Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno
I think your problem is how you're measuring distance, because those numbers seem... absurd?
The stairwell is 18 bricks wide, you can see them in the foreground. One standard brick is 3 5/8" wide, plus about 1/6" mortar per brick, gives a width of 68 1/4" or 5.6875 feet, which is around the standard width of a sidewalk. Proportionately to the parkourist, the stairwell visually checks out as about the width of a sidewalk, not the width of a sidewalk plus 50%ish.
His first kickoff is 13 bricks off the ground, 13 times 2 1/4" height (standard brick) plus about 1/6" mortar per brick = 21 2/3" height, a pretty reasonable jump height.
His second kickoff is 19 bricks off the ground, 45.9"
He hits the destination wall with his toes 18 bricks off the ground and is clearly loosing jumping height, but he can grab the top and clambers over.
EDIT: You might be having problems with the extreme fisheye effect caused by the very short lens on cellphones and the nearly-on-the-ground camera angle causing some really severe foreshortening. Combine that with the parkourist travelling into the background and things get pretty distorted.
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The biggest way it could be off is if the video is stretched in one dimension or another. I count 10 bricks high as being the same measurement on the screenshot on both sides. His apparent height seems to remain within about 10% from the first kick off to when he grabs the wall, so there doesn't seem to be any significant height distortion. There
is a fisheye effect for distance, but I measured his height
at the point he was doing the kick off, not while running up. Like I said, it's within 10% or so, and it seems (depth being very hard to measure here) no more than a foot and a half deeper into the picture than the first kickoff, so it seems that there's no significant height compression. I concur with the 13 and 19 bricks measurement, and the ratio between the number of bricks and measurements on the picture is within 10%, again. His first kick off was above the level of the railing, it would have to be (legally, in the states) about 30" off the ground, and he hit 3 bricks higher than that. Which comes out to a rather major difference, but none of us have any real idea how high the railing is.
I still get his own height on the second shove off, which is 6ft, assuming that's his height, and there seems to be no way around that. His apparent height is the same before, during and after that point, so there's not a lot of room for variation. I measured width scaling from his height (to the point of the first kickoff on the left wall, that's required to get the distance right) as 8.25 feet, and there seems to be no way around that.
Running it past the smell test, I find it highly unlikely that a large, curved stairway like that would be standard sidewalk width. Nearly all my experience and judgement would make it a couple of feet wider.
Considering he fails to gain height on the second bounce, but also stays about the same height, it's hard to figure out what exactly it represents in GURPS. A full 7 yard running start gets him the correct height on the second bounce, but still 2 feet short horizontally. The question is what to consider the second bounce. He goes the full distance, but fails to gain height, but the way the description in Martial Arts is written, he could still do that although failing to reach the opposite wall. Although I don't quite get how the heck you can fail to reach the far wall and still hang from it at the same height you started.
So considering what I've learned here, and fixing a very open flaw in the initial draft, here's the revised draft of my rules, actually closer to the mechanics from RAW that the first draft:
Improved draft of the rules - your horizontal distance is half your jumping distance, standing plus any running start or distance since the previous bounce, and minus a foot at the end, and your vertical distance is your high jump distance, standing plus any running start or distance since previous bounce. That would get sustainable distance back to about right, and let the guy (assuming Basic Move 6) in the video's 9.5 foot long (on first bounce with running start) and 62 inch high bounce trade distance for height for a 8.25 foot long and 72 inch high jump. (I need to do a spreadsheet making distance/height easier.) The second bounce is about a foot short on the far wall ((Basic Move 6 +2.5 yard start) x 2, -3 is 14, halved for 7, then -1 foot for 6 feet, or two feet or a little more feet short), but close enough to grab the top and maintain height (after grabbing). Your maximum height is still Basic Move x 2.5 feet.
From the "high powered acrobatic character" (move 8) above, that would be a 13.5 ft long and 7ft high initial bounce (although at no point does she get anything like that much), although the maximum for more than one bounce is about 8.5 feet long and 56 inches up. The long distance for a running start seems long, but it's only 1.5 feet more than her standing long jump anyway. anyway. Considering the scaling from the picture above could easily be 9-10 ft if measured differently (my method underestimated distance), and 56" is pretty darned within the margin of error for 5 feet, that doesn't seem to bad. Maximum height still fits, as it did from the beginning.
That seems to be the final draft, fits everything well (enough), matches what feels right for both Move 6 and 8, and considering that in real life height and distance are a tradeoff, more or less passes the reality check to within GURPS resolution.