Slopes, as per the old forums

[Max-Violence]

OnTheBounce
One Who Groks Mapping
Posts: 1644 #7 Nov 14, 01 - 11:22 PM




There are two types of slope: steep and gentle. The former rise one level of elevation for every world unit they run, the latter rise one elevation for every six units they run.

Before you do anything else: go to “View� and turn on “Show Tile Bounding Box�. This will make this process much easier and spare you quite a bit of eye strain.

Let's cover the gentle slope first, since they're the easier of the two to build. The great thing about these is that since they're the same size as normal floor tiles you don't have to worry about alignment nearly as much as you do with the other type. All you have to do, is to look at the tiles and determine which ones are going in the direction that you want your slope to go. This can be a bit tricky, so don't be afraid to select a tile and place it experimentally. There are also tiles that serve as corners in there, but more on them in a bit.

In order to line up your slope with the other floor tiles, just place the first level of slope at the edge of the floor tiles, but one level higher. The others on the same level you just place next to that one just as though you were building a normal floor. The next level of slope will go one level higher, and so forth until you have gotten to the level that you want to place your next flat surface. Your last level of slope should be at the same level that your first flat tiles on that level will be.

The corners are easy to put in. All you have to do is place them…well, in the corner of your slope. However, it can be a challenge to find a tile that is “bent� the right way. Again, don’t be afraid to experiment, placing them on blank ground to better see their graphic outline.

That’s pretty much it for the gentle slope. One last word of caution: it is best to make sure that your sloped tiles are lined up with the lower ground tiles when you start placing them. This is especially true if you’re working with any kind of slope other that the brown “dirt� tiles. If you for some reason need a sloped tile that is narrower than 6 units, go to the following folder:

Ruined City/Road/Slope/Cliff Face

There you will find narrower sloped tiles. Some of them even have Nifty™ rocks on them so that you can dress your map up a bit. Also, remember to vary the sloped tiles you use. If you use the same tile to build your slope with there will be a noticeable pattern on it that will be rather… “unappealing�. (That is to say that it will look like shit.)

Okay, now on to the harder part: steep slopes.

Steep slopes can be a real headache. Since they go up one elevation for every world unit of “run� they can present some problems in getting everything lined up properly between levels. One solution is to have all of your slopes go up a number of elevations that is divisible by 6. The other solution is to build the next level of flat tiles first. Let’s say that you want to go to level 8 up from level –1, which is your default. Let’s also say that your slope is going to start in the west, and slope upward to the east.

1) Start by placing a line of flat tiles that will be the first row of your next higher level. Do this somewhere off in blank space, as this will make the final step much easier. Again, you can get a bit adventurous and put a few undulations in the line to break up the monotony a bit.

2) Now that that’s done, you will notice that there are three types of the steeply sloped tiles. Some have a rounded edge at the top and these go at the top of the slope. Others have a lip at the bottom and � you guessed it � they go at the bottom of your slope. The third type is straight on both the top and bottom and they go on all of the middle levels of your slope.

3) Start by selecting all of the tiles that run in the correct direction and that are six units wide. (If you don’t know, you can select multiple tiles by pressing and holding “Shift� and then left-clicking on as many tiles as you’d like. You can then simply point-and-click and a randomly selected tile will be placed. I recommend this as it saves loads of time. You can always go back and place different tiles in the places where you don’t like the way the tiles look.) You are going to place these at the same level (level 8 for our example) as the higher level of floor tiles. Make sure you’re lining up the sloped tiles with the floor tiles. (That bounding box comes in very handy here, saving you loads of time.) When you come to a corner you will notice that they come in two different shapes. The ones that look like they have a floor tile attached to them require that you delete one of the floor tiles on your upper level. The other style does not require this. At this point, everything should line up perfectly and there will be no need to use the smaller tiles to fill in those pesky gaps that will develop later. So once you’re done with that, go on to the next step…

4) Next, select all of the tiles that I told you go in the middle levels. Set your elevation level one lower (level 7 for the first one) and move the tiles one world unit over. Make sure that you line up the place you’re starting at with the last level. It will make things much easier when it comes to corners. Start laying those tiles ‘til you come to a corner. Now, just like the lanes of a racetrack aren’t equally long, so will you start to run into this problem with each level below the first. This is one of the primary reasons that we started at the top and are working our way down. You are going to have to place one of the smallest tiles on either side of the corners to make up for the fact that this level is longer. For every level you go down, this will increase by one, so on the next level you will need to place two, etc. There are also larger tiles that will fit these gaps, so you don’t have to place a bunch of one unit wide tiles.

5) Continue to repeat step 4 until you have are ready to place tiles on level 0, which � for the purposes of our example � is one level above the lower ground. For this level you will need the sloped tiles with a rounded “lip� at the bottom. All you have to do here is exactly what you’ve been doing with the other levels, except that you’re using different tiles. Continue along in your now veteran slope-building fashion until you’ve completed your slope, then go to the next step.

6) Now it’s time to move the slope and line it up with the other, lower level of floor tiles. The reason that we built this entire mess out away from everything else is so that we can use this Nifty Trick™: Go into Select mode (F1 key) and set your level indicator to 0 (where it should be since you just finished that level of slopes on level 0). Now, press and hold Alt, then click and hold while you drag the Selection Bounding Box around all of your slope. This will select everything from the lowest to the highest elevation. Once you’ve gotten the whole thing selected you can move everything by pressing Ctrl + arrow keys until you have your slope lined up with the edge of the lower level of floor tiles. (The ones at level –1.)

As a final step, go in and remove all of the floor tiles that are concealed by the curves in your slope. There’s no sense in keeping them there since all they will do is eat up resources.

Now, you’re probably wondering what those odd little triangles are for. Those are for slopes that face away from the camera. The same rules apply to laying these as to the other type, except that using the Tile Bounding Box is even more important here.

If anything is unclear, take a look at slopes in the various mission maps included with the game. If something is still unclear, feel free to post again and I’ll see what I can do.

Cheers,

OTB

Adding excess to excellence since 1970.â„¢