Derspegn on 16/5/2018 at 14:10
My mission is not congested with polys, objects or brushes. In one house, I have a staircase with solid brush steps that optimized fine. The house rooms consist of solid brushes with air brushes inside them, and are separated by a smaller airbrush linking the stairs from the ground floor to the upper floor. In the screenshot below, the smaller airbrush stops short of the end of the stairs without reaching the end of the final step.
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/eLPWPet.pngHowever, when I've tried to include additional steps in another building using the same method, be they solid cubes or Ottoj55's spiral staircase, when I optimize (Build Rooms, Build AI Rooms, Build Pathfinding, Optimize, Save .cow), I get the error message as shown in the next photo. In the second building I originally had individual solid brushes containing air brushes as rooms. After looking at the FM "The Secret Way" (TDP), I've since minimized brushes by partitioning one main air brush with a solid brush for a central wall.
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/yTSzVsd.pngI'm editing in DromEd 2, but I've looked at "The Secret Way" for TDP as a reference point. In "The Secret Way" (TDP), the steps have a depth of 1.00, but their corners overlap a bit to allow the player to climb. Elsewhere, it was recommended the steps have a depth of 0.75.
I get the same error regardless if the cube stairs overlap or not. The spiral stair multibrush (Spiral1.vbr) stairs seem to overlap only slightly, and the steps mainly sit atop one another. It also doesn't matter if I remove the airbrush cylinder for the multibrush. It won't optimize correctly.
So I get the messages "polygon spans more than one brush", "polyhedron didn't cross plane", and "try to locate and tweak the problematic location or brush". The problem is, I don't know what is problematic or how to locate it.
When I clone a small portion of the stairs in the first photo and bring them over to the second building, they will portalize. However, if I include a larger amount of stair cubes, the mission will not optimize.
Unna Oertdottir on 16/5/2018 at 14:43
1. Don't build terrain brushes outside the limits (red lines surrounding everything). Check this first, it might accidentally happen.
2. Snap the brushes to the grid.
3. Always unstick multibrushes first, then snap it to the grid and optimize.
Derspegn on 16/5/2018 at 14:55
Quote Posted by Unna Oertdottir
1. Don't build terrain brushes outside the limits (red lines surrounding everything). Check this first, it may accidentally happen.
2. Snap the brushes to the grid.
1. My terrain brushes are well within the red lines (it's a rather small mission).
2. It still fails to portalise when snapping brushes to the grid (size 12). After loading group for spiral staircase (Spiral1.vbr), I followed the instructions by typing "hilight_check_snap", "hilight_do_snap", and "highlight_clear", and it still won't portalise.
Unna Oertdottir on 16/5/2018 at 16:02
The instructions for (rotated) multibrushes are
hilight_check_snap 1
hilight_do_snap 1
hilight_check_snap
hilight_do_snap
Derspegn on 18/5/2018 at 07:49
Ah, thanks for clarifying! :D
Zontik on 18/5/2018 at 11:34
I don't think overlapping such a way is a good idea. Too many extra cells on each side surface. Plus, your staircase has 45 degree angle, which is another bad idea. 1*0.75 or 1*0,5 looks better and is smoother for walking.
john9818a on 18/5/2018 at 22:26
If you are placing solid brushes as steps in an air brush try making the steps go all the way down to the floor of the air brush. Also I usually make my steps .75 high and 1.00 deep. Each step should be .75 higher than the previous step.
nicked on 19/5/2018 at 05:49
Or if you have enough room for shallower stairs, you can go 1 high by 2 deep.
Best bet for stairs though is to start with a solid wedge ramp and cut steps out of it with cubic air brushes. You can then add the space back in under the stairs with a smaller, air brush wedge.
Derspegn on 25/5/2018 at 13:42
Quote Posted by nicked
Or if you have enough room for shallower stairs, you can go 1 high by 2 deep.
Best bet for stairs though is to start with a solid wedge ramp and cut steps out of it with cubic air brushes. You can then add the space back in under the stairs with a smaller, air brush wedge.
Great advice. Today I looked at "A Sorrowful Farewell" (T2 FM). It has a good example of stairs made from solid and air wedges. Also interesting to note the time placement from each brush.