Side Column Marker

The most complex race marker. Renders a full gate structure with left/right pillars, cones at ground level, tall distance columns, ground-anchoring cylinders, and a directional arrow. Uses raycasting to snap to terrain.

Class API (OOP via metatable)

Spawned Objects (9 total)

Mode Properties

How It Works

1. Ground raycasting: setToCheckpoint casts rays downward (6m up, 25m down) at left/right positions to find terrain height. Disables forest collision during raycasts.
2. Pillar positioning: Pillars are placed halfway between ground hit and waypoint height, offset by CONE_HEIGHT (1m)
3. Cone scaling: Cones scale vertically based on pillar offset + bobbing
4. Cylinder anchors: Thin cylinders stretch from ground to cone position
5. Column height: Scales with camera distance via inverseLerp(60, 180, distance) for far visibility
6. Bobbing: All elements bob via sin(timer * freq * 2π) * amplitude
7. Arrow direction: Points toward wp.nextPos using quatFromDir
8. Color lerp: 0.8s transition with pillarColor (instanceColor) and pillarColor1 (instanceColor1)

Usage Example

local createMarker = require("scenario/raceMarkers/sideColumnMarker")
local marker = createMarker(1)
marker:createMarkers()
marker:setToCheckpoint({
  pos = vec3(100, 200, 50),
  radius = 8,
  normal = vec3(0, 1, 0),
  nextPos = vec3(150, 250, 50)  -- arrow points here
})
marker:setMode('default')

Key Notes

• Default marker for the race system (race_marker.lua defaults to this)
• Uses Engine.castRay for ground detection with forest collision disabled
• scalarThin property allows modes to control pillar/cone thickness (hidden = 0)
• Fade distance: columns fade between 60–120m for visibility
• 9 TSStatic objects per marker - most resource-intensive marker type

See Also

• Race Marker: Attention - Floating Arrow Checkpoint Marker - Related reference
• Race Marker: Crawl Marker - Arrow + Flag + Column Checkpoint - Related reference
• Race Marker: Cylinder - Base + Cylinder Checkpoint Marker - Related reference
• Scenario System Guide - Guide