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Using Multibrushes, By Jason Otto 5/28/06
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Introduction:

The multibrush is one of the most powerful tools in the Thief tool box, it is also
one of the most misunderstood and feared.  Many argue that you shouldn't use the 
multibrush because it can lead to a variety of errors include the splitportal and 
clipalloc error.  This view is wrong if the brush is used correctly.  The 
multibrush is a collection of brushes that can be manipulated as a whole.
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Creating Multibrushes:

There are two methods for creating multibrushes, both work and depend on what you
want to work with.

Area Brushing:

Create an area brush.  manipulate the area brush so it surrounds the piece of the
mission you wish to work with as a multibrush.  In the menu at the bottom center
of the DromEd window select "Me Only".  The brush will turn yellow indicating that 
it is a multibrush now.

Shift Selecting:

After selecting a single brush, hold the shift key, as you select more brushes they
are added to the multibrush, the brushes can be selected in either the wireframe
windows or the 3d preview window.  A brush can be deselected by holding shift and
selecting it as well.  This may be useful to remove brushes from the group if it 
was created with an area brush.
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Importing/Exporting a Brush:

Once a multibrush is created you can save it for later use.  Using Komags menus 
select multibrush>save group.  Brushes can be loaded using multibrush>load group.

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Manipulating brushes:

There are two ways of manipulating brushes, you can enter exact numbers in the 
x,y,z coordinates, or drag the brush, additionally the brush can be rotated by 
entering h,p,b values or holding the alt key.

In either case once the brush as been placed it should be snapped.  Multibrushes
do not snap to the grid and a lot of problems can occur if they are not snapped.

First deselet the brush by picking any brush not associated with the multibrush.
Next change the grid size to 14.  Then type the comman hilight_check_snap into the 
command box.  All brushes not snapped to grid 14 are hilighted yellow, including 
brush that may be outside a currently active area brush.  Now change the grid to 
12.  Type the command hilight_do_snap to snap the brushes to a grid of 12.  This 
will prevent brushes in the multibrush smaller than grid 14 from being resized as
they are snapped.  Now type hilight_clear to deselect the hilight brushes.  Save
the mission with a new name and attempt to portalize/optimize it.

If the brush was rotated you may have to snap it for rotation, these commands are
hilight_check_snap 1, hilight_do_snap 1 and hilight_clear.

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The Effect:

Viola, you have a new piece of brush work that has been quickly added or moved.
You can even multibrush in pieces of different missions to create something.  Bits
of the mansion from Blackmail and Casing the Joint can become the basis of a new
mansion.

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Application:

Moving terrain features quickly, adding terrain features from other missions, 
making copies of terrain features quickly, repetative pillars or steps.

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Other Issues:

Textures are a big mess in multibrushing.  When things are moved the texture are 
likely to get misaligned, you'll likely have to realign all the textures after
moving a brush.  Brushes from other missions or even older version of your mission
will appear with all the wrong textures.  The multibrush "knows" its texture 
palette, not the current one, textures are numbers, so if the multibrush wants
texture 1 it with select the current texture 1 to fill the spot, even if its a 
different texture altogether.  You can attempt to match the palettes before saving 
the brush, but its a difficult trick.  It is also possible to import mulitbrushes
from Thief: The Dark Project (or Gold) into Thief 2.  This is easiest if you forget
about the textures.  In DromEd 1 for Thief 1 use the "Remove From Level" command
for each texture, when all the textures are gone save the mission as a .cow file.
This can be reopened in DromEd 2 for Thief 2.  Now you can work with it.  Its
easier to dump the textures because for the most part Thief 2 textures are better
and you would retexture it anyway.  If you wish to preserve the textures there is
a tutorial available at the link below.

http://www.thief-thecircle.com/dromed/displaysubject.asp?titleID=69&title=Dromed%201%20to%202%20Conversion&sub=Miscellaneous