Useful Player Stats

[StaffSaberist]

One of the biggest challenges I, or any other inexperienced mapper, face when mapping is that the 3D window is hardly fun to work with. It is great as showing what I have, but it's not so great at showing proper scale relative to the player. The end result is a room that is too small, or controls the player has to jump to get onto. Worse yet, something you intended to be unreachable except with Force Jump 3 actually can be done with Force Jump 2. Not what was intended, and usually ugly to boot.

 

I want to help with that.

 

In Radiant, I created a small room (256 x 600 x 600) with a Skybox because I'm claustrophobic. I then, using Photoshop to create some quickie textures, created The Wall. The Wall is a stepladder of blocks 8 units wide, 8 units deep, and 8X units tall, where X = what position the block is in the chain. The result is an accurate measure of how many units out and up something is from a central point of (0,0). It's not pretty, but it works.

 

Here's a screenshot of The Wall in all its glory:

Not the architecture of the century. Trust me, it's easier to see where one number ends and another begins when you get close to The Wall.

 

Using The Wall, I've collected a variety of information that can be used to help new mappers properly scale their creations to fit the player. So a crawlspace will actually be a crawlspace, and a catwalk will be accessible (not too high up) and usable (not too close to a ceiling).

 

Here's the list of things I have discovered:

 

Info on the player's size

-------------------------

Player's Height: 64 units

Player's Height(crouch): 40 units

Player's Width: 32 units

 

Straight up and down jump height

--------------------------------

Jump height: 96 units

Force Jump 1 height: 160 units

Force Jump 2 height: 256 units

Force Jump 3 height: 448 units

 

Distance player can jump with Jump and Forward to max distance*

--------------------------------------------------------------

Jump distance: 96 units

Force Jump 1 distance: 136 units

Force Jump 2 distance: 208 units

Force Jump 3 distance: 472 units

 

Various acrobatic moves

-----------------------

Dive-Roll distance(somersault): 256 units

Height of run-up wall: 384 units

Distance of Back-Flip after run-up wall: 248 units

 

*Note: This measures max Jump distance only. Distance can be increased by holding Forward on the descent.

 

Below is a link to a place where, if you like, you can download the compiled BSP map (to get a picture of other figures) and a formatted copy of the information provided above. Just stick the .pk3 in your base folder and "devmap numbers" at the prompt in-game. (SP only; not exactly meant for actual gameplay)

 

http://files-upload.com/198649/numbers.zip.html

[SMoKE]

Nice guide you've got there. Though to scale a room properly, I would suggest making an info_player_start (a spawn point), which are exactly the same height as a player.

[StaffSaberist]

True; I just realized that. (Changed the settings to show XY, YZ and XZ simultaneously - big help!) Of course, the rest of the stuff there isn't shown there, and it's helpful for figuring how high/far a item can be placed to make it difficult to access, etc. Not to mention, knowing the numbers helps me make a more accurate idea of what I need to make. But that's just me, and hopefully a few others.