[Trick] Alpine Stairs, any size!

[TheDarkerSideofYourShadow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by eerieone

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]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nutomic

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.

[DaBeatzProject]

That's how the pros do it

[Nutomic]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaBeatzProject

That's how the pros do it

The pros use models

[Garner]

Splendid work

[Sergis]

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".



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.



2. Clip the steps in half.



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



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



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



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



End result:

I do that sometimes!

[Sergis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by yyler

I do that sometimes!

desertions' stairs reminded me to post this. when i looked at them with mat_wireframe on, the steps werent even being drawn

I was probably drunk when I thought it was smart to make them into displacements.

[Sgt Frag]

Not all of the steps have to be warped either. So you can make 2 of them displacements, or cut/vert edited and it will still look good. Maybe even better then having them all warped.