double helix

I want to have a double helix style thing going on around this tube , and i want it to look high quality.

http://www.arclan.net/cpg133/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pos=0

heh really bad art, but you get the idea. the 2 lines spiraling around the tube is the kind of effect i want

Should i use vertex manipulation , displacement maps or a model ?

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.else /me ~kill you
www.arclan.net

model would be usefull but in some of the early snarkpit maps there were good examples of this kind of stuff using displacemnt maps witch looked realy great.

http://www.snarkpit.net/maps.php?game=HL2&mod=&sort=rating

tat's the one i found , there's maybe more but i looked on like 10 pages on the maps page so i'll call it a day :smile:

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Hell, is an half-filled auditorium

umm.. map name please, =, the link only gave me the list of maps

oh , and i'm not that good at modeling , but i could do it most likely

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.else /me ~kill you
www.arclan.net

ooh lol, nooooooooo i searched all for nothing then ? >_< i'll have a look again, haha soryyy

[edit]

here ya go chap http://www.snarkpit.net/maps.php?map=1709 :smile: dm_platform by DVS

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Hell, is an half-filled auditorium

Why not use the arch tool with some modification?

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

well , i really would like it to be almost fluidly smooth . If the arch
tool can achieve this effect , i'll try it i might also have it spin
making it like its moving downward , i dont think that subdivision maps
can be parented to an entity , we'll see though

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.else /me ~kill you
www.arclan.net

I would suggest using the arch tool and adding height to it, and you can form a pretty bad looking double helix. Then using that as a guide add some detail using displacements/clipping/brushes. That is how i would problay attempt it.

Models would be ideal if you can make it or get some one to make it.

Or, you could just vertex manipulate all the ends together, simular to the old way of making terrain. It should work well, just give a good height value. The only real problem you'll have is that all you want is the very end and once you make that you'll want to copy it.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

yeh , i'm quite decent at vertex manipulation , i'm not sure if i can make it look smooth , but i'll give it a shot

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.else /me ~kill you
www.arclan.net

Some images in this post have been automatically down-sized, click on them to view the full sized versions:

Yeah, Crono's method is what I would suggest from my HL-1 experience. Remember that you have to clip each brush so that there are only triangles involved. That way you won't have to worry about creating invalid solids. You should be able to make it pretty damn smooth if you are careful about how and where you make your clips. You should also make it in a way so that you only have fuss around with 360 or 180 degrees of the spiral and then just clone it.

Your best results might be gotten without using the arch tool at all now that I think about it. you could use a triangle-terrain like method to do the whole thing. If you construct your object all out of triangles, then it becomes just like low-poly modeling and you can make anything, so long as you have the performance budget.

Okay, I was avoiding my work...



Download Source

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Some people are like slinkys...

They aren?t really good for anything, but you can't help but laugh when one tumbles down the stairs.

rs was kinda right , thanks tracer , i'll try my best . never was the
best at triangle terrain back with hl1 ;p but i could do it.

WOW the source made it a bit easier to understand how you did it ;p.
thanks a lot :wink: i really hate the arch tool.. no offense but its very
fumbly

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.else /me ~kill you
www.arclan.net