Curved corridors and staircases

[MajorRawne]

Hi, I wonder if someone can advise me how to create "curved" areas such as corridors and staircases. In one map I'm working on now I had the insane and pointless idea to build a curved staircase that loops around a room and has windows into the room. I'll post a screenie if anyone needs one.

I am better with words than images, so can someone advise me on basic tips to make the images in my head appear onscreen??

[ReX]

I'm guessing you'll be using DooM Builder 2, with which I have just a passing familiarity, so I'll provide general instructions; the basic principle will be the same regardless of the map editor you use.

1. To build a circular stairway you'll first need to create a circular corridor.
2. Create a circular sector with the desired radius and number of linedefs. The more linedefs (up to a maximum of 32, I believe) you give, the more smoothly curved the walls will look.
3. Give it the sector attributes you desire (textures, flats, lighting, floor & ceiling heights).
4. Starting from the center of the circular sector, create a circular 'void' sector. Its radius will depend on how wide you want your stairway/corridor to be. If you want it to be 256 units wide, simply draw your void circle to be 256 units smaller.
[One thing to keep in mind that you'll probably find promotes ease of editing is to draw your circles so that the North, South, East, West linedefs fall on the map's grid lines. This makes it easier to move vertices when you're using snap-to-grid mode.]
5. If you're creating a circular room inside the circular void, follow the same steps above.
6. Connect your corridors to your circular inside room with windows and doors in the same way you'd normally do.
7. If you're making the corridor into stairs, make your stairs in the same way that you'd make regulare stairs in a corridor.
8. If you're connecting the circular stairway to an inside room, keep in mind the rising height of the stairs, and adjust your window and door heights accordingly.

As an alternative, drop a "pre-fab" that someone else already has created into your map.

If you'd like an example wad just ask.

[MajorRawne]

Thanks ReX, I will try it your way first but would definitely like an example map to compare my efforts against. I've never been very artistic and am finding it challenging to make my mental images appear on the screen. Fuuny how a person can be competent with words but useless with images!

[Kappes Buur]

MajorRawne said:

Hi, I wonder if someone can advise me how to create "curved" areas such as corridors and staircases.....

The easy way, of course, would be the 'Stair Sector Builder Mode' plugin.

If indeed you are using Doombuilder2, that is.

[Krispy]

You know about the 'curve linedef' function right? Just checking

[Phml]

My own process:
- I draw one rectangle-shaped square.
- I curve one line.
- I curve the line parallel to the previous one.
if making stairs
- I link each couple of opposing vertices with a linedef
- I select all sectors and raise them with the hotkey, deselecting one by one as I go

The above seems to work ok for me. Tried the stairs plugin but couldn't wrap my head around it. It's probably more efficient if you can figure it out though so try that first.

[ReX]

MajorRawne said:

...would definitely like an example map to compare my efforts against.

I can whip up an example wad for you, if you wish. Just send me the dimensions you'd like (i.e., radius to the outer wall of the corridor, width of the corridor, thickness of the inner wall, radius of the inside room, heights of the corridor & room, and whether or not you want the circular stairway to go completely around the inner room, or if you want symmetrical stairways to the East/West (or North/South the inner room.)

[printz]

Krispy said:

You know about the 'curve linedef' function right? Just checking

I don't like that feature at all. It results in maps made of arcs so obviously automatically.

[TimeOfDeath]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I just draw the curved area roughly (sectors mode, start drawing with right mouse click) and then add vertices in vertices mode with right mouse button if needed and move vertices while holding right mouse button.

[Phobus]

I have to admit that I'm with ToD here - I can't imagine where the difficulty is.

[darkreaver]

TimeOfDeath said:

Maybe I'm missing something, but I just draw the curved area roughly (sectors mode, start drawing with right mouse click) and then add vertices in vertices mode with right mouse button if needed and move vertices while holding right mouse button.

This.

Steer awy from stair-building plug-ins etc. It might be the easiest way, but also very unoriginal and boring (in lack of better words to explain).

[MajorRawne]

Hi everyone, thanks for all the replies. I'm working on a map where everything is quite cramped together, so not only am I struggling to visualise certain things, I'm having to cramp it all to fit.

I should have made it clear that I am trying to create curved stairs from a section that is currently square. I'll post screenies in the morning.

By the way, every time I use the curve sector tool I get nonsensical shapes that curve in on themselves, but I'll spend some time playing with that tomorrow.

[Phml]

Personally, I don't see the purpose in painstakingly reproducing, often with worse results for me due to lack of dexterity with a mouse, what an automated feature will do.

I only learnt about the curve feature way down the line, I'm willing to bet looking at my various maps ingame, without the automap, you wouldn't be able to tell which curved corridors were done by hand and which were done by the tool, the only difference being the ones done by hand took ten times longer... Likely someone using the stair-building plugin properly would achieve the same result even faster.

Your position as presented seems awfully close to hipster bullshit to me, darkreaver, so perhaps you should try finding better words to explain so people like me don't get the wrong idea; i.e. look at me, I'm building my stairs vertex by vertex instead of catering to The Man and his more efficient tools.

(I'm not saying nobody can build stairs more efficiently by hand, but I'm saying not everyone will. So claiming everyone should avoid automated tools is just silly in my opinion.)

Bottomline, if nobody can see the difference you just spent time for nothing; and if your implied argument is that every single set of stairs, regardless of the context, should have unusual shapes, I'd throw that opinion in the same pit of stupid ideas as "symmetry is always bad", "no angle should be 90°" and "you should always turn the grid off". To replace conformism with another self-made brand of conformism for the sake of being different not only misses its objective but doesn't lend itself to good design. "I'm doing this thing because it's not like that other thing" creating a loop of negative feedback rather than "I'm doing this thing because it has this interesting effect" focusing on what any given choice brings to the game experience.

[darkreaver]

I need to look at the stairs plug-in again before I ramble any more vomit in this thread ;P

edit: I have a tendency to do many things the hard way, but I don`t really know why. I`ve been planning to make a thread about this for a while, but I never got around to do so.
For instance, I make my stairs in visual mode, instead of using the "gradient floor" tool, I curve my lines vertex by vertex, even though using the curve tool would save me so much time, and so on. I really have no idea why I do these things.
I also don`t like plugins and such that "makes stuff for you" even though I have no reason to not like- and even use them.

I mean, if I`m afraid that every stairs will look alike, I can easily edit them afterwards, so I dunno. Guess I`m a freakish elitist hipster ;P

[pming]

Hiya.

Well, if you want "odd shaped" curved stairs/walls, you can always use the Stair plugin for DB2 and use the "Catmull Rom" function. It lets you draw a sort of Bezier-curve style wall. You choose the number of 'sections/stairs' it has, and you can add/subtract conrol points to manipulate the curve. Theres no way I can describe it accurately without pictures or video, so I'll just say "go play with it". It's really easy to use and can produce some really "organic" looking walls/stairs. :)

[Phml]

I mean, if I`m afraid that every stairs will look alike, I can easily edit them afterwards, so I dunno. Guess I`m a freakish elitist hipster ;P

Hey, as long as what you do works for you, that's fine. If you start saying everyone should do the same without bringing up good points supporting that argument, though... I reserve the right to hurl (hopefully) minor abuse at you. Regardless, I still love your maps. ;)

Been thinking about the other side of the argument and perhaps a case could be made for automated tools leading one to essentially recreate the same shape over and over and call it good enough, staying in their comfort zone forever, rather than going through a more demanding process and use that as an opportunity to tweak things up. I'm certainly guilty of that at times. Still, time is a limited resource and given different preferences, for some of us it might make sense to streamline certain things we don't care about so we can give greater focus to things we do care about.