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Author Topic: Smooth curved surf ramps  (Read 1673 times)
Maggot
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Posts: 4
I need to know how to make absolutely seamless curved surf ramps that will have no chance (or an extremely low chance) of stopping a player mid-surf. I'm attempting to create something akin to the 2nd jump of the first course on BAQu_a2: a large inward circular curve.

My current method is identical to this one
Creating Smooth Outward Curves with Hammer
but all the operations are horizontal rather than vertical, if that makes sense (i.e. rotations on the z-axis, the clip tool is applied from the top view).

However, when I line up the ramps so that the edges are coincident, there's massive and frequent loss of speed; they appear smooth, but they are not smooth at all. Slightly overlapping the edges makes surfing in the overlapped direction smoother, but not without frequent bumps. BAQu's jurfs have the occasional, very rare ramp glitch, but they are nothing like this. Can anyone let me in on the secret to making these things well?
   
Maggot
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Posts: 7
You should probably find Kelao, Panzer, or Diealready. They are probably the people that know most about map making and "used", to play on the Surf server.


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I play games, you?
   
Maggot
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Posts: 4
Ha, hope I'll be able to find them now that the server's down. I'll make a note to ask one of 'em.

In the meantime, anyone else's tips will be much appreciated!
   
Offline  QuBA
Soldier
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Posts: 134
Afaik the segments need to overlap for the ramps to work (for inward circles at least). If that didnt work for you maybe try more overlap. Look at the ramps in 4starters, they work pretty well and have huge overlap.

But im no expert, cant even get my own ramps to work^^
   
Offline  Drexen
Rocketeer
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Posts: 282
Ok... I don't see why you guys say they have to overlap, I'm gonna go try making some surf ramps then i'll let you know if i can get them to work fine...

edit:

alright... i hate surfs

after messing around i can't get it to work perfectly, sometimes you get randomly thrown into the air...

i set it up using triangles, rotating each pair, realigning each vert, then moving it down 1 unit. if anyone can get it to work well i'd like to know.



also, seems if you do align it all perfectly, you get bumped when you surf between each of the triangle pairs, kinda lame

also also, i have the vmf if you would want to see it in hammer
« Last Edit: February 03, 2012, 04:57:23 AM by Drexen »
   
Offline  Wolsk
Rocketeer
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Posts: 301
i love you
You could always try to decompile a map that has flawless surfing to see how they did it.
Of course, flawless surfs are incredibly hard to make from what I've seen in maps.


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klanana:  I DID NOT EAT THE CAT
dellort: This mod is pretty cool, just wish the devs would fix the bug that allows MIKE to play on it.
   
Maggot
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Posts: 4
But im no expert, cant even get my own ramps to work^^

Well, yours are leagues ahead of what I have so far anyway... I've tried adding more overlap but I still get the occasional bump, even when there's almost a full square of the first ramp hanging over. I'll keep messing around with these until I have a real solution, I guess.

edit - With the vertex alignment method (make ramp, duplicate, rotate, align corners, repeat) and with ramps double the size of my previous ones I've gotten the whole thing to be slightly smoother. This is probably nothing to do with the method and more to do with the fact that there are just half the junctions to balls up on. Still, if I can surf on the thing for ten minutes and find even one glitch in that time, that's too many.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2012, 05:00:31 PM by antihack »
   
Maggot
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Posts: 49
i know its been a month since this was created, but after Quba referenced me i thought i might add my 2 cents here too :)

what helped me with the ramps:
take care that the angle between each segment isnt too high, to avoid bumping the corners
so: make more segments for the same ramp, to smooth it out if you have to
second: when the ramp feels awkward make it steeper and see if it is better afterwards - remember, the steeper the ramp, the less chance you have of randomly bumping into an edge thats not *steep enough* and makes you just stand there

if you look at the last ramp of my c course you can see how steep it is - it can still be surfed, and as far as i remember i never stucked on it - if and when i got stuck it mostly was the second ramp, somewhere in the middle... sometimes on the first if i take it too high and in the wrong angle - might have to add more segments there, but too lazy to fix that, havent seen too many people bump anyways...

also: i havent tried making clean ramps yet, i have no idea if this works for *cleaned up* ramps too, though i imagine source might get confused on clean edges, and the ramps might get bumpier after cleanup, because of the limitations source has vertex-align-wise (cant get below 1 hammer unit, without your edges messing up majorly... also try making a straight ramp and put a clip right beside it, but not into it, so the edges align, youll be able to stand and walk on top of the ramp because 1 unit edges are enough for players to walk on ... so that too could create problems along the seams)

so: make the ramps overlap in both directions to make sure those problems dont occur...

i can send you a vmf of the ramps if you still want/need it ;)

and lastly, is this your video? because us germans are not allowed to watch videos with copyrighted media in it -.-

oh, one more thing:
if im too late and you already found the sollution to all out potential surf-ramp-creation problems
mind letting us in? ;)

laters

oh, ps and stuff, while im at it:
surfing on a curved ramp for 10 minutes without bumping is not possible i think - because of the source engines way to handle things - there is just too much that can go wrong, i mean, you can even occasionally get stuck on vertical walls that are perfectly alligned as long as they are horizontally divided into segments, and you can STAND on vertical walls that are angled if you do it right - i really dont think there is a way to perfect this...
mb you can make the ramps surface *slippery* to get it a bit smoother, like making the ramps of an ice material or something... havent looked into that up to now, but that might help...
« Last Edit: March 09, 2012, 05:13:43 AM by Blind Girl »
   
Offline  Kelao
Maggot
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Posts: 26
It's not that hard to make.

http://wiki.solidsurf.info/index.php?title=Basic_Surf_Ramps

The more segments, the smoother it becomes.
   
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