Is it possible to cut out part of a wall?
So, I'm still trying to teach myself hammer and I have a wall but now I decided I want an alcove in the wall. I just don't know how to cut out part of the wall instead of replacing the entire thing. Is it even possible? I'm trying to use the clip tool but I'm not having much luck. I googled it but I don't get how that is supposed to only cut a small square away from my wall.
Thanks in advance.
Here's a shot of the part I want to cut out.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/ ... antcut.jpg
Yet the whole wall is selected. Can I not just pick an area to crop and cut that out?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/ ... lected.jpg
If you just want to cut out a small part of a rectangular wall, then you really should just replace it with smaller brushes and tie them together as a func_detail. This isnt recomended, but if you really want to save time, then use the carve tool, which basically cuts out one shape from another.
Yes, divide the wall to smaller parts.
Ah, thanks Screedle. I didn't even know there was a carve tool, but I can see why using it could make things very messy. I was more curious as to if it was possible to just cut a hole in something, but I guess all the time I spent figuring it out (with your help) could have been used to just redo the wall with new brushes. Haha.
Thanks again mate.
Thanks again mate.
Be careful using the carve tool. I used it the other night and it ruint my map and made this error happen which kept crashing the SDK (luckily valve sent out a patch just as I got this error and it fixed my map)
but if it happens you have to delete the things you used the carve tool on because otherwise it bomb portal 2.
Its safer to just re-construct it out of several brushes rather than carve tool as other people have said
Use clip tool instead of carve. Just make multiple clips to make the hole you want. Click "clip tool" button multiple times to change clipping mode ("remove left side/right side", "remove neither") and deselect the brush after every clip.
Carve can sometimes lead to nasty brushes so I don't recommend to use it.
Ah, the carve tool. Your trusted companion since the dawn of Hammer. 
I knew as soon as I saw this thread that I'd have to make this clarification.
The carve tool works perfectly fine for rectangular cuts. It shouldn't be used for anything more complicated than that but for rectangles it's fine.
Here's an article I wrote a few years back:
http://www.nacimota.com/2009/12/07/the- ... l-and-you/
Never ever use the carve tool.
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I agree that it causes no problems, but even in simple cases it can be annoying, because of the counter-intuitive way it makes the cuts. Usually, when I need to cut out a rectangle, it's to add a door or window to a wall. Since the carve tool makes the horizontal cuts first, you end up with the walls on either side of the hole split horizontally into two or more pieces, which makes future resizing and tweaking more of a pain. I find that I need to adjust the length of walls more often than the height, so I prefer wall and door pieces to have the initial cuts vertically, so I can easily resize the pieces on either side if needed.