Stairs - Any tips?

I assume it's just for cosmetics?

And what do you mean by "nice?"

If you want to make stairs with individual brushwork the steps should be about 8 units high and 16 units deep. That's pretty much the default step size Valve uses in many circumstances. In order to ensure your steps don't lower compile times I'd turn them into func_details as well. And, of course, to eliminate the insane camera jumping when a player uses the steps just make a sloping brush (like a ramp) right over the entire stairway and texture it with the "player clip" texture. It will look like stairs, but the run up and down will be smooth as if the player is running over a ramp.

Hope that helps!

make each step an L shape (rotated 90 degrees clockwise) make a gap between each step so you can see though them stagger them sensibly and then put a playerclip brush in a diagonal over the top of them (so the player runs smoothly up the stairs)
Use a simple ramp untill you add detail, adding the ramp will let you get layout testing done much quicker because if you need to change the height/length/breadth/remove completely then changing a ramp is easier than changing fully fledged stairs.
Once you've got your gap and are happy with layout try out the stair models and if none of those fit perfectly then make you're own

Dang, you beat me to it, that's pretty much what I was going to say. I had to figure it out the hard way, though, by having long compiles and jumpy motion and then figuring out how to solve the problem.

I thought I would state the obvious, though. Make a single step first, copy it, and use the "paste special' function to create multiple copies that are offset from each other.. voila, a staircase! With a bit of ingenuity you can even use paste special to make a curved staircase or spiral stairs, though I've decided that it's usually more trouble than it's worth.

Baysin said:

Dang, you beat me to it, that's pretty much what I was going to say. I had to figure it out the hard way, though, by having long compiles and jumpy motion and then figuring out how to solve the problem.

I thought I would state the obvious, though. Make a single step first, copy it, and use the "paste special' function to create multiple copies that are offset from each other.. voila, a staircase! With a bit of ingenuity you can even use paste special to make a curved staircase or spiral stairs, though I've decided that it's usually more trouble than it's worth.

Click to expand...

You can make a spiral staircase fairly simply with this tutorial: Spiral Stairs Tutorial

Its for CS:S but will work fine for TF2. I used it for my map cp_Orange_Z with good results.

Termaximus said:

You can make a spiral staircase fairly simply with this tutorial: Spiral Stairs Tutorial

Click to expand...

Oh, so THAT'S what the add height button does! I never tried it. That does look a bit easier, though what I meant by more trouble than it's worth wasn't making the steps, but dealing with the consequences... curved rails, curved walls, curved everything that's related to the staircase, plus making sure it works for gameplay, that they are easy to go up and down without getting stuck or disoriented, plus making sure they actually fit the map. TF2 maps tend to be in very utilitarian settings, where in real life you wouldn't normally see a spiral staircase.

Not saying it couldn't be done well and effectively, as it clearly can. I just decided that for what I'm doing, it really didn't make sense when something more straightforward worked just as well, if not better.

I am, however, a complete newb at this, so feel free to ignore everything I say. :blush:

Yes, I completely agree that spiral stairs don't "really" fit the TF2 theme. I think they can be good for basic fun maps though.

you can manipulate the outer edges with the vertex tool to make it fit square area quite easily, however compared to a normal staircase they are a bitch to clip im my limited experience

i got most of my ideas from looking round the valve maps and seeing how they did various walkways /ramps / staircases,

A note if you copy and paste one step to make another, and so on; if you look at your steps head on or from above you'll notice the texture is identical for every step.. This is just something i have grown to hate because the steps look blatently cloned. Give them a little scroll with your texture tool adjusting the texture scrolling by perhaps 20-30 untis either way... then your steps will all look individual.

I'll post a screen shot later demonstrating.. unless you understand without screens?

grazr said:

A note if you copy and paste one step to make another, and so on; if you look at your steps head on or from above you'll notice the texture is identical for every step.. This is just something i have grown to hate because the steps look blatently cloned. Give them a little scroll with your texture tool adjusting the texture scrolling by perhaps 20-30 untis either way... then your steps will all look individual.

I'll post a screen shot later demonstrating.. unless you understand without screens?

Click to expand...

ONLY IF YOU LEAVE "TEXTURE LOCK" ON. to solve this, press the 'tl' button at the top of the screen (so that it isnt toggled) then use shift+click and drag to copy them.

If the texture is 16 units wide by 128, like a lot of step textures.. regardless of tl the texture will simply be repeated onto the second, third and fourth steps because of tiling. Although some step textures have 2 steps on them which is helpful i find every other step being the same is still not enough when you come to walk towards a set of stairs/steps from a moderate distance. But that is just me.