Thread: Spiral Staircase Shading Macro Idea [CC2/CC3]

Originally Posted by RPMiller

This has got to be one of the coolest macros I've seen. This is definitely going to get some use later. I'm wondering what other sorts of things this could be used for such as a curving mountain pass or the like. Can you throw up a quick example using wooden stairs also?

I'm afraid that's not so simple; to keep the wood grain aligned to the edge of each step I'd need to place an appropriately scaled and rotated bitmap symbol for each one. (Two actually; a rectangle for the main step and a right triangle to fill the gap between that and the outer rim.) You wouldn't happen to have a PNG of a 6'x2' plank I could use for this?

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Dalton "who's learned woodgrain fill in symbols doesn't rotate" Spence

That is actually what I was wondering about.

Regarding the plank, I actually created one for ProFantasy in the very early stages of CC3 before they started in the Beta program. I don't have it handy on this computer, but something tells me that Arcana has one laying around ( see the forums background. )

I do have one laying around somewhere...its worn though like the background...I don't have it here, so it might be on my work computer in my textures directory...if not I'll go take a picture of one for you from my fence sometime tomorrow and doctor it up. What resolution would you like?

Unfortunately they are a bit dark for our purposes; the depth shading wood wipe out any details after three or four steps. I've taken a plank out of the "Wooden Floor Horizontal_VH.PNG" bitmap and shrunk it down to 500x100 bits (5'x1' at VH resolution) to experiment with. To make this work I will have to rescale the symbol so that the lower left and upper right hand corners touch the inner and outer walls of the stairwell respectively at the assigned step depth. Looks like I'm in for some geometry homework tonight. (Yes,I know this leaves a gap between the front of the upper step and the back of the lower one for the outside half of the step, but I can't see a way around that.)

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Dalton "who may start getting a bit board with this macro" Spence

That looks a little like the plank I submitted... I wonder... Anyway, I can't wait to see it in action!

Your wish is my command. Well, not really, but the test seemed to go well. The problem seemeds to be the last board; since the leading inner corner is flush with the wall, the trailing inner corner would jut out. To fix this, I added a threshold board at the top. Should this be a plain stone threshold instead?

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Dalton "who's been stairing at this computer screen too long" Spence

Well The original version is lighter...light grey to be exact...and had I taken a picture from my fence, it would have been naturally lighter. But this looks amazing...Thats REALLY nice work man...I mean REALLY!

Now you just need to put the whole thing in a package (or .mac file) and attach it here

Very nice! Is there a way to change the threshold "step" at macro run? I think that would be the best. I am very impressed. This works very nice.