Hey Trapt, thanks for the suggestions. I think you're right, I'll try and make the destruction a bit higher-poly. And I guess I'll try steel in the construction site too. Not sure what sort of architectural changes that'll require though...

And thanks for the shadow compliment.. loves high res lightmaps :smile:

The rubble looks decent. I'd recommend looking at dm_overwatch again just to see how VALVe pulled it off. The only thing I don't like about the destroyed building is the jagged edges, it just looks... crappy, to be honest. Give it more sides and make it less zig-zaggy, and it'll look loads better.

And yeah, I'd go for steel on the construction site. I'm sure wood works, but the texture doesn't look right. Either experiment with other wood textures or change it to steel trusses.

Lovin' the shadows the wood framework makes though, good job on that.

Thanks for your prompt responses :smile:

At both of you: As far as the basement being undestroyed.. this is still a definite to-do. I haven't got time to invest the probably-hour-or-so I'll need to fully implement such destruction - I'm just off to bed - but I'll do it tomorrow most likely.

Elon: About the steel girders.. hmm. I've seen lots of construction sites where the framework is entirely (or mostly) wood.. but I'm no architect, and it may be different for large apartment-type buildings. So I can change it to metal if anything is found out about this. I'll do some research tomorrow.

Thanks again.. talk to you all tomorrow. :smile:

Looking good now, midkay!

My complaint about the undestroyed basement stays. Maybe instead of cutting up the basement you could build some more cracked walls above it. Like 32 Units high. It's mainly the 90? horizontal ledge that looks odd.

I think the griders in a construction site are made of steel. You should ask kasperg, he sometimes hangs around here, he is an architect, so he knows.

By the way the lower ledge of the destroyed building next to the debris, it is now damaged at all, which seem highly unlikely to happen. Cut off the edge of that ledge.

Here's a few brand new shots:

Debris at destroyed building. Using various gray concrete textures now.. thanks for the suggestion, reaper47, wouldn't have tried it but it looks great I think. Also added lots of decals and trash. Maybe a little too much trash? Anyways, I feel like it's looking pretty good now.

Debris from above. Construction site in background, here are some close ups:

Shots one, two, and three of the construction site. Much more unfinished... er.. less finished.. whatever. :smile: What do you think, reaper47?

That's about it for now. I actually really want to make a minute-long or so flyaround video of the latest compile or so to show off the whole level and its flow.. so I might create and put up something like that soon.

@ reaper47:

Construction building - that's true. I'll see what I can do.. remove all the horizontal beams on the top and make it more uneven overall. Just wait! :smile:

"This shot" - let me show you what I've got now (see third shot below). The basement wall could use some destruction.. but I'll have to do some major work to allow that. So give me a few days or something. :smile: And the roof: solid concrete that is! For now at least. :smile:

The building itself.. I think it's necessary. I just felt like it seemed so boring to have a bunch of small jagged holes in walls, just large enough for the player to fit through. This is way more fun and visually-interesting, I think. FPSwise, I think it should be fine. The destruction is quite coarse and it should stay that way.. the construction building isn't a very big deal right now, and it should get even less detail when I trim it back a bit. FPS is way way way better than beta 1 anyways.. I think there's no reason to worry, at least not about this.

And I still love you and your comments! :biggrin:

So here's a few shots I took on the latest compile..

Apartment buildings with some top-lighting.
Destroyed building and construction site from afar..
Destroyed building and street debris, a bit more detailed and varied now. Still gotta dirty up these textures and more rubble, etc etc etc..
Construction site.. I added some spotlights at the left for some nice light and shadow play on the ground and wall.

Thoughts welcome as always. :smile:

You have to look very closely to even notice the missing beams at the construction site. It would be nice, when watching the construction site from a distance, to not see a big rectangle of beams but more an organic shape with one side totally unfinished, for example.

This shot looks good. I'd just use a neutral, gray texture for the big wall debris (the red/white paint looks unrealistic) and also a bit of destruction for the dark, gray basement wall. It's completely clean, not even a crack. It looks odd.

btw. Is that roof made of 3 meters of solid concrete? Maybe it's just the perspective...

Man, this building is a lot of work. Maybe you should step back for a moment and re-think if it needs all that detail. Together with the many beams at the construction site, you have a lot of small polygons and that could become a performance issue.

I assume you hate me now. Sorry. <:]

Quick quick 30-minutes-of-work early alpha preview shots! :smile:

Shot 1... what I'll build off of to create the debris from the screwed-up building.

Shot 2 and Shot 3 - did some tweaking of the construction site for you, reaper47. Is this what you had in mind?

Thoughts are very welcome.. but remember these are very very unfinished shots. :smile:

Sigh. This rubble stuff is hard!

I spent an hour or so today just messing around with a rough layout for the rubble.. I got nowhere. I tried a huge (like stories tall) chunk of wall fallen across the road.. not too easy to pull off realistically. Some smaller pieces painstakingly attached to each other with rebar.. looks unrealistic, hard to do. Hmm.

I'll probably have to use displacements one way or another.. but I'm just not sure where I can go with this yet. I'll probably need tons of rubble/debris/rock props as well.. ponders.