[Trick] Alpine Stairs, any size!

Nineaxis

Quack Doctor
aa
May 19, 2008
1,767
2,820
You don't need a model to get a set of alpine style stairs that fit perfectly into your map, all you need is a few brushes and some displacing skills...

disp_stairs.jpg


Like magic, you can create your own alpine stairs of any size!

I just used a few vertex edited brushes, made the entire brushes displacements with a power of 2, and played with the axes a bit to get my set, which looks almost exactly like the prop except the texture. Now that I look at it, the two side brushes don't even need to be displacements, so this trick could just be used with individual boards if needed.
 
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Nutomic

L11: Posh Member
Feb 7, 2009
888
177
Looks really good!

But how about the performance? I knnow displacements cost less than brushes, but with that high number of them, maybe even a power of 2, it might be quite a bit.
 

Altaco

L420: High Member
Jul 3, 2008
484
120
Yeah, any more than a step or two and that's a hell of a lot of displacements.
 
Aug 19, 2008
1,011
1,158
truth be told, i can´t stand the alpine stairs being used everywhere as a cheap excuse to build normal stairs. it´s one of these props that stick out like a sore thumb and shout "sawmill" :/

neat trick though, always perfect to break the strict geometry that hammer enforces
 

TheDarkerSideofYourShadow

L10: Glamorous Member
Apr 12, 2008
792
286
truth be told, i can´t stand the alpine stairs being used everywhere as a cheap excuse to build normal stairs. it´s one of these props that stick out like a sore thumb and shout "sawmill" :/

neat trick though, always perfect to break the strict geometry that hammer enforces

Hmmm..../runs off to remove some of the many alpine stairs in his map :-/
 

Psy

The Imp Queen
aa
Apr 9, 2008
1,706
1,491
Looks really good!

But how about the performance? I knnow displacements cost less than brushes, but with that high number of them, maybe even a power of 2, it might be quite a bit.

Displacements, whilst being incredibly cheap from a performance point-of-view, can increase your filesize greatly.
 

Sergis

L666: ])oo]v[
aa
Jul 22, 2009
1,874
1,257
Using displacements is a bit of an overkill imo. If we take a look at the wireframe of a sawmill stair model, all steps consist of just 2 "blocks".

1wireframe.jpg


I'll describe a better (IMO) way to make stairs like these.

1. Make stairs with 12x8 units step size. Use 3 units high brushes for steps.

2stairs.jpg


2. Clip the steps in half.

3clip.jpg


3. Drag the middle vertices of steps 3 units down.

4movedown.jpg


4. Drag the middle vertices of a few steps 1 more unit down.

5evenlower.jpg


5. Drag the middle vertices of each step individually random distance left or right.

6randomize.jpg


6. Clip off 1/3 of a few steps.

7clip.jpg


End result:

stairs0001.jpg
 

tyler

aa
Sep 11, 2013
5,102
4,621
I was probably drunk when I thought it was smart to make them into displacements.