Clipping Spiral Staircases

[NoodleCollie]

Yes, you read right. Yes, it is possible. Here's how:

http://youtu.be/enAv6jWNHN0

And here's the end result:

Thanks also needs to go to this thread which was where I learned about how valuable instances are in the first place.

 

[Prestige]

yyler posted this like ten years ago in some random thread
http://forums.tf2maps.net/showpost.php?p=273678&postcount=8

 

[Crash]

Thanks for creating/ posting this, herbius. I never thought of using instances like that and I'm going to have to add that to my repertoire.

Your thread link is broken in the OP though.

 

[ForbiddenDonut]

On Polycount, we have a thread called "How do you model dem shapes" and it's basically an entire thread dedicated to people posting questions and solutions to challenging geometry.

I wouldn't mind seeing something similar to that here on TF2Maps.net when it comes to BSP/displacements. Of course, it is possible (and at times greatly more efficient) to just make models for TF2, but there's a sort of beauty to having such a mastery over the BSP tools.

 

[NoodleCollie]

I don't see how using yyler's method you'd be able to split the arch pieces for the clip into triangles - to just cut them the corners would have to be on grid, and I'm pretty sure even at a grid size of 1 unit they don't fall exactly on the grid points.

 

[Ælement]

I wouldn't mind seeing something similar to that here on TF2Maps.net when it comes to BSP/displacements. Of course, it is possible (and at times greatly more efficient) to just make models for TF2, but there's a sort of beauty to having such a mastery over the BSP tools.

Then it's set. Someone start a brush porn thread.

 

[LeSwordfish]

I did something similar for sundown, and slipped the corners onto grid with frantic fudging.

 

[mint onion]

THANK YOU for sharing this!

i went about creating my spiral staircase in the most ridiculous way. i used grouped blocks and manually typed in rotation values. in 5 seconds you basically created MUCH nicer stairs in what took me hours of multiple attempts.

 

[Idolon]

For what it's worth, I used the yyler method to get the spiral ramp on Ashpipe B.

 

[YM]

I've been using that method to make spiral ramps for ages.

It's also super useful for more freeform clipping, over rocks you want the player to be able to run across amongst other peculiar things. There's a whole bunch of it going on in Mann Manor and Strata.

 

[tyler]

I don't see how using yyler's method you'd be able to split the arch pieces for the clip into triangles - to just cut them the corners would have to be on grid, and I'm pretty sure even at a grid size of 1 unit they don't fall exactly on the grid points.

you have to use 32 or 16 sided arches
24 or 12 won't work

which also means the
curves are smoother overall

if all the sizes used are a power of 2,
everything is on grid,
even if it's at the 1u level

 

[A Boojum Snark]

The handful of these that I have made have always been on-grid, so I've just used the cut-in-half and skew-up-and-down method. As far as I know the arch and cylinder tool will always generate verts on-grid, which is also why I never resize them after creation.
I've also used displacements to clip spiral stairs but that requires a lot more fine tuning.

I feel like I would be worried about using instances this way to deal with off-grid clipping because by nature of being off-grid, it might end up with exposed lips to catch you, defeating the entire purpose.

edit: the edge on these https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98931/maps/TLO/05_Tower_Stairs.jpg
also here, with the displacements. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98931/MappingResources/displacementclip.JPG
you can get away with not aligning the displacements to every stair when they are walled in on the outside.

 

[ForbiddenDonut]

Not positive that this is the case for TF2 as I was doing spiral staircases in a different (later) version of Hammer, but my compiler wasn't really fond of doing tool textures on displacements.

I normally do all my spiral ramps as displacements, but I remember having to either make a clip stair using the cut/skew method or I made my own custom clip texture for displacements (but as I noted, I was working on like a modified Alien Swarm SDK, so I highly doubt that would work for TF2).

 

[A Boojum Snark]

Standard tool textures don't work on displacements, correct. I use materials made specifically for it. toolsinvisibledisplacement is one, it was Mangy's, added to the game with Yukon, and I have some custom variants with surface properties.

 

[NoodleCollie]

As far as I know the arch and cylinder tool will always generate verts on-grid

Just checked myself and they actually do. Wow, I never knew that.

 

[Pocket]

I prefer to use the ctrl-F trick to slice just the top face into two tris; saves me a few unnecessary faces and cuts the number of separate clipping brushes in half.

 

[YM]

ctrl+f will slice a face into tris? I was under the assumption it would only join two midpoints, so for an already quad face, it could only ever make two quads.

 

[TheONE]

Awesome ! Thanks herbius !

This should be added to the tutorials library ! (along with other complex geometry tutorials)

 

[Seba]

ctrl+f will slice a face into tris? I was under the assumption it would only join two midpoints, so for an already quad face, it could only ever make two quads.

That's what I thought, too; how do you do this face triangulating magickery?

 

[NoodleCollie]

Does he mean splitting a face into two? Because you could do that on the top face, merge one of the created vertices into one of the corners and then have two triangular faces.