A Roamer's Trickbook to Map Geometry and Collisions

This guide will cover how to acquire the jumps using the stock rocket launcher as the Soldier, stock stickybomb launcher as the Demoman, and the detonator on the Pyro.

Introduction

Team Fortress 2 is a buggy mess. It has been a mess since the games inception. Valve has been fixing certain aspects and patching bits and pieces of maps and exploits that were able to be preformed on Valve's stock maps on TF2. Though, there still remains spots and geometry that has yet to be patched. In this guide, we will show how various geometry works, some hiding spots and their uses, and how to achieve some of the jumps yourself.

How map geometry and colliders work

Collisions on a map is strange. The maps themselves use an invisible wall to make sure players do not step out of the map's boundaries. These boundaries can be seen with a string of commands, that will be listed below.

List of commands below.

• net_graph 1 (Shows miscellaneous information.)

• cl_showpos 1 (Show positional values.)

• getpos (Shows positional value via console.)

• cl_ent_bbox 1
  cl_ent_bbox 2 (Shows the bounding box of the playermodel.)

• r_drawclipbrushes 2
  r_drawclipbrushes 1 (Shows the map's colliders.)

These commands will allow you to view the map's collisions and what the playermodel is allowed to collide within the map itself. A video by LED explains the process and how the bounding boxes work, along with how to "glue" yourself to certain map's geometry.

The image below shows the map cp_process's collision box.

Certain pieces of the map will have invisible walls, in order to keep the player from leaving the map. Depending on the colliders geometry, you are able to "stick" to some of these invisible walls. The most common method that utilizes this is where two colliders meet each other, as shown below.

There exists other geometry or pieces of curved edges on other maps, but the basic method and execution of this is preforming a jump and using your strafe keys to force your bounding box to two points of the colliding walls, as shown below.

This all ultimately depends on the bounding box of the playermodel itself. As shown below, since it is a square, it detects what the playermodel is and isn't allowed to collide with, though the corners of the bounding box will still collide with props. This is what allows players to stick to odd surfaces or the air. By forcing portions of the bounding box to essentially clip outside of the map geometry's collision boxes.

How Map Props Work

Map props work a little bit different from map geometry. As instead of using giant wall colliders, it music take into account the size, shape, and complexity of the prop itself. Some maps have a much more detailed variant of a prop, while a different map may have different collisions for the same prop. Some pieces of maps may not have colliders on certain props at all, allow you to clip right through them.


The map shown here is cp_powerhouse and how its collision system is displayed via the Hammer map creation tool.

Due to it taking just simply too long to manually sculpt the collisions for every single prop on a map, there are a lot of odd collisions with certain props on TF2 maps. Due to this, as stated before, you are sometimes able to clip right through certain props or map pieces.

On the final stage of pl_goldrush, a certain pipe that connects two buildings together is able to be clipped though.

If you want an explanation on how map props work via the Hammer editor, UEAKCrash's video will be available below.

How to Perform Jumps (Soldier/Demo/Pyro)

To get to some of these locations, you first need to get an understanding on how some jumps work. To be able to get to all of the locations and explore maps for your self, it is advised you have an understanding in some of the basics in rocket jumping as Soldier (wall jumps, sync shots, and how to position your rockets,) know how to sticky jump at Demoman, and how to detonator jump as Pyro. To perform some of the jumps as Soldier or Pyro, you will need to know a little into how to Ctap, though, which a video will be provided below on how to perform some of the basics in all three classes. If you already know how to utilize all three of the classes jumping capabilities, skip ahead.

Soldier jumping tutorials

Demoman jumping tutorials

Pyro jumping tutorial
(It is recommend that you also try jump_pyrokinesis for further practice.)

How to Ctap
(This is an advanced and more difficult practice, it is not required to accomplish all of the jumps, but can be useful. You are also able to perform Ctaps as Pyro, using the same method as the video shown above.)




Once you are finished with your practices and have an understanding of the class of your choice, you are now able to utilize jumping with the three classes to perform each jump needed for map-wide hiding spots.

Basic Examples

Now that you have understood how props work, how map geometry works, and how to perform some of the required tactics to get to these hiding spots, let's perform some of them. Using pl_borneo as our example, this covers some of the very basic hiding spots and how to get to them, listed below.











Right before the entrance of the of the tunnel on the second point, a basic rocket jump will land you on a small lip on the right side of the entrance.












Just after the fourth point in the barn, a small beam above the main entrance will allow you stand on it if you perform a basic jump or wall jump.


Perform a basic rocket jump to reach a small vent on the right side wall on the last point.

Discovered Hiding Spots

Below is a list of every spot we have found on TF2's most popular map.
(We have used Soldier to perform these, some of these are unable to perform as other classes or may be more difficult.)

pl_upward

pl_snowycoast

pl_goldrush

pl_badwater

pl_borneo

pl_frontier

Discovered Hiding Spots (Pt. 2)

cp_gullywash

cp_badlands

cp_5gorge

cp_process_final

cp_sunshine

koth_viaduct

koth_harvest_final

plr_hightower

ctf_2fort

Conclusion

Now that you know all of the know-hows of hiding spots, you are now able to not only utilize these to your advantage, but should help you view TF2's maps in a different view. There may be missed spots or oversights that we have missed, and if you wish to add anything, comment below. Thanks for reading!

[mbm2021]

hope to see you guys in the game

[mbm2021]

thanks