Hello all,
The nice squirrels at Redlynx have forwarded some images of the workshop elevator from within the editor environment so you can see how we made this crazy contraption.
I will also give some tips to make your elevator as smooth a ride as possible. It is worth mentioning this tutorial is quite advanced due to the size of the construction and you will need some basic knowledge of the way gravity and weight works in the real world. For example if you make a very large lift container for the player and use ibeams or girders to build it all, you will most definately need more weights to lift it, if your wanting a see-saw lift like this one.
-If you are fairly new to Trials and the editor i suggest you go and take a look at other threads in the level editor category first so you are more familiar with whats going on in this tutorial.
- Big Pack DLC required
1) SKETCH YOUR IDEA: Start by sketching how you want your lift to look like / the height you want it to move / what its made of (Use objects that dont break when you turn physics on them as they need to be glued to one another)
2) THE LIFT FOR THE PLAYER: I recommend you begin with making the lift that will carry the player upwards first. Make it how you want but try to keep it simple and use as few objects as possible. Its always wise to keep careful attention of your complexity slider.
- As you can see on this lift, there is alot of glue ^^.., during different stages of a trials project new items such as the dummy pivot came alot later into the build so this lift got made the old fashioned way. Either way works, you can either glue every neighbouring piece of the lift to one another or glue them to a dummy pivot to ensure the lift wont rock itself to death when it moves. For example if you have 10 objects, you glue all of them to the dummy, the dummy pivot is something you wont see in the game when you play test the level. Keeping your structure stable especially when you may have objects that are in one another is the hardest part to get right. If you see one or two objects in your lift misbehaving and shaking all over the place then select those both individually LB + A, and glue them to each other and other objects near to them.
- There is a limited rotation hinge at the end of the lift arm so that the lift rocks back and forth like an old wooden version of this lift would do in the real world. Glue the final girder to left flap of the hinge, then glue the pole that holds the lift to the right flap.
3) THE LIFT ARM AND THE PIVOT: At this point you need to ask yourself, how high do i want my lift to go?, the longer you make the lift arm the higher your lift can go, its that simple. The same process of glueing everything to each of the girders in this lift example applies again or your lift arm will go mad and try to escape. This is another area you can use a dummy pivot like i mentioned above, somewhere like the middle where the pivot is, then glue each of the girders to the dummy.
- Build the middle pivot first, this is basically a straight girder/logs/ whatever you want, the pivot does not have physics turned on it. As you can see in this image, its 3-4 girders with a rounded log at the top so when the arm see-saws its got a nice smooth curve to roll on.
-(Read this after you have built the platform for the weight) As you may have noticed there are some short square logs on the lift arm aswell, these were used to ensure the lift arm was kept super strong and stable and its other use is a minor counter-weight so that the lift does not rise too fast when the player triggers the weight. If your lift still rises too fast, i recommend you start with one on the lift arm, then add one at a time until you are happy with the speed it rises. When placing the short square logs, place them where two ends of a girder meet.
4) THE WEIGHT AND THE PLATFORM: As you can see for this, its a metal plate, with a wooden fence around the weight to stop it from falling out (glued to one another, dummy optional here aswell) and one of those cartoon tonne weights. You will need the Big Pack DLC to be able to use this tonne weight, otherwise its back to using two shipping containers for you and a whole lot of mess. These tonne weights are pretty heavy and in this elevators case it only needed one to lift the rider and the lift arm/lift. Unless you make the lift itself out of heavier objects than wood its likely you will just need one also, but theres no harm in some trial and error here.
- once you have built this, then the structure is more or less done, its just a case now of trial and error, glueing any troublesome shaking objects to one another and refining the smoothness of the lift itself with those short wooden logs as i mentioned above in 3).
- If this is your first attempt, i suggest building something with a shorter lift arm, it wont go as high but you will have a higher success rate of getting it all working 100% of the time. Then you can branch out and go for something crazier or bigger.
Hope this helps!, any further questions about this tutorial just reply to this topic and ill have a read and see if i can help out.
AK
Even though I'm not really too fond of elevators, this was helpful for other reasons.![]()
Question for you (or anyone): For something with as many parts as this, how many dummy objects should I use? I don't need an exact number, I'm just kind of wondering if I could use one dummy to glue most things to, or if I should put a dummy in between every physics object and the hinge (rotator, etc) that it is glued to.
Thanks!
well you could use around 3 dummys on this elevator, one for the lift, one for the lift arm, and another for the weighted platform. If you had a large structure i would break it down into sections if it has multiple parts that move and assign a dummy for each section. Its quite rare that you will ever need more than one dummy to be honest, its just based on how big you make the structure. Something like a catapult will probably be quite happy with just the one dummy object to keep everything together when it moves.
ya know, im reading this late in my track making career. ill tell ya id'a gave up along time ago had it not been for cannibal shoguns youtube tutorials and personal questions answered... but yeah, thanks a lot for this tutorial. i never knew to glue all to adummy... interesting
The dummy is one of my favorite new items, I use it a lot.
I use it a lot too, but I think I've been using a lot more of them than I need. When I have a rotation force, I put one on each side, maybe I don't need that many.Originally Posted by jook13
I agree though, definitely one of my favourite items. Makes physics objects work so much smoother.
omg wtf its so simple why dint i think of that. going to make it now.
heres my way to do it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbziisFc7SE
slightly different but works a treat
cheers
add me T3CHNO M4TTY
Wow, Good explaination and with pics. Thanks
for the life of me i cant get this working, ive followed every step bit by bit over and over again and still as soon as i come to the lift it rises on its own, even tho i havent triggered the 2M trigger which has physics ticked, i have the lift arm/crane working great, it moves smoothly up and down, ive created the weight ledge with inclosement, ive 2kg weights in there with physics of, (2 Weights because its a long height i want it to go, now all is well until i come to the lift just seconds before and it rises itself, i dont know what im doing wrong, i wa up to 6am from 10pm yesterday trying to get this to work and it just isnt happening, please please someone help me, heres what ive got so anyone can look and see if im doing omething wrong
1.created lift all glued together with physics on.
2.created the pull for the lift all connected and glued with physics on.
3.created the arm of the crane all glued, very solid smooth and physics on.
4. connected both the crane and pull+lift together with a point to point hard (i prefered this over the limited hinge as my lift wont be going side to side to lift)
5.created the pivot as in the screens above, everything runs smoothly with crane arm on top.
6.created the weight ledge with inclosment of wooden pieces, glued together, then glueed to the frame of the arm/crane (now thats whats in the screen above, i assumed that what i had to do).
7.added 2 2K weights into the ledge/pen where they are suppose to be, then added a trigger in the lift to trigger the physics in the weights, having the weights without physics ticked before hand.
to me thats what im suppose to do, the trigger is to activate physics on the weights to lift the lift, but as i said before i literally get about 2 seconds before the lift and it goes itself, i cant get my head around it,
please can someone help me out here, thanks alot.
edit heres some screens i told and videos to show what i mean,
screen 1 showing the trigger no were near the lift, the lift doesnt go up when the trigger is in this position
video 1 showing what the screen shows only me recording it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF1KtBrc-2U
screen 2 showing the trigger right at the lift, the goes up when the trigger is near, but im not near it at all
video 2 is the same screen 2 only recording, im not sure why the lift takes of even tho i havent even activated the trigger,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvsI1i_prCw