Ok, everyone who has made a platformer has been guilty of this and EVERYONE who has played one has probably seen this before:
I know. Terrible, indeed, and really Gimkit’s fault.
So how can we fix this? Take a guess.
We can fix this by alternating layers!
Ok, maybe a bit better, but now there’s that gap, and the stairs look disconnected.
Instead, do this.
Each step of the stairs, you go down a terrain layer. To make the effect of not having a gap, you have each step go below where it ends, like this:
Notice how each step goes one tile down so the gap gets covered by the previous step. This looks much better!
Now this is great, but what if you run out of terrain?
My personal solution for that looks like this.
Take a moment and try to figure out what is going on here. When you’re ready, continue.
So, at the very base of these stairs, there is a staircase that looks like this that is layered below all the other parts of the stairs. (Ignore the terrain in the top left corner :P)
Notice how it goes up two steps every time. Also notice how all the ugly terrain parts that happen because of stairs made on one terrain layer are covered up by other terrain.
Next, we have this:
These serve to both make the stairs and to cover up the bad looking terrain.
To fill up the final gaps we have, put terrain on a layer above like this:
You won’t run out of layers for the pillars that make the stairs, because the layers are alternating, instead of always going on a higher or lower layer.
These are only some ways you can make stairs, and these terrain techniques can be applied to other things besides stairs too.
A
would be appreciated. (Only if this was helpful though, if my guide wasn’t very good tell me instead of liking it. Any feedback welcome.)
