Looking for info about modeling stairs. Turns out I've never had to really model functional stairs before. It's just been ramps-- ya know, halo 1 has a lot of ramps.
My stairs, as they were originally, caused mobility problems for the player and AI don't pathfind over them.


So I tried this:


^ The purple is a transparent shader and the actual stair faces (and the triangles between them on the walls) are render-only.
Amidoinitright? Also, general stairs/ramps topic.

Yeah thats right, just make the overlay ramps have player clipping material.

You might have a problem with AI though, they might not pathfind over them correctly.
Edited by Higuy on Sep 22, 2011 at 06:33 PM

I just make a metal flat generic* shader
the * makes it a collision only material, so the ai might pathfind better over it than the playerclipping material.

Apparently you can use the @ property to make the stairstep's shader a "large collide-able form." (complete with footstep sounds, unlike playerclipping)

I personally just use playerclipping over my stairs.
Edited by OrangeJuice on Sep 22, 2011 at 07:45 PM

Well, I'm not sure if AI pathfind over playerclipping or large collidable forms, since they don't want to pathfind over things like sky or ladder materials.
When I use the transparent shader method, the render-only material isn't rendered (not inside the skybox).
I was thinking about making the transparent stuff a double-sided material like glass; AI pathfind over glass fine.

Exactly the answer. Detach the faces, make them two sided using % still using a blank shader and it will work fine ;)

Yeah, did that earlier today after I posted and it works perfectly.