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Ive been extremely busy the last month because of schoolwork and the launch of www.leveldesign.nu (a swedish site with lots of tutorials for leveldesigners and modellers).
The project has also partially been put on hold because of Leveldesign-LAN which im arranging with my friends. Since im hoping to get lots of valuable feedback from the attenders and dont want to change anything too drastically before the event. I also hope that Teddybear (an extremely talented texture artist) will help me out with the materials during the LAN.

(Leveldesign-LAN is a swedish LAN for leveldesigners which takes place in gothenburg 1-2 times a year. People travel form all over sweden to take part of this event.)

Im also learning the basics of modelling in order to create prop that may be present in the map to remove the sterility.

Im currently working hard on optimizing the map. Here's two very WIP shots:

As you know, i never was happy with this area at all. Im currently remaking it into a constructionsite. Because of the optimizations that im currently planning, the area will actually be less constraining to the engine than it is right now.


Heres an in-game image of another WIP optimization im currently working with. Ive blocked the entrance to the building with a wall in order to stop the engine from rendering the stuff inside. Hard to explain but you guys who have been playing it will probably understand what im talking about :wink: . Ive also remade the appearance to reduce polygons.

Thats all for now. Since I'm graduating in one week I'll be working with the project at a much higher pace the following weeks/months. Expect a big update after Leveldesign-LAN (late june).

Now this is just my opinion, but it is based on years and 1,000's of peoples betas that I have assisted on.

This map suffers but only in the sense of aesthetics. You seem to have architecture down pretty well, but you are forgetting the little things that most would walk past in complete ignorance.



Look at this screen shot. What is it missing? What should be missing? This screen shot is pretty indicative of the sterility of the map. You have cubes to save frames, but the cubes detract from the setting. The pro's and con's cancel each other out... So get rid of the cubes.

On the other hand, you are left with a sterile corridor/stairway. This city has electrical usage out the yin/yang but, there seems to be nothing powering it. Is it microwave fed?

Place some transformers (of your unique design) in that area. Put in some switch's. Put in anything thats not a crate. Crates=bad. Naked hallways are better than crates.

In a few areas, you even have an automobile or two. What conceivable purpose would they add to the map?

In the end what you are going to have to do is either get a partner that specializes in the little things, or release a sterile map.

Sorry for not answering for two weeks, but ive had an hell at school and been sick aswell.
I also wanted to hear what everyone had to say before rolling out my plans.

First of all I would really like to thank everyone for the great feedback, as always snarkpit beats all the other
mapping sites by far when it comes to this. Again, thanks alot, I really appreciate it.

this will be a featured map on Dweebs.. its awesome.

Its always nice to hear that people like my work but if you dont mind I would like to have an explanation aswell, why it is awesome?
Whats dweebs?

Its architecture is great, but the attention to the small stuff is missing. The crate situation is... It leaves something to be desired. I love the textures on them, but, there are simply to many.

Yes, i do feel the same. however its difficult to add small stuff because of two reasons. First off, framerates. If i manage to optimize the map enough, ill definitly add more small stuff. Secondly, in source small stuff consist of models, an art that i do not know anything about, yet. Nice to hear that you like the textures on the crates though, I made them :wink: .

The map had connectivity out the butt, but, being mostly metal, there were no distinguishing landmarks. One could be in a constant state of "Being lost"

The gameplay tests actually suggests the opposite. Most of the players quickly understood the places different functions and gave them names such as "the shaft" very early on.

I realy like what you did with this map, very nice job on the design and detail. one complaint tho, the fps.

This is a very known issue, believe me. Thanks for the heads up anyways. Ill talk about optimizing later.

This might be what Orph was getting at, but you could really make the hallway look good by adding "trim" to the floor. So like next to the wall the floor is metal, and then in the middle of the path its carpet.

Ive had lots of similar feedback about this carpet, ill take your suggestion into consideration.

but anyway, i think this is a great map. the archtecture is detailed and i love the custom textures. i did notice some strange anomalies though

This is because there is too many reflective materials being rendered at the same time in the main area. I had the same problem in earlier alpha versions, but i thought i had fixed the problem for good. Seems like I didnt. Thanks alot for the heads up.

hey man, fantastic work. really lovely. reminds me a lot of Jedi Knight 2:Jedi Outcast. And that, from me, is a very big compliment. I consider JK2 to be the best SW game I've ever played. it doesn't run so well in places for me. One place in particular had a huge fps drop due to particles and dynamic lights. not sure where you're using dynamic lights, but you might want to check your point_spotlights to make sure they're not emitting dynamic lights. but anyway, i like a lot. Good work.

Thanks, what is you favourite part of the map then?
The dynamic lights come from the elevators. The particles is from the clouds beneath the map.

MisterBlister

This is very interesting... For some reason Americans mixes me up with "blister" all the time. I even had a guy wanting me for his mod calling me blister, despite the fact that i said my name was misterbister.

I also thought it would be cool to have one of those vehichles descend onto the green lit landing pads down below, and then take back off randomly. I think that would rock.

I would also love to have flying vehicles in the map. However the problem is that i simply wont make anything brushbased and i dont know anything about modelling. This feature will probably not be implemented into the map, but i would love if i could, especially if the players could interact with the vehicles somehow.

Aight, off to my plans.

Optimization
Lots of effort will be put into optimizing the map. First off ill try out the skybox suggestion. Secondly ill remove some of the reflective materials aswell. Heres some specific examples of what i will change:

This particular area really gives me an headache. First off theres way more polygons than needed right here. Secondly the opening is made so that the engine is forced to render everything behind it from almost all angles in the open area. Ill add a wall here so that this wont happen. I think this will do alot for the FPS since theres so much being rendered without any need of it.


This whole building i completely retarded, pulling all of the resources away and being uggly at the same time. Ill probably remake it from the ground up.


In this area ill remove the opening.

Gameplay
One big thing that i noticed during gameplay, and ive had feedback about it aswell, is that the weapon placement simply doesnt work as intended. Players avoid some areas completely and some areas are far to rewarding. Im planning on making a total remake of this.
Instead of putting all the good stuff concentrated, ill spread them out. Ive been thinking about making "routes" for different types of players which they can take to get the weapons and equipment they like.

Im planning to add explodable barrels in the final version, simply because they are so much fun. Dangerous and unpredictable. What do you think about them?

The map also contains lots of areas where theres very poor gameplay because of the lack of cover and "small stuff". One of the greatest example of this is this:


Any suggestions on improvement?

Another area that totally lacks of small stuff is this one, how should i make it better without boxes?


Im very unsure about theese holes in the street. Do they really add as much as they take in performance? I made them because i thought it would be fun to shoot people out on the holes and watch them fall down and because i wanted the place to feel like a battleground. However this doesnt happen very much.. Whats your thoughts about them?



Again, i would like to that you all for the great feedback!

In the map over watch my frame rate is ridiculous in 1600x1200...... 160fps........

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i forgot to mention the resolution i played the game in 1600x1200.......... Since HL2 is a real ATI game having SLI does not change a thing.... im curious what CROSSFIRE can do to boost up frames.......

I dont have an SLI system........ my sys is prepaired for it....... but i rather buy 1 good card :razz:

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<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting snowforskate</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>I didnt get the chance to read them all but this is what I found when I played the map. A spot with my 7800 GTX dropped to 30 fps, I took a screens of it here... ( this is on low graphics settings to )
.</DIV></DIV>

Let me reitterate. I wasn't trying to bad mouth you over the 30 FPS thing (although I still feel that 30 is nothing to get upset over) but reading this post and

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting snowforskate</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>[quote=poisonic]""the lowest fps i get is 78 fps on a en7800GT 256MB ddr3 with 1024MB system ram and a AMD Athlon 64 3700+"" [/quote]

removed.
EDIT: sorry to seam cocky, I know what I said may have came off wrong, hence I removed the post. Honesty I would just like to know the reason your getting those fps, cause from ethier side of the map I saw 30 fps. if you had 78 fps in the spot where my screen showed 32, there must be something your tweeking. + my sysem is much better : / I'm guessing your tweeking your cfg/gfx settings, please inform.

</DIV></DIV>

this tells me that you do indeed have an issue. My main point was, my machine is many levels older/slower than yours and I got nearly the same frame rates on a much higher setting.

You need to look harder at your own setup. Again, I am not bad mouthing your machine, but the facts say, you have a problem.

The map you have so far is potentially great. Right now it feels sterile, and devoid of sound it even lacks all the more for a true environment feeling. I would suggest custom sounds as almost everything else in the map is so, and as I believe someone else mentioned, maybe a bit more variation in texturing, but not much.

I also thought it would be cool to have one of those vehichles descend onto the green lit landing pads down below, and then take back off randomly. I think that would rock. Otherwise I bow to your mapping skilz. This map is gonna be a doozy.

we're 2 different ppl m8, with a confusingly similar name :wink:

as for the map, havent played it yet but from the screenshots, there seems to be a lot of eye candy. i especially like the exteriors.

MisterBlister you should be extremely proud of this map, as it looks simply incredible. I'll be downloading it this weekend and giving it a bash, but from what I've seen during the dev process and the earlier beta's you've done an excellent job. Even if your map doesn't get the best framerate, that shouldn't detract from the work of art you've created. Hell, I think I've only made a couple of maps that actually run that great :smile: . Very well done.

""the lowest fps i get is 78 fps on a en7800GT 256MB ddr3 with 1024MB system ram and a AMD Athlon 64 3700+""

removed.
EDIT: sorry to seam cocky, I know what I said may have came off wrong, hence I removed the post. Honesty I would just like to know the reason your getting those fps, cause from ethier side of the map I saw 30 fps. if you had 78 fps in the spot where my screen showed 32, there must be something your tweeking. + my sysem is much better : / I'm guessing your tweeking your cfg/gfx settings, please inform.