

  • Every part of the mesh becomes one brush, whatever materials it uses. Separate pieces inside one part stay in that one brush.
  • Different parts are never joined, even where they touch.
  • A part whose surface is closed becomes an ordinary brush.
  • A part with open surfaces becomes a detail brush with see-through faces, holding both its solid sections and its open surfaces.
  • The new brushes are added at the end of the build order.

Open surfaces

When a part is not a closed solid, the Convert to Brushes window opens. Parts that are already closed stay solid, and the choices apply only to the surfaces that remain open.

  • Close planar openings (ticked at first): closes flat openings with new faces, so those sections become solid, and joins solid sections that touch. An opening can be closed if it is flat to within 0.1 mm and has at most 64 corners. The new faces get projected texture coordinates. If closing a part's openings would give an uncertain result, that part keeps the surface choice below, and the message says so.
  • Face Brush - no thickness (the default): each open surface becomes a face visible from both sides, with no depth.
  • Add thickness: each open triangle gets depth behind it. Type the depth in Thickness (metres):, from 0.001 to 10. It starts at 0.05. The new edge faces get generated texture coordinates.

The window remembers your choices until you close the editor. Cancel leaves the level unchanged.

Small repairs

To close seams, RED+ may move vertices that already almost meet, by at most 0.001 metres. It also removes surfaces inside a solid and merges matching faces that lie in one plane. When it converts surfaces, it skips duplicate and collapsed triangles. The message after the conversion counts each of these.

What it refuses

A message explains what stopped the conversion. It refuses:

  • A selection that is not exactly one mesh object.
  • Character meshes (.v3c) and effects (.vfx).
  • A mesh made of several parts that has texture overrides in Mesh Properties. Convert a copy without overrides.
  • A mesh with more than 8,192 triangles in its most detailed version.
  • A mesh with a missing texture, missing texture coordinates or a triangle with no material. Make sure its textures load before converting.
  • A material that uses additive, subtractive or another special blend. Brushes support opaque textures and normal alpha blending. The message names the part and material slot.
  • Geometry that cannot be converted safely, either as a solid or as surfaces. The message gives the reason.
  • A conversion that would need more brushes, faces or IDs than the editor has free.

The source mesh is never changed.