How do you people do it?

The best option is to adjust an object's position while holding the left stick in. The movements are far more minute than they are when using the coordinates under Tools. For instance, holding the left stick and barely tapping the left or right bumper will prevent objects from overlapping without causing major bumps, in most cases. Of course, you can move them in any direction if you want, not just up and down.

 

I generally calculate the required angle then edit coordinates by single degrees. To move an object a small amount horizontally, look directly down on it while moving and hold down the left stick; looking down on the object makes a huge difference in movement speed. For minute vertical adjustments you can hit LB or RB and A in quick succession. Those are generally precise enough to create your own z-fighting, if for some reason you wanted to, without coordinate snap. All this can be really time consuming but it's worth the effort.

 

You know, it's funny... I don't use the edit coordinates at all. It always causes Z fighting so I don't even bother. I just eyeball it and make sure a player has a smooth transition from one object to the next.

ChronoTempest describes the method I use for making those minute adjustments.

 

It's quite the opposite; we're avoiding imperfections by maintaining smooth surfaces that don't Z-fight or stick out of other geometry.

 

The slight nudging through use of the left stick is what gives you the perfection you're looking for. Sometimes two objects, even though they are completely lined up, still have small bumps between them. This allows you to precisely manipulate an object and is by far OCD/perfection oriented than just placing them with coordinates.

 

I do get what he's saying. You often either have to put up with a bump, no matter how slight, or suffer z-fighting. The bump is generally not noticeable at all for a player moving over it, even during combat, thus it's the better choice.

 

If you adjust the blocks until the z-fighting stops, then they are pretty much perfectly aligned. It is unnoticeable to a player whilst a game is going on because theyre focusing on staying alive, not the minuscule bump between block a and block b.

If youre really concerned about it though, put a bridging piece in where the two blocks meet to cover the seam.

 

practice, practice, practice...

 

In grifball, the bump caused by rotation error on the concave arena is enough to mess up the game.

protip: angle the pieces slightly to get one end higher than the other so there's no bump on either end.

 

Actually, I didn't quite read your post fully the first time. The whole thing about laying a floor out flat using coliseum walls is something I just began to explore and I came up with an article that discusses how to do this. More importantly, it explains what is happening and how to overcome the problem in a straight forward way. After I wrote the article, I applied it to my latest map, and realized that I need to clarify some things. But if you grasp the idea of rotating past the truncation point you want the wall to sit at, then you should be able to rotate the walls to align every time.

 

oops, saw the discussion on bumps and thought what I found might apply. My bad...

 

I thought i was the only one that did that.