i remember playtesting this with a bunch of people. great little level with a great feel. now the normalized rocks make it more realistic too. nice work.

Thanks for the comments. :smile:

I've heard others complaining that there's too little places to fall off (push off others actually) so I don't know, but there are a few places to get stuck that I need to adress, yeah.
The RPG is placed in the tomb for a reason: fire at the big circular button above the tomb to spike those campers. :smile: I need to provide a visual clue about the button though.
The planks didn't have too much effect on performance actually, it's holding up nicely. At least for me. What average fps did you get?
And I'll investigate the water issue. I thought I used cheap water for both, but I'm not sure about that now. Do you have these issues in other (official) maps as well?

And yeah, the waterfall needs some work. Almost forgot about that. :smile:
As for those long corridors, I assume you mean the one running between the waterfall cave and the central cave? From what I remember from the playtests, it was used a little less than the other connections, but it's still a nice alternative connection between the two caves. Perhaps some more cover is needed there?

Sexy rocks. And promising lighting.

It's very hard to read screenshots with even the slightest bits of dev textures in them but I'll download and have a 3D look. I like the theme a lot.

[edit:]

I just had a quick run through the map and it's filled with so many great details I don't know where to start. The waterfall (although screaming for a DX9 pass) works wonderfully. I could almost smell the cool, wet air. The custom props, although untextured really stand out. The lighting is done very well. Some of the halls have great vertical views.

Finish this quickly for an official release, but leave it at a beta state because this map is clearly worth a few more layers of polish (should be quite fun, actually).

Things I noticed (unsorted):

- It's too easy to fall down those cliffs. Handrails (probably higher than jump height) should block this off much more.
- Lighting is good but needs extra brightness. Most lamps could be twice as bright. Some parts lack contrast for clear view at daylight/bad monitor situations.
- Maybe this is a HL1 instinct but the brush-based boards for the catwalks look terribly inefficient (like 200 boards with 3 polys each ect.) This could need optimizing. But you could be totally right about the displacement argument.
- Some of the corridors are too long, disintegrating the layout a bit. There are 2 ones that you could consider deleting. I'll post a screenshot or something tomorrow to show what I mean.
- The RPG can be camped quite well.
- Source can only show 1 water effect (at least for me) at a time. This causes the water down the lowest waterfall to sometimes flicker with the upper water.

I'm quite tired. Hopefully I can explain more tomorrow, this is just a very quick impression.

I'm so glad to see such a promising HL2DM map resurrected.

Playing Half-Life 2 again after reinstalling my HD and reading some recent Snarkpit threads motivated me to take up work on Mudanchee again. It's been idling on my disk for almost a full year now, and that while it's almost finished...

So, I want to finish this map quick, nothing too fancy anymore in terms of custom stuff. I'm turning all the platforms into planks and I'm replacing the grey/orange blocks with crates and props now, and I'm adding a small 3D skybox, and that should be it. Oh, I've changed the rock texture in favor of a more wet looking one. This one also has far more relief because of the normal mapping applied to it. I think it's a good improvement. :smile:

Here are some screenshots, and the current version (v0.26) is available for download (6.3 MB).


The planks and new rock texture.


Another rock shot, 3D skybox not done yet here.


Overview of the tomb cave, crates still need replacement.


Central cave overview, platforms not 'plankyfied' yet.


Another central cave shot. Some models still need to be skinned.

I will be :smile:

I'm not hosting ever again though, that's an experience I don't want to repete.

Thanks for them comments guys. :smile:

No mine-carts, there's no rails. I'll see what I can come up with - perhaps an additional stack of valuable-stones-with-ancient-runes and such. I guess it'll do. :smile:

Stretched textures and low-detailed area's are still being worked on. About the rocks, some carving details are a good idea. I'm not an expert with rocks but I'll see what I can do.

Anyone in for a playtest within a few weeks bytheway? :smile:

Looks good to me. So far that is.

Been to long, I cannot remember my past comments. :sad:

Anyway, you seem to be incorporating some digging tools? Will you be making the rocks appear to be dug "into?"

The cave looks to worn/tidy.

I will avoid commenting on the stretched textures at this time. :wink:

Varying between rock piles, bags of crystals, generic crates, and crates of crystals could be enough variety in all-purpose cover. If not you could consider making a mine cart model maybe, though if you don't have any cart tracks that might seem out of place :biggrin: I really like the sky you are using and the view out to it, and I think a canyon view would be pretty awesome. Glad to see you back working on this :smile:

Yay, images galore:


Main changes here so far: I'm splitting up the floors into individual planks. Since most of the map is just displacement map and prop model, I think I can spend the additional poly's (they're all func_detail - the solid brushes of this map are less than 50 I think :smile: ).


Some of the smaller prop models I've been doing recently. I plan to do some medium-sized props such as a portable power generator and an accompanying jerrycan model. Anyone got idea's for replacing all those cover blocks without using too much crates? I think I'm getting stuck there a bit... rocks and bags full of crystals are easily overused too...


A nice sunset after playing with the gravity gun. :smile:
Notice the lack of a 3D skybox. I'm thinking about putting in a canyon-like background. What do you people think?