Wow, nice desgin dude. I can see some sweet game play in this map.

reaper47: Haha, I always forget that definition of 'cleanliness'. :smile:

Thanks very much... I always love these paintovers by Finger and you. Very useful to visualize what you mean. They both look great... I wish I had an eye for this stuff. I'm so clueless as to chaos. But I'll have to give it a go as soon as I finish the current project, reworking 1532's interiors. (I hope you don't mind if I steal some of your lovely ideas!)

So thanks again, I'll have another update and hopefully a beta 3 quite soon!

Some images in this post have been automatically down-sized, click on them to view the full sized versions:

Some images in this post have been automatically down-sized, click on them to view the full sized versions:

Some images in this post have been automatically down-sized, click on them to view the full sized versions:

Some images in this post have been automatically down-sized, click on them to view the full sized versions:

Maybe it's not so much about the "cleanness" (I actually tend to build cleanly myself - which doesn't necessarily mean orderly :rolleyes: ) but about a general lack of variation, even for large-scale shapes. More chaos!

Most of the buildings, roads, etc still have a strict border between them. You can easily see where one corridor/place/room ends and the next one starts. That can be obvious and inevitable but you could cut out some more asymmetrical, unpredictable walkable areas to blend places (stairs, corridors, buildings) in a more interesting fashion.

I painted these crude examples for what I mean, don't take these too seriously but try to split up your layout here and there, like I tried it with the pics. There are a lot of possibilities for height variation and general interestingness that would have a direct impact on the layout and would need to be added before final detailing.









I think I'm gonna like the new construction site, btw.

RedWood: Thanks! About the spotlights... well, maybe because of the HDR tweaking I've been doing, it looks like daytime; maybe it's all too bright. What I'd prefer to do is darken the environment lighting a bit and put the exposure back to normal, because I like the way the spotlights look and I want to keep them. :biggrin:

reaper47: Haha, it's not very complicated... there are far more routes available to you than before but I don't think (well, I hope) they aren't too hard to figure out. As for the cleanliness, I'm sure I've said this before, but I'm perpetually waiting until the map is actually just about done layoutwise before I do any dirtying up... because what I've always found is that I'll do a lot of work on one building to make it look nice and then I end up deleting it a couple weeks later and losing all that work, or majorly revamping it... so it's gonna be pretty clean until I finish the layout. Also, with the alleys: I've tried hard to make them less boring by providing alternate routes along them. I'm already doing MORE work on the layout; for the alley behind the restaurants, I've added a door that leads into the restaurant itself, so then you have another option halfway along the alley.

Anyways, as I continue to create more routes and interiors, the map's starting to feel a little big. That worries me. I'm going to finish what I'm up to (a larger hotel interior) and then see just how big it is and maybe delete some stuff or cut it down a bit. I'm not really sure.

Thanks for your comments! :smile:

Wow, this is getting really complicated :biggrin:

I need to see this in action to give any comments at all. I agree with RedWood with the too many spotlights. There are too many.

It's also getting a little too clean for my taste now, especially the floors.

There also seem to be very, very long corridors on the outer borders of the map now which could turn out a little linear.

But it's really hard to say anything specific, even with all the description. Maybe you can get a proper server-test soon at this place called The Radiator.

It's looking really good. From what i can see the HDR has a good look to it. I think you may have gone overboard on the spot lights though. I can't really imagine seeing a spot light beam when it's daylight out.
I'd elaborate more but i have to get to work.

Oy!

So in these past three weeks following the release of dm_residential_b2, I haven't really updated you guys at all, but I've been working harder than ever to bring this map to its best. And this is what I've been working on:

• The old apartment building (with the extruded edges and basement access, right across from 1532) has been split up into 3 separate buildings of the same style, allowing walkways between all of them and connected above the walkways themselves. The basement access building has been redesigned (screenshot) - now stairs lead up to the main level (screenshot - omfg I love those shadows and the slight bloom on the handrail) and there's a new interior there (screenshot). There's also an alternate way to access the basement - via a door you can access from a side walkway.

• Finally, a solution to the empty areas of the map. All of the sections which used to be odd, slanted concrete (due to the hill) between the buildings, and surrounding the used-to-be park, have been turned into actual civilian walkways with stairs and handrails. (screenshot; the open door you see leads into the interior in the previous screenshot.)

• Destroyed building no longer has an interior (url=http://www.midkay.net/dm_residential/b3/residential_b3_05.jpg]screenshot[url])No door leading in, and there's only one door open for use from the outside, and that leads down a short hall, across a small skybridge connecting it to the building that replaces the old construction site (url=http:/www.midkay.net/dm_residential/b3/residential_b3_06.jpg]screenshot[/url]). Immediately after the skybridge there is a room housing the crossbow - a new sniper location (see window just right of the skybridge). This new building also has stairs that lead down to two separate entrances for flexibility.

• New alley along the back of the destroyed building (right side of screenshot), leading up to the new walkway (on the left of the screenshot) and one of the two ground-level entrances to the new sniper building (not QUITE visible in the screenshot, but it's on the left). Another new alley along the back and side of the groundlevel-restaurant building (screenshot). On the right you can see the hole in the 1532 building and on the left you can see the destroyed building.

• So where did the construction site go? Why, it replaces replaces the park/grass area from beta 2. The site itself is much larger and more detailed and it's no longer "adding on" to another building - it's a brand new standalone metal-and-concrete structure. Screenshot from ground level (note the stairs on the right!) and another from atop the plank connecting it and 1532.

• Semi-roof access on 1532 - a ladder leads up to the extruded faces of the building and the crossbow is on the far side.

Also, well, I've done some lighting tweaks, notably for HDR, by adjusting the tonemap controller to give slightly larger blooms and slightly higher exposures in dark areas; this map almost demands HDR to look good, and I'm really loving how it's ending up visually.

This is all kind of hard to comprehend in text, I think, so I whipped up a very crude flow map that shows how you can navigate the map. And here is that map (green shows the roadways, red shows ground-level navigation, and blue indicates a higher elevation (the skybridge and third-floor corridors).

The map's flow should be infinitely better than beta 2's, I've added a ton of routes around and throughout, and no longer do buildings just have one way in and one way out. You can pick your route through them, or along them, or around them with all the alleys and walkways. There are, as far as I know, no longer any ways to get yourself trapped (except for one interior in the apartment building, but that's intentional - you've got to take a risk if you want to go for the super suit/health charger!).

And with all that said, I'm planning to release a beta 3 of this within a few days. I'm really looking forward to everyone's thoughts - please let me know your opinions on this! Very happy to make some last-minute changes. In fact, I've got a couple myself, that should improve the flow even more.

Thanks for reading this monster of a post. Let's hear your thoughts! :smile:

I'm beginning to think I might be able to pull this off a little better than I expected. I'll definitely have to show you guys to get your thoughts, but I've been working on this in the past few days, making a few more-than-minor changes that should be beneficial.

One thing I did is create an alleyway that leads behind the restaurants - basically, from the large hole in the side of the 1532 red/yellow/white apartment/hotel building, along the back of the restaurant building (yellow) and along the side, and it exits facing the destroyed building. An alternate way of getting around; I might be doing some more with this, but that's how it stands for now.

Another, sort of fulfilling reaper's request: Roof access to 1532 (again, sort of). I have a ladder leading up to the top of the red windows on the right side of the building, and some planks leading between each of the window sections; I moved the RPG to the far of the red windows on the left side, so now you've gotta work to get it, by climbing a big exposed ladder then walking across all the window sections - again, pretty exposed. That should help balancing it out a bit.

The big thing I just started on tonight, which is turning out a bit, hmm, better than I expected: just for the hell of it, I deleted the park, grabbed the entire construction site, and moved it over to where the park was. This was the ideal candidate for this area, because it ends up being a pretty short building so you can still see across the map kinda well (sniping between the destroyed building and the room across from it should still be possible) and it doesn't block out too much. But what it introduces is a big possibility of joining up several of the buildings, like Yak_Fighter suggested.

So that's an update on what I'm up to. I have some more ideas in mind for connectivity and flow, as well as I'd like to do more with the construction building to give more vertical play, but we'll see how this goes and hopefully it turns out to be for the best. :smile:

Thanks Yak_Fighter,

Those are some really great ideas. Some of the suggestions you made like removing gaps between buildings and sidewalks are oddly reminiscent of a process the map went through many months ago. :smile: But I understand the reasoning behind it, I think there are still a couple places this could be done.

I don't really intend to be able to totally fix the layout and turn it into something great, but you have some great suggestions that, if I feel up to it, I might spend a little time messing with on a seperate copy of the map. I didn't go for complete realism, but I tried in some aspects. Some of these things were even already in my head that needed to be done before the final (such as making the destroyed building far more interesting gameplay wise).

"You'd have to add levels to those two previously mentioned buildings and connect them to the fire and construction ones." This quote paints an insane mental picture that's so cool I might just have to try it. :smile:

Thanks again!

As far as trying to fix this map's current layout, it would be very tough. A realisticially designed city block (ie square block with wide roads) just isn't very good for deathmatch play.

There are a few things you could do, like making the roads and sidewalks a little narrower, maybe by 16-32 units, and eliminating any gaps between the sidewalk and the buildings.

The problem is that really fixing the layout would require something drastic like totally removing the middle park and putting one of the already finished buildings in its place. You'd want to change the road as well if you did this, having it follow the perimeter of the hotel and that building with the open basement. You'd have to add levels to those two previously mentioned buildings and connect them to the fire and construction ones. However, that's a whole lot of work that would require alot of changes, probably to the point where you'd be better starting over.

Realistic mapping is very hard in deathmatch maps, as many of the designs that make deathmatch fun just don't fit into real-world scenarios. Stuff like no dead ends, over/under areas that have contrasting heights and allow for vertical combat and fast movement, good connectivity between the different areas and heights of the map, and few wide open areas or long hallways. These are especially hard to fit into urban or city environments, cause they mostly look forced or just plain bad. In fact I can't even think of any examples of a good urban deathmatch map that still looked like a real city outside of some Action HL maps. :/