Climbing a wall ledge
by
Wild Card (view all articles)
unrated
But I dont have hands...
Ok, so by now you probably have played many other games in which you can climb wall ledge. A perfect example of this is Splinter Cell.
Up until now, level designers had to calculate wall height in order for a player to be able to jump over it. Now, the player can climb the wall ledge. This is all fine and dandy. But how do you do it? you ask.
This is incredibly simple. More so than getting up in the morning.
Firstly, lets look at this example:
Make your wall like you want. Now, reduce the grid size to 1 unit and zoom in on the ledge where the player will be made able to "grab on".
Using the clipping tool, clip off a 1 unit triangle as shown in the picture on the right. Fill that missing 1 unit triangle with a
func_ladder brush.
Save your work, compile, and enjoy!
Posted by
Foxpup on Mon Nov 29th 2004 at 2:55am
Just put in the map's readme file that you can climb ledges. And for all those who don't read readme files... This is our way of getting back at you.
Posted by
asterix_vader on Sat Jul 3rd 2004 at 8:55pm
I agree with Captain... how could the player know that he can jump the wall ?
And I agree with Wild Card too (lol?): a way to make secret areas.
Posted by
Wild Card on Tue May 18th 2004 at 2:24pm
Well, this could bring about a new generation of secret areas in maps. Both for HL and HL2. Since, as Captain P mentioned, it took him quite a while to find out about it. It could also be a great teaser for players.. Having a Gauss rifle up on a ledge visible to all, but only acquired by few.
Unno, it was just an idea I had so I decided to share it. We'll have to wait and see for a map to make heavy use of this trick to see if its good or not and if its worth it.
Posted by
scary_jeff on Mon May 10th 2004 at 11:38pm
I like this, especially if it makes no ladder noise. The clip-brush stairs are good, but always seem wierd when you are going down them - but I suppose this func_ladder method would allow a player to climb backwards and forwards along the length of the wall, which could be a bit odd as well. With this ladder method, you could have a ledge, on a wall which you could jump and hold onto, then you could have another wall opposite that you could jump to from the first ledge, sort of like in splinter cell or prince of persia (if you are on a ladder and jump, you fly out from it). Not sure if that would work out well though.
Posted by
Captain P on Thu Apr 15th 2004 at 3:14pm
I haven't seen this noticed:
How will a player know that he can actually grab the wall and climb up? He doesn't see no ladder. And this was never applied in Half-Life, so he probably wouldn't think about it.
I've seen this trick used in a mod that was released in 2002, and I only found this after quite a while...
Posted by
JFry on Tue Apr 13th 2004 at 7:20pm
I think WC's method is better really. If you made the clip brushes in steps like gollum suggested you would have to clear those steps or you would fall when you jumped. However if it is a ladder, you simply have to jump against the side of it and you'll catch it. I think this more closely simulates grabbing the ledge with your hands.
Posted by
Wild Card on Sat Apr 3rd 2004 at 5:49pm
Sure thing. I'll do that when I have more time.
Posted by
7dk2h4md720ih on Wed Mar 31st 2004 at 12:35am
Wc, delete this and do a tutorial of the one Gollum suggested.
Posted by
Gollum on Sat Mar 27th 2004 at 4:10pm
A method that has all the advantages and none of the defects of this tutorial is as follows:
At the edge of your brush, create a number of clip-brush steps of length 1 unit, very steeply shelved but not so steep that the height difference between them is greater than the max. step height in HL. The player can just walk up the brush now.
Posted by
Hugh on Sat Mar 27th 2004 at 10:10am
Always hated that annoying little sound, danke.
