Qworkshop3 Tutorials

Intro.

Making stairs is not really as tricky as it might appear to the beginner. Once you get used to manipulating brushes, putting together a staircase is an easy job. You will probably save a few as prefabs too, to be used in other maps. Making these stairs modular will make later use a lot easier. When I say modular I mean that the stairs are built in grid-sized modules that can be put together in many different ways. So to begin with, we will make a simple stair module that is 64*64*64 units.

The First Module.

Set the grid to 8, and snap to grid on. Make a brush that is 64 units wide, 8 units high and 16 units deep. (Remember that the grid is set to 8.)While its selected, press 'space' to clone it and move the copy 8 units up and 16 to the side. Repeat this process until you have something that looks like the image.

To make this a bit more interesting we will put a waist high wall along the sides. Draw a brush that is 64*64*8 units and place along the side of the stair. Then use the clipper tool to cut it so that it has the same angle as the stair. You can access the clipper tool by hitting 'X'. Place the markers by clicking on the brush and hit 'enter' when it look something like the image below.

Do a similar cut on the underside if you want to, and then clone the brush and move the copy to the other side of the stair.

Now would be a good time to make this a group. Select six brushes of our pretty stair module. Hit "n" and double click on func_group in the list. You can close the entity window by hitting "n" again. Our stair module can now be selected as one brush.

I suggest that you now save this module as a prefab. Just select it and choose "save selection as prefab" in the edit menu. You can now load it into any map you are creating. I would also suggest making a special directory for every set of prefab modules that are built in a certain style. If you want to, you can clone the module and place a few in a row like in the image below. As you can see, I have added a few supports to make it more believable. You could also extend brushes on the sides down to the floor and cut them so that they align with the ground. Note how the three stair modules fit together and align to the grid.

More Modules.

The great advantage of working this way appears when you have several modules that fit together. When you are making a map in a specific style, you will probably do some work on the details and having to repeat that every time you build a stair would be very time consuming. This way you can construct the pieces need and then build all the stairs in your map from the same basic building blocks. Below are two other basic modules that are useful. You should be able to build them by looking at the images.

The modules do not have to be made for hanging in the air. Below is a stair that is made to be placed between to larger brushes.

The modules made for these examples are very simple but also very useful. Once you have a complete set, you can re-work it for different styles. Re-working all the modules at once, on a blank map makes it easy to keep the style consistent.

The Point.

You can use the grid to your advantage. The more you rely on prebuilt object, the faster you will be able to create your maps. This method, of using modular prefabs can be applied to just about anything in a map. Since making a purdy map usually involves plenty of textures, even making the basic geometry of a map can be simplified by working in this fashion.

Papa Bongo