Your hilariously most ambitious mapping project
Post Reply
Quote
Re: Your hilariously most ambitious mapping project
Posted by hl_world on Fri Aug 31st at 4:31am 2007


I just remembered a map that I made for Spirit of Half-Life back in mid 2004. After reading through the Features guide I thought the Movewith ability would be very useful and so I started up Hammer. I made a corridor about 8m? stretching the maximum length possible. I made a func_tracktrain that started at one end of the corridor that had an indoor control center with front windows and an open area at the back surrounded by railings (like a pickup truck but about 2 1/2 times bigger each dimension). You had to climb a ladder to enter the train from the open area at the back and the railing style gate(func_train) had it's own set of path_corners so it would slide in then along. There was a func_tank set up at the back and a func_door with glass to the control room.

At the same end of the corridor, there was a huge door that you could open from the func_tracktrain and theoretically, once the door was open the gargantua on the other side would chase you as you travelled along the corridor in the train.

What went wrong?

Well, I forgot to turn all the walls in the cockpit into func_walls.

The simple light entity in the cockpit didn't movewith (Not even after SmartEdit Off).

The railing door path_corners didn't movewith at least not properly.

As a result, the control room minus the floor was left behind.

After fixing that, I was left with wierd lighting inside.

The garg couldn't be bothered chasing the train despite me using the turret at the back to provoke it.

The railing door was all over the place.

It was just a huge mess, I just gave up.





Quote
Re: Your hilariously most ambitious mapping project
Posted by Junkyard God on Fri Aug 31st at 11:02am 2007


I wanted to make a map for cs 1.6 where everything in the entire level had a sort of ripple running through it (seemingly) so every building, model and everything i made had a sort of curve to it (almost s-shaped).

When i finaly finished most of the architectre, after days, weeks, months of vertex manipulating, i lost the map in a hdd crash, i think i might have cried tbh lol image

But it would have never worked, try algning textures on 500000 triangles, and get the hl1 engine to properly light and run it image

I should re-try it in source, should be way better with the new displcement tool.

God damn that map drove me mad with vertex manipulate errors.

But it did teach me how to properly use the tool, at the time i'd been level designing for hl1 for about...3 weeks, so it took me sooo long to create and learn everything.


? quote:
the map mosaic project was very ambitious and while it workers pretty well I had to go to college and was never able to get the web site automated well enough. There is still a place for it I feel, perhaps I should find someone with lots of time to do the grunt work for me.


Loved this project, i think if you could fine a couple of people interested in running it / organizing everyhting, it could work out great!



Hell, is an half-filled auditorium



Quote
Re: Your hilariously most ambitious mapping project
Posted by DrGlass on Fri Aug 31st at 11:09pm 2007


? quote:

? quote:
the map mosaic project was very ambitious and while it workers pretty well I had to go to college and was never able to get the web site automated well enough. There is still a place for it I feel, perhaps I should find someone with lots of time to do the grunt work for me.


Loved this project, i think if you could fine a couple of people interested in running it / organizing everyhting, it could work out great!


I think I'll try and re-create the web site, if I can make a form that will allow people to get map chunks that will be great.




Quote
Re: Your hilariously most ambitious mapping project
Posted by Naklajat on Sat Sep 1st at 5:20am 2007


I believe there are web-based project management apps that can do something along those lines, most likely a few free/open source ones. Don't ask me beyond that, I've never used anything of the sort, but hopefully that'll be a good place to start searching.

If you got the map mosaic started again I'd definitely build a chunk or two, I always liked the idea.



=o



Quote
Re: Your hilariously most ambitious mapping project
Posted by reaper47 on Sat Sep 1st at 12:46pm 2007


I have good memories of a mapping project I participated, that I think was very similar to the mosaic. Would love to see a new one, too.





Quote
Re: Your hilariously most ambitious mapping project
Posted by FatStrings on Sat Sep 1st at 1:53pm 2007


i didn't partake of the last mosaic, but I would definitely do it if it's started again



Quote
Re: Your hilariously most ambitious mapping project
Posted by $loth on Mon Sep 24th at 7:20am 2007


The first map for the source engine I tried to make was a hogwarts map, however I sucked with forward thinking and it didnt turn out well. I think I may just use it as a castle style map!




Quote
Re: Your hilariously most ambitious mapping project
Posted by Flynn on Fri Sep 28th at 3:23pm 2007


Hiya lads, loved reading all the stories! I have a nagging question-how do you know how much a brush is in metres? I thought the Hammer measurements were in units!


Just Kidding

Just Kidding



Quote
Re: Your hilariously most ambitious mapping project
Posted by reaper47 on Fri Sep 28th at 3:59pm 2007


That's a pretty weird jump in topics, but a Hammer Unit is 1 inch which is about 2.5 centimeter.

Don't map that way. Hammer needs powers of 2 for brushwork to look clean and textures to align. Mapping in exact meters usually ends with a horrible mess.






Quote
Re: Your hilariously most ambitious mapping project
Posted by wil5on on Sat Sep 29th at 1:27am 2007


And it never lines up with real world measurements anyway, the scale ends up looking weird.




"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"
- My yr11 Economics teacher



Quote
Re: Your hilariously most ambitious mapping project
Posted by Crono on Sat Sep 29th at 2:37am 2007


While the game can render and 'understand' the real world measurements, the actual player representation in game is very bizarre. The view is warped with a wide FOV (Notice the corners of the screen still have that stretching effect ... or artifact, depending how you look at it). The "Gordon" character has some odd properties as well, so looking at all this properly built stuff looks plain wrong.


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



Quote
Re: Your hilariously most ambitious mapping project
Posted by Naklajat on Sat Sep 29th at 6:39am 2007


Basing your brushwork on real-world measurements would be sure to give you headaches aligning textures and even just working in such small grid snaps, and like Crones said it'll look wrong in-game to boot. The best way to go about it would be to base brushwork off of power-of-2 dimensions and design your level by what 'feels' right, the more experience you have the easier this gets.

I think it'd be nice if Hammer had a way to put an image as a viewport background, have support for cameras (complete with lens and FOV settings) a la 3D modeler that don't move unless you move them, and add transform widgets (especially in 3D view). That way if you wanted to build an area from reference you could set the image as viewport background for a camera, match the FOV and whatnot to the image, and point the camera where you want to build it and line up your brushwork according to that.

I'm a dreamer, I know.

My most ambitious project is DM_Soylent, hands down. It's months of work in the making and still months of work away from completion. It's about twice- maybe a bit more -the floorspace of DM_Lockdown by my estimate, and I'm planning on having custom props and textures everywhere. I'm determined to finish this one, too, I think the floorplan is balanced and interesting. Anyway I've got to complete a map eventually, I've poured so many hours into this one so far it wouldn't make much sense to throw it away or otherwise abandon it at this point.



=o



Quote
Re: Your hilariously most ambitious mapping project
Posted by reaper47 on Sat Sep 29th at 12:46pm 2007


I just thought of it and you actually end up being 80cm wide in the HL(2) engine, from head to foot. I don't even think the rectangle turns towards your movement direction so you're about 113cm wide when walking diagonally. That doesn't make much sense for any real-world proportions.

... alright, back to ambitious mapping projects <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif">






Quote
Re: Your hilariously most ambitious mapping project
Posted by Le Chief on Mon Oct 1st at 11:14am 2007


Now this is crazy. For my mod I am trying to make a massive highway bridge (like in hl2) but in real time, its about 2 km long. Gonna span over several levels. A bit crazy but I can do it.... for gold source.





Quote
Re: Your hilariously most ambitious mapping project
Posted by Riven on Wed Oct 3rd at 3:12am 2007


What do you mean "but in real time?"






Post Reply