# Ladders

By: Dr. Slue

drslue@gamesden.net.au

Slue

This tutorial covers:

Umm...ladders. I thought i just said that?!

Forward:

This tutorial is about make those ladders that you used to find in all those 'Oldskool' games such as Goldeneye (64) and Doom etc. the ones that just defied the whole reality concept: holding [in many cases a two handed] gun and running straight (upright!) up a ladder. So i thought i could show you guys how to do such a silly thing with UT. Enjoy! Note: there are 10 images on this page so it may take a while to load, just be patient :-)

Content:

Here we go. I assume that you already have your map ready for this, since this is the intermediate/advanced section. The most common types of maps that you will see this in, in UT are probably TO (Tactical Operations) styled maps, and you don't really see a lot of them in any UT gametype (mod or otherwise). Anyway, here is the level that i'm working with:

Nothing fancy, but just something to use for this tutorial. There's a little chimney thing on the roof, so i'm just gonna pretend that, that is what i am using this ladder for. So i am going to build a ladder to get you up there.

To do this, first of all, you need to build yourself a little ladder brush. If you want, you can just build two long side panels and then some rungs, using just the cube brush. However, this will cause it to have a high poly count (more visisble polys on screen causes the game to run faster), so i will show you how to reduce this. So, make your ladder now, but don't bother texturing it yet.

This ladder is made up of 6 different brushes which can really drag things a bit, if you have a lot of detail in your levels (all of these sorts of things combined).

Now, make a cube (or whatever shape fits) around the ladder with the builder brush so that it is fully surrounded, but make sure nothing else is inside the cube. It should look rather like this:

Now press the Intersect button ( ) which will then make the builder brush into the shape of your ladder, but as one brush. Now you can delete your other brushes (in my case, all six of them) and then add this one. There may not be any difference in poly count, it may look like absolutely nothing at all has changed, but even so, you have at least managed to clean up your brushes. 1 is a much more desirable number of brushes than six. It's just a lot cleaner and also much easier to move around if you need to. Anyway, now we can continue. Feel free to texture your ladder now, and then move it into place.

Now that my ladder is sitting in the desired position;

I will now show you how to make it useable in-game. Make a staircase, to the hight of your stairs or the hight of what you are trying to reach (e.g, i only have to make it up to the top rung of mine). Make it from a Linear Staircase Brush (the straight one). Try to make the length of the steps short, so that the Invisible Collision Hull (if you don't know what i'm talking about, don't worry, it'll be explained soon) wont be too big. And remember, that the maximum height step that a player can go up is 32 Units, so try to keep it under that. But the higher for this the better really, because the higher each one is, the less steps are needed which means that the stairs aren't sticking out as far. I kept mine at 28 Units, and only 8 Units long, with 9 steps. It looked like this:

This next part is very important, it is what will make it useable in-game. When your Builder Brush is in place, go to Add Special and then select Invisible Collision Hull from the drop down box.

You will now see a staircase covering your ladder, in the current texture. Don't worry, you wont see this in the game, it's invisible in the game, hence its name. However, depending on how long you made each step, all that is infront of the ladder brush itself, will still stop people walking right next to the ladder itself (coming from the side), it's an invisible barrier. But when approached from the front, it will act just like a normal staircase. To change the overhang/excess invisible wall, you can try making the ladder slanted (which is a lot more realistic anyway) so that there will be some excess at the front and back instead of a whole lot just sitting at the front. Just remember, that you are walking up the stairs when you play it, so don't let the rungs block the player or whatever by slanting it too much.

It's really up to you how you use them and how effectively they work. So just give it a rebuild, and try out your level =D Good Luck.

Level shots:

Success! I got onto the roof!

The invisible barrier in action, i could not walk forward due to the ICH. This is what i mean by the excess, it is necessary to use the stairs, but can be annoying in games.

The whole invisible stairs thing in action!

This concludes todays session, i hope it worked for you and you learnt a lot from this!

About this tute: Well i'd seen many people over time that have asked this question, and so i thought i might as well make a tute on it...and because its been a week since the last tute X=D

Plus, it wasn't just teaching you how to make ladders, but it also taught you how to intersect brushes (well at least one type of intersecting) and how to make/use ICH. If you ever want the level from one of the tutorials to compare to, then dont hesitate to ask. If i still have it, i will either send it to you or put it up on the web if more people ask for it.

About the tutes: I decided to write some tutes because of the fact that heaps of the tutes on the net were written for UnrealEd1 and that really craps up the way things work and more often than not, it ends up very confusing with an unhappy little reader crying in the corner...or so i've heard XD

Feel free to e-mail me with suggestions for tutorials , I'll be happy to make them
if I have enough knowledge on the subject.

My E-mail: drslue@gamesden.net.au