Dogstar@Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 12:50 pm :
Help! I found this thread over in the tutorials and figured I'd have more luck being noticed here...

viewtopic.php?t=3329

Origin73 wrote:
cremator wrote:
This method works, but unless you have the back hidden, it's quite ugly. Here is another method that is more visually appealing to some:

Looks better in my opinion

.map file


Yeah, I copied one of Id's staircases to a test room and have been studying it. So, patch meshes are another way to go as cremator has pointed out. No dis to you PsychoDad : thanks for taking the time to write this tutorial. 8)


...Three years late :D , but any chance of someone explaining what this was all about (patch method for stairs) as none of the links in the above post work any more. :cry:


Worth a shot - I know some kind souls still reside here.



voldemort@Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 4:18 pm :
Depends are you wanting spiral stairs....Ill assume yes
they are preaty easy
Mind you Im no where near a box with D3 right now so Im going off memory you will have to interpret what Im saying maybe

first off the menu where you create a patch mesh there is the option to creat a bevel --do so
scale it to the size of one stair

now cap your bevel--that simple you have one stair section now
simply copy , stack and rotate them to create spiral stairs

the alternative method is to thicken a patch--this often works better since the patch faces all face properly then
where on the first method you may have to cycle through faces useing the shift key and flip their matrix



Dogstar@Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 7:53 pm :
Thanks for the tips. I thought there might be some way to make 'normal' steps with the patch method, rather than a spiral staircase. Unfortunately the original thread seems to be missing the files illustrating the discussion being had at the time, so it's impossible to tell...

Thanks again. Anyone else with anything to contribute - I'd appreciate it.



pbmax@Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 8:12 pm :
why do you want to make stairs with patch meshes? i'd use brushes.



DoV_Tomas@Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 1:13 am :
I had the opportunity to work in the latest iteration of the D3 engine and when we used brushes for stairs the engine would cut the polygons in weird ways so we settled on patch mesh stairs to save poly count. I don't know if this was a bug, but there it was. We'd use one mesh for the rise and another for the run, clone it a bunch of times and arrange them like stairs. Then we'd cap the end with a triangle shaped brush and backed the works with caulk.

If you thicken a patch mesh you'll get a six sided hollow form so in a sense it's like a brush. But I'm not sure what's giving you so many problems. I mean, once you have a thickened mesh, just clone it a bunch of times and arrange it like stairs. For the sides you can use a simple triangle to cap the works off. But you end up with tris and faces that aren't seen and you're taking a hit on performance for nothing. So why not use just plain old brushes?

Another thing you can do is, open the id maps and look at how they constructed their stairs - hell to save time you can just copy and paste them into your own map. They actually use a lot of triangles or three sided brushes as a design choice - for the look I suspect.



Sikkpin@Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 6:15 am :
It's actually very smart to use three-sided brushes for stairs, and should be used whenever possible, meaning whenever the sides or underneath aren't noticeable during normal gameplay, as you save four polys per brush. And since there are bound to be many steps in a common D3/Q4 map, it can help lower the overall polycount allowing you to increase detail of other, more significant geometry.



Dogstar@Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 10:09 am :
Sikkpin wrote:
It's actually very smart to use three-sided brushes for stairs, and should be used whenever possible, meaning whenever the sides or underneath aren't noticeable during normal gameplay, as you save four polys per brush. And since there are bound to be many steps in a common D3/Q4 map, it can help lower the overall polycount allowing you to increase detail of other, more significant geometry.


Good idea. I really hadn't thought about that. Thanks for the suggestion.

DoV_Tomas: yep, I have considered just 'nicking' stairs out of the game maps, but I really want to understand this stuff myself. Unlike just about everyone here, and despite being a registered forumite since 2004, I have never really delved too deeply into the Editor - until now. Years later, with all this knowledge and experience of the D3 engine here and elsewhere, I'm finding it much easier to navigate my way through all the different methods of working within the Editor - although many tuts are now dead links, many still lead to their source (and the doom3 mod wiki is a treasure trove) and there's a wealth of information about the D3 engine out there for someone like me.

It's strange - most people seem to have moved on, but I'm just starting to get a handle on the D3 Editor and really enjoying every little (tiny) success I have with it. One thing I have discovered, above all else - it's really not as difficult as it at first seems, although I'm sure I'll hit a fair few problems yet. Still, I work slow and tend to repeat every new thing I 'master' just to make sure I really understood what I just did. Doors is a good example. I've built a lot of doors of all shapes and sizes lately. :lol: Mastering 'good' stair design is my nest task.

I'm just grateful a few of you are still around to hand out hugely helpful pointers and advice. Thanks to everyone - more tips and advice always welcome.



BNA!@Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 12:42 pm :
Additionally - caulk the unseen underneath of the steps.



pbmax@Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 4:33 pm :
DoV_Tomas wrote:
I had the opportunity to work in the latest iteration of the D3 engine and when we used brushes for stairs the engine would cut the polygons in weird ways so we settled on patch mesh stairs to save poly count. I don't know if this was a bug, but there it was.


much like how model meshes need to be made up of tris, so does all of the brush work. it is quite alarming to see how the engine cuts the map up when you view the tris, but i don't think its something to worry about interms of performance...



voldemort@Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 4:54 pm :
WHile I agree with the common method of useing brushes Since you want to know how with patches its quite simple


square cylender and cap it

there you go cant get any easier then that
alternative method

use a flat patch mesh and thicken it---your best bet and simplest will be a cube cylender though
Im not near a D3 computer and since Im still out of power at home cant remote connect there but If I recall there are 3 options for creating a cylender beyond the basic one
a higher detail one
an even higher detail one (more control points)
and a square cylender

if my memory serves me correctly
shift+c is the key combo to patch a cylender



Dogstar@Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 5:39 pm :
Thanks Voldemort - I'm going to fiddle about with patches and see what transpires. I've realised just fooling about in the Editor is probably one of the best ways to learn. The trick seems to be remembering what you and how you do it.

BNA! - I've been following a fair few of your tuts and I'm mighty grateful for your help. I'm slowly (very slowly) working through the tuts still hosted. I see each one as a 'project' in itself - something new to learn every time. Of course, I'm leaving the 'tricky' stuff till I feel a bit more confident, but so far I've managed to get answers for just about everything I've run up against from here and from the Mod Wiki. I'll take your advice about using caulk on the steps. Caulk, it seems is very handy!

Maybe you can answer this: I did read that it's not necessary to caulk the 'outside' of your map as the engine cuts away unseen faces, polys, etc during BSP. So what is the best use for caulk and when is it necessary (or not)? Is caulk simply there to reduce poly processing?



BNA!@Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 6:35 pm :
Dogstar wrote:
Maybe you can answer this: I did read that it's not necessary to caulk the 'outside' of your map as the engine cuts away unseen faces, polys, etc during BSP. So what is the best use for caulk and when is it necessary (or not)? Is caulk simply there to reduce poly processing?


Excessive "caulking" comes from the days of Quake 3 Arena mapping. Basically every unseen brushface got caulked.

The best use of caulk still is for every unseen but solid brushface, especially since caulk is also blocking vis.
If you build patch geometry it's good practice to seal them from the void with caulk brushes.

You can handle caulk more liberally as in Q3A, but I still try to caulk every face of a brush if it's unseen. I'm not exactely sure how the engine treats surfaces, but iirc they get sloped together for later lighting operations. Having a whole bunch of polygons with caulked surfaces theoretically means an exclusion from later testing against light volumes and therefore better performance.

Depending on where you stand on the ladder of mapping and & optimizing I'd consider it a question to tackle when you've reached deads end with cleverly placing lights and such. The punchline is: If you can't see it, then you'll never go wrong with a caulked brushface.



dsm@Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 7:08 pm :
Using patches to create spiral stairs? Interesting. So far, I've just been using brushes (with caulk for every unseen brush) for the stairs and patches for the rounding walls, but my style might be kinda messy and less hardware friendly.

Quote:
It's actually very smart to use three-sided brushes for stairs, and should be used whenever possible, meaning whenever the sides or underneath aren't noticeable during normal gameplay, as you save four polys per brush. And since there are bound to be many steps in a common D3/Q4 map, it can help lower the overall polycount allowing you to increase detail of other, more significant geometry.

See, now I get one of these annoying "why-didn't-I-think-of-that-myself?" moments :P
It's so absurdly simple and logical that I could kick myself for not thinking it up myself. Good call and thanks for the tip, mate.



DoV_Tomas@Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:33 am :
Drawing all your brushes out of caulk and texturing only the visible faces is best practice.

Quote:
...much like how model meshes need to be made up of tris, so does all of the brush work. it is quite alarming to see how the engine cuts the map up when you view the tris, but i don't think its something to worry about interms of performance...


Hobbyists working on relatively simple maps don't have to loose sleep over the odd extra poly to be sure. However, for complex maps - especially commercial releases - every little thing seems to impact on performance. Overhead is a constant headache and you design with the poly counter on. It's a shame when you have to hack out beautiful geometry because the maps starts to crawl which sadly seems to happen usually when its nearly completed. Not so bad for small rooms with good vis, but it becomes a bitch in larger spaces.