Modeling with Prefabs


Now we'll make the light. Just make an angled 
brush that will line up with the base of the arm
at the top of the pole.  Make it at least twice the
width of the arm. Now we'll add a light beam for
some  additional  eye  candy.   Go to the tutorial
here  on  light  beams.  Once  the beam  is  done
angle the beam brush and line it up so that it's
border matches the edges of the light brush.

   

Now add  some  bolts  at  the  base like the picture
above by using the cylinder option on the curves
menu.  These are four units square with a normal
endcap applied.  The only thing left to do now is to
texture our new creation.  The 'base_lights' folder
has some cool textures you could use for the light
source.  I've  used  the 'pewter_shiney'  and 'dark_
tin2' from the 'base_trim' folder to cover the pole
and   it's   base.   Once  your  happy  with  the  final 




results, select all of the brushes used to make
your new model and go to the edit option on the
tool  bar  and  select  'save selection as prefab'.
Make  sure  you  have a 'prefabs' folder  in your
baseq3  directory  and  just  save  the  selected
brushes as 'lamp.pfb' or whatever.  Now let's see
what  this  baby  looks  like. Save,  compile,  and
 launch Q3.