Guide to make real outside area`s
Before I knew how easy it was to make cliffs and ground, I`ve been looking for tutorials how to make those. I found some but most of it was explained in text so I couldn`t really understand how it worked. Now I`ve discovered the secret of making real outside area`s, with low compile times and low r_speeds. I`ve attached many pictures to this guide so you can see how it is made. Futher more there`s a map file with the prefabs if you still don`t really understand my explanations.Well, here we go then. Make yourself compfy and get a drink, play some mp3 or whatever but make sure you start your Valve Hammer/Worldcraft Editor. Now start a new map.
Make sure you have a big grid, that will make it easy to create those cliffs. The best is the standard grid, but if you don`t have the standard you should make the grid the largerst is can be. Then make it 3 times smaller. That means clicking 3 times on the GRID MINUS BUTTON.
The screen should look like this now....
Lets make some cliffs!
Lets go ! Select the BLOCK TOOL and make a box, looking like the one I`m making on the picture below. (7x7x2) or (8x8x2). 
Now press ENTER and the block will be created. Now let`s fit the textures. Select a ground texture for outside area`s. Paste the textures on the whole block. Now you should scale the textures a bit so you will have less r_speeds and so some better performance on your maps. I scaled them 1.5, but 2 is fine too. To make it more realistic you should rotate the textures a bit. I rotated the 35 degrees. Now it should look like on the next picture.
Now we are going to cut the block into 2 pieces. FIRST, select the box with the SELECTION TOOL (the arrow). Select the CLIPPING TOOL. Now click and hold down the mousebutton on a corner of the box in the topviewof the editor. (The grid window where you can see the block from above) A little dot will come up, now hold down your mousebutton and drag the dot to the other corner of the box. Now you can see 2 dots and a white line who is cutting the block into 2 parts. It should look something like this :
Now press ENTER and you will see that the box has been cut. An important note is that the WHITE part will remain. The block is a sort of wedge now. Now select the wedge and press the SECOND MOUSEBUTTON. Select COPY in the menu. Now UNSELECT the wedge by clicking somewhere else and press the SECOND MOUSEBUTOON again in the GRID TOPVIEW. Now you must select PASTE SPECIAL.
Another window will appear and press ENTER. Now the wedge will be copied on the same place where it was. Now click again on the allready selected so you will have the ROTATION MODE. Note the 4 dots around the corners of the wedge. Now select a dot and rotate the wedge 180 degrees around so it will fit against the other wedge and form a block again.
NOTE : If you find the rotating difficult you could use this as alternative, select the rotation mode again, and now click on TOOLS (menu`s above) and then on FLIP OBJECTS. You`ll have to select HORIZONTALLY once and VERTICALLY once to make the wedge turn 180 degrees.
Now we have 2 wedges forming a block. (Note: We are still working in the GRID TOPVIEW) Now SELECT both wedges and COPY them. Now PASTE SPECIAL them again. Move the copied wedges left of the origional ones so the still touch eachother. Do this another time and now move the coppied wedges above the origional ones. Now one time more and fill up the gap to make a new block of 8 wedges. It should look like this :
Now we have the foundation for the real outside works. Select the VERTEX TOOL and click on one of the wedges. You`ll notice it will make it transparant in 3D view and showing the VERTEXES of the wedge. The VERTEXES are the corner points of the wedges. Select a VERTEX (the highest vertex) and it will showed as a little red block. Looks like this :
Now, check out the GRID SIDE (x/z) window. The selected VERTEX is red. Move this VERTEX two grids up. You can see it go up in the 3d view too.
There are 2 more wedges that have the VERTEX on the same positon as the one you just moved up. Select the wedge with the VERTEX TOOL and move the other VERTEX up 2 grids. Do this for the other wedge too. Now all the VERTEXES of the 3 wedgecorners should be on the same place. And it will look like this :
Now you can see we have created a small hill. You can move the other VERTEXES of the wedges too. Move some up and down, but make sure they keep touching eachother so the ground runs smooth. You can move vertextes up high so you have a cliff. You can make cliffs and ground fast and easy with this method. Just copy the base of the block of wedges and you can connect a piece to your just made ground.
Hope you learned much from my tutorial and I hope you understand how to make nice outside area`s. It`s been my pleasure.. for more about mapping check out my site : Hezus Mapping (www.hlrse.com/hezus)