Thanks for the full reply :smile: Didn't mind the length at all, it was nice to be able to read your response to my thoughts.

Regarding the tree house: Yeah, from the shot I couldn't tell if there was anything actually up there, but since you put some goodies up there I'm sure people will risk the climb. I'm liking it the more I think about it.

Don't worry too much about rushing out a new compile with some shots, because unless there's a lot of serious changes I'm not going to have as much to contribute in terms of suggestions. In other words, I'm running out of new ideas, so I wouldn't mind if you took a few days in the lab and took this map to the next level. At this point I really wish I could play the map, because I'm tired of talking about the looks, and wish I could give you some feedback on the gameplay / layout. The best I can do is just ask for some sort of overhead layout with the potential routes outlined and maybe even weapon placement if you're so inclined :smile: Hopefully your friends gave you some suggestions though.

You know how in Overwatch half of the central building is destroyed and rubble has spilled out into the street, and you can climb it easily to the 2nd floor? I think that would be a really cool element to recreate on one section of the map. Perhaps an alternate way to enter one of the busier buildings, or just a way to fill up an empty looking/feeling area of the street.

Also, I was rereading the early comments in this thread and Orpheus had some good ideas for some things that would help fill up the map. Here are the original ideas that I haven't seen yet in your map, but would like to:

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>・quoting Orpheus</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>

[*]
<DIV align=left>Breezeways on or connected to the buildings.</DIV>
[*]
<DIV align=left>Fire hydrants.</DIV>
[*]
<DIV align=left>Phone booths.</DIV>
[*]
<DIV align=left>Mail boxes.</DIV>
[*]
<DIV align=left>Dirt lots.</DIV>
[*]
<DIV align=left>Billboards.</DIV>

</LI></DIV></DIV>

I had to look up the term breezeway, since I'd never heard it before: "A roofed, open-sided passageway connecting two structures, such as a house and a garage."

Anyway. It's too bad you can't get CS:S assets in the map, because the assault props would be perfect for this map.

Also, I just wanted to say that your mapping has improved a heckuvalot since I first saw you here at the pit (exploding barrels in a box if I remember correctly :smile: ). Also, thanks for the opportunity to offer some critiques, it feels good to make suggestions, it's been far too long since I last thoroughly responded to anything.

[edit]
Whoa. I've written one hell of an essay as a reply. Forgive me. :smile:
[/edit]

Wow, that's one monster of a post. :biggrin: I really appreciate the detail into which you go on each screenshot. I'll do the same. :smile:

Screen 1: First off - that screen looks great, thanks for it. I'm so bad with buildings... if I have one weak point as far as mapping, I think it's that. :smile: Slowly trying to add details to these. By the way, I took your reduce-the-number-of-windows suggestion on one of the buildings. The brushwork is more complex now since the texture is of two windows, meaning I had to cut out "windows" and "wall" and kind of tile the two together. I think it looks better though. Unfortunately I can't find much of a view of it in any screen but it's just barely visible in screen #6 - the orange colored building behind the yellow one.

Screen 2: Something I've had in mind for a while. I'm just wondering how it will clash with the decal that creates the lack-of-windows there. I should just cut out a section of wall and texture it windowless but instead I used a windowless overlay atop the large windowed brush. I should fix that soon. Also, doors are coming soon - you can see I added some to the hotel (brick building with some detail to it).

Screen 3: Thanks. I spent so long on it, gah. :smile: Not fun to create.. but worth it. It curves up, levels out a bit (not entirely) and starts curving back up a bit. The windows do need to be changed, you're right. The building will probably just be moved up and yeah, I'll give it a concrete foundation like I've done with several of the other buildings on the hill (e.g. the hotel). As for the spacing between sidewalk and building - this should be filled in probably with grass and maybe a few trees, I agree.

Screen 4: The hallway (that works its way up not-quite-the-center of the building) which I haven't really illustrated in any screenshots yet presented a problem with hallways - since the staircase is off-center, hallways down one or two sides of the building can't reach out very far before hitting the edge of the building. I decided as a partial "workaround" I might have the building cut off along that side - destroyed - by the combine walls. Which might go entirely. In which case I'll make the building bigger. Gah. So many options. :smile: It's just not very clear yet that the hallway has been cut off, although it will either be clarified or the concept removed altogether.

Screen 5: This would indeed be a very good place for a crossbow - there's already one placed in the map but it's not very close by and you have to jump out and run around the building to get it, then all the way back up inside. Since the map is already getting big I'm approaching the possibility of having two places that a single weapon spawns for most weapons (e.g. a 357 in the corner building and one in the kiosk - across the map from each other). As for the props - I don't know. :\ Something I've noticed is that while the combine walls/shields cast shadows on the brushes, they don't block light from lighting the player's weapon - so standing anywhere in those combine wall shadows should leave you with a fully sunlit weapon. This may apply to props as well - it would certainly seem so. I'm not sure what to do. Maybe a BLOCK LIGHT brush if it comes down to that. Or maybe that problem will solve itself when the combine walls are replaced with something else. Oh, and traffic lights - yes, traffic lights spawn there. They are, however, removable when damaged, so you can shoot them down and throw them around. :smile: As a side note, I'll probably redo that brushwork. It looks too bold and too... straight, perhaps. I don't really like it.

Screen 6: Thanks @ the hill. The destroyed sections of wall look alright but I'm not very happy with them yet - they're displacements and sometimes don't seam together too well. Rubble's a good idea. A foundation will come soon as noted above. :smile:

Screen 7: The building up top = the "hotel". The only building that isn't more or less a box, I think. :biggrin: The windows on the left side are.. yeah. Dense. I'll work on that.

Screen 8: Funny thing - the ladder leading up to it was extremely fux0red in the version we tested. It's always been a bit weird, but I must have done something to really screw it up recently. I'm trying a fix for the next compile. I did however see several players give several attempts at getting up there, and a couple times a player managed to get on the ladder just right and make it up to the top. It was pretty cool, from the "new camp spot" I watched, zoomed in, as someone camping up in the treehouse was ambushed from someone else who climbed up behind them and crowbarred them to death. :smile: Your question would seem to imply that it may not be a very important part of gameplay, and I agree there is potential for that; when the ladder's working again I'll have to see if the treehouse is used when it's actually accessible or if it's ignored mostly. I have health vials and crossbow ammo up there.

Screen 9: Right. Ooops. Forgot to select something when moving the building upwards. :smile: Nice find, I never even noticed. :smile:

Screen 10: You're right, I missed that. In an earlier screenshot in this thread - here [ http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/7606/residential5xv1.jpg ] - there was a bit more distance between window and lobby ceiling. I "fixed" that and as a result it looks wrong. Removing windows from that floor altogether sounds like the correct solution indeed.

Screen 11: Thanks, the hole serves its purpose indeed :wink: Performance I could go on about for a while. Map performance even from a far corner seeing everything the map has to offer has been surprisingly good for me for quite a long time. I've been spending a lot of time using nodraw everywhere possible, keeping brushes as aligned/efficient as possible, etc, and it's paid off. In the latest build with the hill, however, performance has taken a noticeable turn for the worse. From the roof of the corner building looking across the park and other buildings on my 7900GT maxed out at 1280x960 everything's been alright - 35 fps probably, no major drops or stutters. But in the latest build from the same viewpoint it may be as low as 20 fps. I'll have to see what I can do to optimize this as much as possible.

Screen 12: Addicted -2 usefulness ;D

Screen 13: Right, I have a slide and some monkey bars.. not much. :smile: Some more stuff like a sandbox or merry-go-round would be welcome here. I used the alpha blending for dirt around the trees, but not yet around the slide/bars. Good idea.

Screen 14: Hm, you're right, I didn't really provide any screens of the inside. Next time, I promise. :biggrin: I'll recompile overnight and maybe snap a few screens in there and post them here tomorrow (e.g. 12 hours from now).

Combine walls: I have some ideas (taking a few hints from e.g. Overwatch) like piles of rubble, cars, fences, combine shields like you'd see in the HL2 plaza with the forcefields, forcefields by themselves, etc.. but nothing that would satisfy the basically entire open area along the parking lot or at the top of the hill. I might need to use the combine walls there, but I'm not too sure. Maybe I can come up with something. This is still brewing in the back of my head. :smile:

Map performance was noted above, it's gone down since the hill but I'll see what I can do...

I do have several soundscapes.. as well as a basic quiet noise always in the background (ambience) there are some outdoorlike soundscapes a la overwatch as well as one for in the blown-out building (some quiet intermittent groaning metal) and indoors (dunno how to describe it.. just.. indoorsish quiet kind of noises). :smile:

Dirtying up - certainly. I've gone around on a decal spree once a while ago and it definitely helped. A few more of those should be good, then I'll need a bit more debris/trash around.. it's getting there. :smile: Some broken bottles/cartons/bags on the street, but I need more.

I have been looking at especially the HL2 plaza for some reference. I have looked at the source .vmf to see how they achieved some things but I certainly haven't and won't copy anything from there. Nice to see how they managed some things though. Recessed doorways, brick foundations, rooftop windows.. lots of interesting stuff to see there. Also been looking at some other maps like dm_overwatch and some user maps as well.

So things are coming along. On a side note, although I feel that the hours I spent on the hill last night are some of the most painful and tedious I've spent since I started, I don't feel inclined to raise the map's finished %. I haven't gone backwards, not at all, but I don't feel I've really gone forwards. I still see plenty more things to do; the hill was unplanned, but it's really nice to have. I keep seeing new things to do, etc.. I'll leave it as-is for now (the percent) but things are coming along more than ever. :smile:

So thank you, Addicted, for this extremely detailed screenshot breakdown of your thoughts - I really appreciate it. I'll reread and re-reread them again, they all sound very helpful toward progressing the map. :biggrin: Gah, this reply seems extremely long by now. I must have spent around 45 minutes on it.. hmm. :smile: Tiring. Bed for me now.. night. :smile:

Sounds like you had fun!

OK, crits if you want em, in order of the new screenshots.

1) There are still too many windows on this building, and the structure itself is not that exciting. Why not push some areas of the building out, to stagger the sides a bit so they're not flat? As an example, check out this image from the No More Room in Hell mod by dark:



Less flat, more of that ^ = nice.

2) The decal seems oddly placed. Too high and overlapping with the windows. I'd move it down and to the right, over to the side of the building away from the windows. Maybe add some trim or signs of a real doorway?

3) The hill does look nice. I was pleasantly surprised to see you curved it instead of just angled it up, so it does look more natural. As for the building though, I'd expect the windows to not be so close to the ground. Perhaps some cement areas near the base of the building before it turns into plastery looking wall with windows. Additionally, there's a whole lot of concrete between the sidewalk and the buildings, looking strange. I'd expect either grass between the sidewalk and the building or at least dirt or a driveway or something to lend the area more variety.

4) Where did all the rubble come from? It looks nice, but doesn't make too much sense. Maybe if the walls around it were concrete instead of plaster, or if the roof above was cut up and you could see where the concrete broke off from it would look more realistic.

5) I'd like to get up here with a crossbow. Also, its a shame about the glowing props over near the parking lot. It seems like the closer light posts are lit correctly, but the further ones aren't (along with the 'crete barriers). Any way to fix that? Also, are you planning on adding traffic lights to your brushwork?

6) The hill looks really nice in that shot! I also like the destroyed windows. You could probably put some rubble down near the ground below those windows. I wish the building itself was less boxy. Also Why not make the bottom parts of the building (without windows on the slope) brick, or something that looks more like a building foundation?

7) Ah, the building up top looks good. It has more interesting geometry, and you've textured in a foundation below the windows. Still quite a few windows on the left side though.

8) Did the treehouse get used much in the playtests?

9) Missing texture on the right side of the cream building directly across from the camp spot.

10) Given the height of the first floor in that building, the windows on the second floor make no sense. The bottom of the window is literally on the edge with the top of the door. I'd just get rid of the windows on that level entirely.

11) I like the blasted hole on the left. How's the performance from that part of the map? I imagine the whole thing is pretty much being rendered at once.

12) midkay +1 frag

13) Playground seems sparse and unused. Why not add a few more props and blend in some dirt around them, making the park look like kids have run around so much in it that the grass has died in spots.

14) Not much to say about this one, just I'd like to see some shots of the inside of that area, with all the rubble and the stairs.

Any ideas for replacing the combine wall? How's the performance of the map overall? Do you have a soundscape yet?

Seems like you could stand to dirty the map up a bit, with decals, overlays, random props and debris.

If you don't have time to read anything else, read this: If you're curious about ways to make your buildings look better, fire up HL2 and walk around the outside of the train station. Snap screenshots of each building, and look at them, study them. I wouldn't suggest lifting the exact design, but instead identify some architectural elements (like rounded edges, varied roof heights, extruded wall geometry etc) and use them in your map. It'll also give you an idea of how Valve implemented the textures you're now using.

Looking forward to more. I also feel like such a backseat mapper right now. Feel free to discard comments or suggestions as you see fit.

Yep, I'm glad I did it too - although vvis wasn't too happy about it. :biggrin:

We played for a surprising 2-and-a-half hours. There were five players at one point, but for the second two thirds it was four of us. We had a lot of fun; the hill brought a definitely great gameplay change, thanks again for the suggestion.

Here are fourteen screens, twice as many as usual - and now they're 1024x760 (who still runs an 800x600 monitor, anyways?) :smile: They're more or less all "action" screenshots (not the "clean", formal ones I've been posting). Two notes; the below screens do not have HDR, since I didn't compile with the checkbox ticked, and the screens also do not have proper reflections. Cubemaps didn't work right for some reason, even after several rebuilds+restarts+mat_reloadallmaterials'. Ah well; enjoy.

Screen 1, no comment :smile: : http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/8540/residential1xw3.jpg

Screen 2, front of "corner building": http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/2706/residential2ay8.jpg

Screen 3, looking down the lovely new hill: http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/8246/residential3gb3.jpg

Screen 4, some new interior hallways: http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/4412/residential4vl1.jpg

Screen 5, a peek out from a new camping spot higher up in the destroyed building: http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/8793/residential5ny8.jpg

Screen 6, looking down the hill: http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/7418/residential6hl8.jpg

Screen 7, a look up the new hill and park area towards the raised buildings: http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/1029/residential7ub1.jpg

Screen 8, "ground level" view of the hill: http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/3025/residential8fy2.jpg

Screen 9, another look out the new campspot: http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/2844/residential9po0.jpg

Screen 10. no gun for some reason (am i dead?) - looking up towards the hotel: http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/9408/residential10zq0.jpg

Screen 11, down the street from the far end: http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/3176/residential11ow5.jpg

Screen 12, yet another look out the new camp spot - couldn't resist this one, someone's dying in my crosshairs :biggrin: : http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/2694/residential12dk1.jpg

Screen 13, view from atop the roof looking down on the park area: http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/7506/residential13rg2.jpg

Screen 14, just liked the composition of this one - looking down the street: http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/4466/residential14md1.jpg

The playtest went great, I've got a few more ideas in mind and got some cool suggestions from friends, a few bugs that I'll squash... but the end is certainly in sight. :smile:

Sweet, glad you integrated it! Z-Axis changes are always welcome!

Drat. :smile:

This build has the suggested hill in it! And what hell it was... I worked for maybe 8 hours last night completely revamping the map for the hill, and several hours today. Time to give it a run. Screens of ramp and gameplay soon. :biggrin:

I'd like to help out, but I A) Don't have Steam here B) I'm in China

Hope it goes smoothly. Post some screens of your map in action (ie. people fraggin each other).

Typical, I forget to leave the date of the game - today. :smile:

That's in four hours or so.

Hey all,

I'm going to have a play test with several friends (probably around 4-5 people total; maybe 6). It'll be around 9PM PDT.. or like 5PM eastern. It'll probably last an hour or more, but if anyone here'd like to join, even if just for a few minutes, leave a message! :smile:

Thanks!

Sure thing, when someone gives a lot of advice and suggestions I certainly make a point of at the very least responding to and considering each one to show my appreciation. :smile: I'm glad you opened my eyes to a few things, in fact I lowered the "progress complete" from 80% to 75% as a result. :biggrin:

I'll probably work for a couple more days and post up a few more screens of the changes. That hill idea is really beginning to look appealing. :smile: That'd probably take a few hours to get done, what with moving all the buildings+interiors over there up a ways, getting the textures straightened out, integrating all that.. but I love the mental picture I have of it. :smile:

Thanks again.