The SnarkPit is great and all, but where else do you guys visit to
talk, post maps, offer criticism, go for solutions, and just generally
haunt? I feel like the SnarkPit is a unique niche, and that I may
be out of touch with the greater HL2 mapping community by only
visiting this site.

Off the top of my head, I know of a couple places.

mapcore.net : This place seems intimidating (from the few minutes I
browsed through the forums). I'm not sure I'd venture there without
reaching a certain level of skill first.

interlopers.net : To be honest, I don't know much about this
place. It seems very active, with lots of members willing to
download work.

These are just a couple of sites, I'm sure there are more.

I know that people like MisterBister visit Interlopers as well as here,
and ReNo and CJ visit mapcore. So I was wondering how you would
define these places, and give your opinion on whether or not it was
worth branching out and visiting these different forums.

I don't want this to become negative smack-talking of other forums, so
unless you have something positive to say... it would probably be a
good idea to keep quiet. If nothing positive is said about a
site, I'll just assume the worst.

So in other words, where are some other good places to get feedback? What are their strengths?

Additionally, where are some good places to release finished work
(Quantity and quality of downloads)? Where do most people go to
try out new maps?

I do'nt visit any other map forums really...

Every once in awhile I'll crit a map at the Fortress-Forever forums.

!!!! http://www.twhl.co.za !!!!!

(The site I was banned from)

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I would love to change the world, But they would'nt give me the source code.

What's TWHL like?

Only here tbh. I venture all the time on the mapcore and snarkpit IRC channels though. Kinda got bored with computer games in all honesty, they just all seem to be the same- I'm waiting for some new revolution in gaming, or some amazing game. So far nothings popped up which interests me in all honesty- I like something with a twist.

I do like horror games though, not like Silent Hill or anything, but action horror- Doom 3 was a good one, loved the effects and ideas, and RE4 was good too, liked the angle and the interactive cutscenes combined with good zombie action and a classic anime oversized twist.

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-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-

At the risk of derailing my own topic, have you considered mapping for
a zombie type mod for HL2? You could focus on bringing horror to
the masses...

What's TWHL like?

It's very laid-back. The members tend to be younger (I'd say the average age is around 14), and there are a lot more new mappers. However, there are quite a few veteran members who are very talented mappers. Kasperg, in particulra, is very good and very prolific. The sense of comraderie at TWHL is very good.

I started out mapping at TWHL, and learned most of the basics of mapping there. Captain P helped me tremendously, and I won't ever forget that. In fact, it was him who introduced me to the SnarkPit.

I also hang out at Counter-Strike Planet nowadays, but mostly to read feedbacks on my map (de_justice). The forum is very dead there, but the map vault is jumping. My map gets downloaded more than two dozen times a day typically, although most members don't provide feedbacks. It's not a real community (yet).

I'm a well-established member at the SnarkPit and TWHL, and those are the main places where I visit. I haven't really run into another site that has such a sense of community than the forementioned two.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Mapcore is the only other forum I visit regularly. While I can see how
it might seem intimidating to newer mappers, the percentage of the
membership who are either professionals or likely to become
professionals is quite incredible. I wouldn't say the people there are
big-headed or arrogant like you might expect given the average skill
level though, and I recommend the place highly. It's primarily a level
design community but the sections dedicated to texture art and 3D
modelling (even photography, concept art, etc...) are all active, and
that, I feel, encourages people to spread their wings a bit and try out
other areas. It's not the sort of place I recommend to newcomers, nor
is it typically the sort of place people ask specific editing related
questions, but for feedback on any in progress levels, models, textures
and so on, it's a great site. Not as "big" a community as the snarkpit,
but it seems to be on the rise and there is a very active core
membership.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Yeah, I've been spending a lot of time reading through the mapcore
forums today, and I recognized quite a few faces from when I used to
frequent the counter-map forums. RD and Pericolos0 in particular.

What I like about mapcore (from what I've seen so far) is the members
aren't easily impressed, so when they have kind words it means
something.

Does anyone frequent Interlopers.net?

HL2 engine isn't really all that suited for Zombie mods yet. You need some really good effects and some sweet directing, and in the mod world thats hard to come by. Also I don't think a purely "zombie" mod is any good- needs some really good horror, and in those cases I think it either ends out really short or really crap in the mod world.

Also the HL2 engine doesn't contain the tools required really- they need a decent morph tool for entities.

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-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-

Sorry, what does that have to do with anything?

morphine asked about zombie mods

I'm actually trying to cut down on the time I spend on forums / IRC. I
kind of equate it with "flying around in Hammer's 3D view" syndrome.
Less browsing, more working! :smile:

I'm actually trying to cut down on the time I spend on forums / IRC. I
kind of equate it with "flying around in Hammer's 3D view" syndrome.
Less browsing, more working! :smile:

Yeah -- I know what you mean. The problem is, I don't have access to
Hammer at school, so instead of mapping all I can do is browse. And
look at other people's work. And go "wow."

Speaking of "wow," (okay, this is off topic, but I don't want to create
another topic just for this question) I was looking through the WIP
thread at Mapcore, and one of the screens that this guy by the name of
"Hipshot" posted made my jaw drop.

I hope its kosher for me to rehost it and link it here....



Why does this look so realistic? I mean the mapping is great, but the
sunlit part of the building on the left (in particular) looks downright
photorealistic. Is it just the fact that it's 1600x1200 with good
video settings? I mean, I've never seen a screen look this good. The
sunlight tree also looks amazing.

Sorry to derail the thread, this question was just eating at my brain.

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On Topic:

I felt like contributing to a thread at Interlopers so I just
registered. It seems like a very active community with some members
who are new to mapping. I enjoy offering feedback so this should keep
me busy.

CJ is right. :smile:

Right now I'm learning 3ds max a bit, might come in handy if I want to
do more prop models. So far, working with materials is still confusing
and the camera controls are bad like any modelling tool (level-editors
have far better camera control imho), but it's quite easy to pick up
otherwise.

Anyway, I visit TWHL and the VERC now and then, and I'm around on my
own little Dutch mapping forum, that's mostly it. I've been on Mapcore
for a while but it's not really my style.

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Why does this look so realistic? I mean the mapping is great, but the sunlit part of the building on the left (in particular) looks downright photorealistic.

I believe it's just the result of mapping done expertly. The attention to detail, the carefully thought-out lighting and architecture. The carefully placed models and props (so that they don't over-crowd the space). The side of the building looks great because the mapper considered how the light would interact with the normal texture mapping.

I love the screenshot. In fact, I took it and made it my wallpaper. I softened the picture a bit to make it look even more realistic. I also cropped it so that the ground texture doesn't look stretched out.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Glad someone else was as impressed as I was.

I think you cropped it in the right place (the texture on the tree on
the right was really blurry) but I don't think I would have softened
the picture. It's kind of hard to focus on, and part of what I
loved about the original was the crispness.

Wow, that's quite a nerdy statement.

Yeah, I debated with myself about softening the picture. I didn't soften it for my wallpaper, but I did for the posting in my blog. Mostly because I want to impress the non-gaming people just how realistic it looks. It's virtually indistinguishable from a real photograph when softened.

The only thing that made it too crisp was the rails in the distance. You can tell by looking at the non-antialiased hard lines. The softening was primarily aimed to get rid of that effect.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

It's actually too blurry. The problem with the actual mapping job is just the source engine's lighting. It isn't realistic enough. I mean, yes, it looks realistic, but it would look better if there were some other lightsources to do lighter shadows and such (since light would be bouncing off objects, even if they are bricks) And what you mentioned Satch.

It's still pretty though.

I think something that makes it look more realistic is that it LOOKS like a real place, not something someone made up. I mean, that's architecture you can easily see in almost any city.

Currently, I'm gawking at CryEngine 2. It's basically the same open environments as Far Cry ... better visually than HL2 and it still has all the trimmings, like physics. Dynamic Day/Night cycle. Volumetric Clouds.

I wonder if it'll have weather. (Dynamic weather, I mean) That'd be sweet.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

The video certainly was impressive. The real time destruction of that house was awesome.

Congrats AtM, you have officially derailed this topic :razz:

Here's
my
attempt at a background from that screenshot. Burn tool to get
rid of the AA artifacts, desaturate, warming photo filter, gaussian
blur with a radius of 0.6 pixels. The original is really a very good
shot artistically IMO.

As for the actual topic of this thread: I don't really go to any
mapping forums, I just look around for maps that catch my eye, so I can
see what other people have done right and wrong (in my humble opinion
of course) and learn from their maps. I barely use the Snarkpit as a
mapping forum, the general banter board is what I mainly come here for
:smile: I also like looking at maps from better mappers than I, which are
somewhat abundant and easier to find here as opposed to other sites.

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o

Well, I don't feel too bad about derailing the topic, since I'm the one who started it :smile:

As for the image, I kind of like the vibrant color in the leaves in the
original shot, but your image could definitely pass for real.

I agree. I think what makes the original screenshot so beautiful is the interplay between the sun-lit leaves in the tree and the darker brick background. Transforming the picture to the Sepia tone removed that vibrant green contrast.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge