Perfect Spiral Staircases

[AluminumHaste]

Hey I just found this tutorial and I must say it's the best I've seen for making perfect spiral staircases out of brushes and patches that snap to gridlines. Look what I made in 10 minutes!!!

 

I've modified the steps in the Tutorial so that I could have bigger/more steps, but it still works as long as it's a multiple of 4 (4,8,16 etc.) so that the stairs meet at gridpoints. I used 16 for my patches, but had to change the grid to 0.5 so that the points lined up with the grid. I think that if you changed the Patch to be 32 sided you'd need to go down to 0.25 for the grid etc.

Here's the original Link: http://www.phobosanomoly.sd95.co.uk/articl...iral_stairs.php

 

I tried doing something like this in the past but the points never aligned with the grid, now they do holy shit it looks and works GREAT!!! I hope others find this useful.

[AluminumHaste]

So did this work for you guys? Any questions?

[greebo]

Seriously, what did you expect? There've been approximately 11 hours since your first post - people need more time.

[AluminumHaste]

Seriously, what did you expect? There've been approximately 11 hours since your first post - people need more time.

 

LOL sorry I just get so excited.

[Komag]

Fidcal also has been working in this, you can see his thread in the member forums below

[New Horizon]

Indeed, it's in the beta section..you should be able to see it.

[AluminumHaste]

Indeed, it's in the beta section..you should be able to see it.

 

Yup I found it, but it looks like the outside of the steps aren't lined up with the outer patch.

[BEAR]

A little late but I did this and it worked like a charm. His tutorial didn't make a huge amount of sense but I eventually figured it out while I was making my own thing.

[sparhawk]

Can you point out, where teh tutorial could be improved?

[BEAR]

I kind of used a little bit of an amalgam of the wiki article and the posted link. I think in the end mine ended up more like the wiki article, but using methods more like the link. I got mine to line up perfectly pretty easy, but I used a centerpiece like the wiki (my stairs are much like the wiki's). I was a little unsure while reading the linked article when to do certain things - it doesn't say "create a brush" it just refers to a brush like you've already got it.

 

It kind of doesn't make sense until it makes sense. Now reading it it makes perfect sense because I already know it, but when I first started looking at it it kind of confused me until I realized how to do it and just kind of figured it out on my own.

 

Now I just need to figure out how to make a door :-/ (in a tower made of patches I mean, I can make a door)

[DigitalNapalm]

@ greebo:

Could this process be automated? I mean if its this simple to do with patches and a redundant operation, would it not be possible to have a function where one could enter a few params, then have the editor crank out a staircase in a couple seconds?

 

An older version (v#?) of UEd could do this. All you did was enter the inner and outer radii, and the total height of the staircase (maybe the stair height as well...), and it would calculate it for you, and have the brush ready to go. Maybe not for 0.9.8, but possible for 0.9.9?

[SneaksieDave]

I'd personally hope a luxury like that would be very low priority. There is much more important and even vital work to be done on DR. As an example: automatic spiral staircases, or new renderer with proper realtime lighting?

[greebo]

I envision DarkRadiant supporting its own Python-based scripting interface (using boost::python). This way it would be possible to script entire command sequences or even record macros, without having to recompile the source. Got a new command? Just plug it into the Command Library and assign a shortcut to it.

 

It worked great for Blender (think about the ASE exporter, which is nothing but a python script). It's a long way until we reach that point, but that's where I want the editor to be. We need to get all systems to support a clean interface first, which is not the case right now.

[Tels]

I envision DarkRadiant supporting its own Python-based scripting interface (using boost::python). This way it would be possible to script entire command sequences or even record macros, without having to recompile the source. Got a new command? Just plug it into the Command Library and assign a shortcut to it.

 

It worked great for Blender (think about the ASE exporter, which is nothing but a python script). It's a long way until we reach that point, but that's where I want the editor to be. We need to get all systems to support a clean interface first, which is not the case right now.

 

My initial plan was to add such an interface (but using Perl because I ain't gonna learn a new language without need). Of course I have been hopelessly sidetracked