[Article] Stairs and your map.
- Thread starter grazr
- Start date
1:2 would be 1 up and 2 across. So, for example. 16 units high, and 32 units long (so yes, from the side). The stairs can be as wide as you need them. But in addition to this article it would be wise to use the provided SDK vmf's for reference to better estimate the sizes involved as people are (or should be) well acquianted with these sizes ingame.
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These are 1:2 stairs: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v213/grazr/stair tut/stair1.jpg
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These are 1:2 stairs: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v213/grazr/stair tut/stair1.jpg
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It applies to both the individual stairs and the entire thing. It's not a unit measure, it's a ratio. A rise over run ratio of 1:2 means each stair is twice as deep (run) as it is high (rise).
Yea, sorry if 1:2 confused you, it is supposed to be a ratio of rate of units climbed per unit traversed forwards. Not actual literal unit sizes.
The ratio would apply to a single step (as you have figured) but would also apply to the whole staircase as a result. Unless you have included a platform at the top/bottom/middle of your staircase.
edit: Ninja post by Booj!
The ratio would apply to a single step (as you have figured) but would also apply to the whole staircase as a result. Unless you have included a platform at the top/bottom/middle of your staircase.
edit: Ninja post by Booj!
Hey, nicely done and very helpful!
Mick-a-nator
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- Feb 18, 2009
- 640
- 630
another good read. I'd say "keep it up!" but I'm not sure what you have left to do 
EDIT: evil necro bump is evil but cool by me
EDIT: evil necro bump is evil but cool by me
Well i have a few things in mind... trying to compile a comprehensive skybox brush tutorial but i'm having trouble keeping it focused as it relates a lot to roof design and optimisation... which is a little too comprehensive for one article.
I do kinda hit a number of birds with one stone with it however as existing roof tutorials are brief and pretty shitty at that so i did want to re-cover that for people.
You'll see in a couple of days what i eventually reveal unto you in yet another epicly lengthy grazr post.
I do kinda hit a number of birds with one stone with it however as existing roof tutorials are brief and pretty shitty at that so i did want to re-cover that for people.
You'll see in a couple of days what i eventually reveal unto you in yet another epicly lengthy grazr post.
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- Dec 28, 2008
- 944
- 1,152
One of the things i missed when people were discussing the use of func_lod's for the stair trims was that, as a solid entity it doesn't cut the faces of geometry. I realise this is a significant thing to miss and include at such a late point (5+ years), it is something i mention in discussions as they come and go, but when edges meet, they cause T-junctions that cut any connected geometries faces up. This includes, unfortunately, func_details. Which is why a staircase's stairs might be func_detail, but the trims func_lod. As each step would cause a tessellation in the trim. The engine has a limit on the amount of tessellations present in any one map. So a lot of brush based stairs will raise this limit quickly. Which is where converting stairs into models comes most in handy for larger or more manual brush detail intensive levels.
I thought i'd added this tid bit in, but after reading it i realised hadn't.
Also it should be added that rather than simply player-clipping stairs, it is useful to use the Blockbullets tool texture so that the stairs don't cause strange explosive habits where a step takes the rocket/sticky and the player otherwise well within the explosive radius takes no damage as the explosive "hit box" fires away from the player. This just makes gameplay more fluid than anything, smoothing out "wtf, i fired 4 rockets at his feet and he took no damage" moments. Blockbullets will have to be converted to func_detail however, as it cuts vvis.
I thought i'd added this tid bit in, but after reading it i realised hadn't.
Also it should be added that rather than simply player-clipping stairs, it is useful to use the Blockbullets tool texture so that the stairs don't cause strange explosive habits where a step takes the rocket/sticky and the player otherwise well within the explosive radius takes no damage as the explosive "hit box" fires away from the player. This just makes gameplay more fluid than anything, smoothing out "wtf, i fired 4 rockets at his feet and he took no damage" moments. Blockbullets will have to be converted to func_detail however, as it cuts vvis.
A note on that that was recently discovered by @phi though, is that if you tie both of the func_lod (or func_brush) on either side of the staircase and have their solidity set to on, any teleporter placed inside that bounding box will blow up when used.
Here's more info on it.
Here's more info on it.
This is why the staircase trims in Turbine are broken, by the way; they touch too many steps. The fix I used for Turbine2 was to just split the trims in half.
Ideally people should be using nobuilds on stairs to prevent a variety of other buggy behaviours anyway. But i could see how that would be problematic if one is converting entire rooms worth of detail to func_lod. Even still, it isn't sensible to be doing that with func_lod anyway as its primary function is controlling LoD, the clue being in the name; and controlling them in small groups just makes more sense as you'd otherwise be creating scenarios where a room's detail just "pops" into and out of existence (or does it not work like that?). I suppose it doesn't matter at this point.