Bloody Ore

The comments I've recieved on Sublevels 2 have opened my eyes to Source
mapping a little -- it's assloads different from Valve engine mapping
both from a technical standpoint and in gameplay. So, into the rubbish
fire goes Sublevels 2, and out of its ashes rises Bloody Ore.

Set in an iron ore mine, Bloody Ore.. well hell the description is up there, why bother paraphrasing it here? :razz: heh.

Anyway, I plan to use alot of Source in this map. I'm already getting pretty comfortable with displacements and models.

The map will consist of two sections: topside and the mines.

I have all of the topside section's structures laid out; I just need to fill them with stuff.

I'm hoping this one doesn't turn out like crap.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

It's pretty dark if you ask me. Too dark to see much in that first and last shot, so probably too dark for gameplay as well. And I prefer daylight maps just for their mood, for some reason they seem to play 'happier' to me.

Look into 3D skyboxes bytheway, I'm sure you can make that background outside more interesting. :smile:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

The map looks far to evenly structured. Try to break up the layout, move buildings closer, to each other, add some height levels... right now it looks like a big open field with "something in".

First thing I noticed, though: It's too dark! Even for a night map! Make it 2, 3 times as bright, at least make sure the floor is lit by spotlights ect to make sure the player isn't blind when playing it at day or low contrast!

One last thing (sorry, I wanted to mention the nice looking machinery in the last pic more <:] ) - there already is a map with a very similar theme called dm_mine. It's a decent map although it has a weird layout at places. You might want to know that, although there's room for more than one mine map IMHO.

Half-life 1 with a new weapon

Looks good so far, but theres not really much at all to comment on tbh.

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-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-

Half-life 1 with a new weapon

At least I'm making maps. :razz:

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Because I obviously have no idea what I'm talking about.

wtfever. I didn't ask for an asshole's input on my second attempt at
source mapping. I haven't even made any "screw around" maps like the
300-or-so I've done for HL1 yet.

On another note, I've posted new screens..

And Cap'n, about those skyboxes.. I don't know what I'm doing wrong --
I tried putting the damn thing at the origin of the map and moving
everything else and I still get a replica of the map itself and not the
miniature scenery in the skybox. So I just said "screw it and built a
fence around it with some displacement hills

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Victor-933</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>wtfever. I didn't ask for an asshole's input on my second attempt at source mapping. I haven't even made any "screw around" maps like the 300-or-so I've done for HL1 yet.

</DIV></DIV>

Chill Victor.. No one is being an asshole.

The buildings and machinery are top rate. I love a good set of machines with a purpose.

Your area is HL1 with a vengeance. It looks like a box, with stuff in it.

I would put the buildings on hold and work on the terrain for a bit.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

The whole 'center-of-the-map' thing all those 3D skybox tutorials talk about is nonsense imho. Sure, it's a nice way to make sure your 3D skybox is aligned well with the map, but other than that I've seen much confusion happing through this method.

The skybox camera entity serves as the center of the map for the 3D skybox part. Just make sure this box is sealed off from the rest of the map (and from the void) and only contains the things you want to have in your 3D skybox. Then everything should be just fine. You probably had this area leaking or such.

About the new shots - they're still awfully dark, that would be the very first point to work on if you want better feedback. :wink:
Besides that, the buildings do look like mining buildings so that's a good thing, but as Orph pointed out, the terrain needs work.
Do you have any shots or drawings that depict the layout you're going for bytheway? I believe it's a usefull thing to know (after all, you want to know if your map plays well before putting a few months work in it).

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

I highly doubt the mini scenery was leaking -- I built a cube around it and hit control+H

As for the lightness, I experimented with a sunset skybox but didn't
really like it. I'm sticking with the night skybox -- sort of gives it
that Ravenholm theme. But I'll add some spotlights or something, if I
can get the damn entities to work right, that is.

And I started work on the terrain before I even read these suggestions :razz:

Cap'n: I've based the design on the coal mines from Transport Tycoon:



Thanks for the input, all of you.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Victor-933 said:
And I started work on the terrain before I even read these suggestions :razz:

Then WTF good are we then? Stop asking us to suggest in hindsight.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

You should add more artifictual lights. The sky's light can still be dark, night maps are sometimes nice, but make the central area brighter. Death Match maps aren't sepposed to be dark, it's annoying when you can't see anything 5 feet away from you.

The skybox and the areas around the center are really boring. I suggest that you add bolders, pools of water and trees to the areas around the center. Trees in the skybox will be nice too. Also add the power lines that lead the electricty from the power plant(not in the map of course) to the whole mine.

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Elon Yariv

Heh, Rollercoaster Tycoon. Great stuff. Now put in one of those hotdog stalls. :razz:

Well, if you had a hollow box and the sky_camera inside it (and not accidentally left a sky_camera within the map), it would work.

As for spotlights, use light_spot for the actual light, and point_spotlight for the beam (just don't tick that dynamic flag or your performance will skyrocket... the wrong way - caused me some trouble a while ago :wink: ).

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Captain P said:
(just don't tick that dynamic flag or your performance will skyrocket... the wrong way - caused me some trouble a while ago :wink: ).

Could the word you are searching for be... Plummet?

giggles

"Skyrocket the wrong way... Thats killer.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I'm still adding stuff to the map.. I've given the mine it's own
generator. I mean, the thing's basically in the middle of nowhere and
is running alot of heavy machinery.. why wouldn't it have its own power
source?

Also, the mine having its own generator helps the story given to it a
little -- the rebels wouldn't need to rely on weak generator trailers
to power their little base thing.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Cap'n: I've based the design on the coal mines from Transport Tycoon:

I find that so cool.

Once again, new screenshots. The shadows are pointing the wrong way for
the skybox, but I don't really have the patience to re-run the compile
after fixing shadows. I was gone the whole time this was compiling.

As you can see I've switched it to daytime. I'm running my monitor at
full brightness and contrast so I can see, but when I dropped it to 75%
brightness and contrast I noticed that no amount of spotlights would
help in the nighttime setting I had.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Well, the brightness is certainly better.

The terrain needs much work, though. It's still just a flat, boring surface (with obvious texture repetition from that angle) but with a few hills thrown in. Don't be shy and put the whole terrain into dismaps, then create some real relief there. :smile:
It's also a very open area, with too little things of interest in it yet.

The buildings are too tidy, as is their placement. It makes the level feel blocky, or 90-degreed so to say. It's unnatural. Usually not an easy thing to avoid, but some angles now and then do wonders.

Keep it coming! :smile:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

well.. the buildings aren't supposed to have a bunch of fancy
architecture and such -- they're sheetmetal shacks, so 90-degree-ish is
what I'm after, really..

I'll get to work on the terrain soon though.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Couldn't you add real tree models in the skybox? Couldn't you make the skybox look endless? I read somewhere you can!

I liked the nighttime better... with more artifictual lighting it could have been really nice. The coal(hills) doesn't look like coal. Why is it green it should be black. The grass texture really looks bad... to big a face for such a small texture. Try to break it with boulders, prop and decals.

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Elon Yariv

The coal(hills) doesn't look like coal. Why is it green it should be black.

Well.. A) It's iron ore, not coal. B) it's an abandoned mine, so the grass has started to grow up into it..

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Doesn't matter what kind of mine it is... Grass growing on metal? I don't think it has all the nutrations needed for plants to grow on. :razz:

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Elon Yariv

One thing: reference shots. We can discuss a lot about what we think reality looks like, but there's only one way to find out and that's either going to a mine, or looking at pictures of a mine (which obviously gives a less good impression but is faster and easier to do).

I mean, look, that's quite a different kind of environment than what your maps shows, ah? Looks a lot more 'miney'. I'd say, go take a Google stroll and see what you can come up with to give this map a good, solid feel. :smile:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Well the one provided is a strip mine; the one I'm creating is a shaft mine.. Thanks for the idea, though

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

I personally thing you have a very good sense of architecture going on in this map. The buildings have an interesting shape and feel very well done. It's just a matter of fixing up the outdoors a bit.

Again, new screenshot set. Few more buildings added: a warehouse/garage
housing a human APC the rebels are fixing up, and a small shed housing
a trailer and some phys_cannisters (for those who don't know,
phys_cannisters go flying all over the damn place if you shoot them)

It's also been turned back to night. I'm in the process of adding more lights.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

This is looking better and better. I could imagine getting from building to building could be fun in a way. Although that's not the typical DM way of a layout (reminds me more of CS or a realistic themed mod with objectives) but it could work.

Still, don't keep the flat grass areas! Get rid of them before it's to late! They're stealing the atmosphere and making it all look very video-gamish.

PS: make it so you can jump up the roofs of those buildings. That's easy to do and always fun!

Well, everyone keeps complaining about the "flat" grass.. thing is,
although they're hard to see I put in several displacements to add
bumps to the grass. They only provided one grass texture I know of that
doesn't have those sprites (I don't really want to use the sprite grass
because it might add lag to the map, which is already starting to crash
from too many items -- at least that's what I think is causing it). I
did notice however, that even without VIS or RAD the map ran just fine
on my friend's computer. The only major difference is his processor
doesn't have a retard helmet on (read: it isn't a Celeron like mine)..
So maybe a bunch of grass sprites wouldn't hurt too much.

So.. I'm throwing the question on the floor: should I change the texture scheme to incorporate textures with sprite grass?

Note that this isn't the only change I plan on for the outdoor area.
Almost everything else is finished -- I just need to add furniture in
the shack by the newly-added train station.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

If you want to use a different grass texture (perhaps one with a blend in it to help you limit that texture repetition), then just write a new VMT file. You don't need to use any custom textures. There are loads of tutorials out there about writing your own materials and they discuss how to use blends, detail sprites, etc...

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

I noticed you have some hills there, but the rest is still flat and it stings. Just cover the whole terrain with displacement maps and make it nice and rolling. Using blending textures is a good idea here, too. A few detail sprites shouldn't do much harm methinks, they fade out at some distance anyway.
The lighting and athmosphere is coming along nicely now, but it still feels like a couple of loosely, too-strictly 90-degree, placed buildings with nothing in between. And usually, there's roads in such places instead of grass only. :smile:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

It's not only about the grass, like Captain P said add a road, some concrete places, parkings ect.

The sprites from grass textures shouldn't have any major impact on FPS at all. If you have FPS problems make sure the doors and windows of the buildings all go to different sides or are closed on one side so the interior hasn't to be rendered from everywhere.

PS: It's still way too dark. Compare it to the darkest official map, dm_lockdown. Turn down monitor brightness untill you can just barely play dm_lockdown, so that it's almost completely dark but you can still navigate around and see everything. Then load your own map and compare with the same monitor brightness. You'll see how bright even dm_lockdown, a night map, has to be to be played under more extreme conditions (which aren't all that absurd, playing on a CRT monitor at day gives you the same results).

YET AGAIN new screenshots. :razz: I've been taking into consideration all
the suggestions and ideas posted, and as you can see have added some
alpha roadways to the map. It's about half-done now; all the major
stuff is in place and all that's left is nitpicky stuff which will take
several weeks.

Yes, I know there's a texture error due to that damn Hammer bug (the
one where blended textures invert during compile) underneath one of the
trucks..

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

lol, to be honest I'm surprised how important the road part actually was! THis is exactly what I was missing! Sure it needs work from here but it brings all the buildings together very nicely! Looking good!

remember them cubemaps (noting the water)

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Bullet Control: $5000 for a bullet.
"I would blow your f**king head off! ...if I could afford it. I'm gonna get another job, start saving some money... then you a dead man!"

You really shouldn't replace your images. Its preferable to post new links to new images. This way if someone comes in late, they will know in what direction you have traveled.

It helps to know what you have replaced and built anew.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

New feature!

Working elevator in the mine shaft. It has an open top for people at
the top of the shaft to drop some grenades into it. Also, the wheels
turn with the elevator, and the motors emit sound.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Wont it be annoying when you are in the elevator and somebody throws a grenade and you can't run away?

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Elon Yariv

Wont it be annoying when you are in the elevator and somebody throws a grenade and you can't run away?

You could place an RPG in the elevator or similar. Risk management.

The RPG is in the mines, which the elevator leads to, which is the reason for the elevator.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

A bit too dark don't you think? The sky's light is fine but there are very few other lights and I think they emmit a really dim light. Try adding bolders, bushes and don't forget a few trees.

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Elon Yariv

I'm still relatively new to Source mapping. The "streetlights" are
turned up all the way but by the time it reaches the ground it isn't
very bright. I tried turning the other lights up almost all the way as
well.

Also, I tried to add boulder props and it started acting up.. I guess I could try it again though

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Don't change the brightness if you want the light to cover longer distances. Take a look at the linear option (or whatever that option was called - could be multiple others, too).

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Yea, make it much brighter. I don't even think the current lights (no matter how bright) are enough.

I haven't had anyone complain about the brightness in the public betas.
forgot to tell you guys that ._. -- I leave the map running on an
internet server overnight so people can check it out. Heh, I have a
clan that's interested in my map :razz: Clan [FU]. By the way anyone know
where I can get ahold of them?

Anyway, back to the map. New shots -- added rain effects, converted the
slime to a pond, made some lights breakable. The indoor lights and
"porchlights" are alot brighter now that I've switched to texture
lighting. They also give the map a "cold" feel; in the mines it looks
"freezing" because of all the blue-white.

Orph: I keep most of the old screenshots -- if I don't do that I still
have the old maps. There's about 14 versions of Sublevels on my
computer -- I save a new version if I do something drastic and complex,
that way if I don't like it I don't have to go through and delete a
bunch of crap. Later on (being on a Celeron it takes like 5 minutes to
load something in HL2) I'll get some shots of my earliest map so you
can see how far I've progressed.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

I haven't had anyone complain about the brightness in the public betas.
forgot to tell you guys that ._. -- I leave the map running on an
internet server overnight so people can check it out.

I don't mean that ironic but the problem with dark maps is daytime play. :biggrin: What server do you run it on btw?

I like the rain. I didn't know it workd so well in HL2DM!

People join in the daytime as well -- pretty much whenever. The
community seems interested in the map, but unwilling to download it via
my SLOW upload rate (1 kb/s :|)

I run the server straight from my computer overnight; it's just the
default HL2DM server name because I don't have the money or need for a
full-time server, since (I find this kinda funny) I make DM maps but
suck in DM.

The server usually starts around 12:30AM Central and stops when I wake up around 6:30AM

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

People join in the daytime as well -- pretty much whenever. The
community seems interested in the map, but unwilling to download it via
my SLOW upload rate (1 kb/s :|)

I run the server straight from my computer overnight; it's just the
default HL2DM server name because I don't have the money or need for a
full-time server, since (I find this kinda funny) I make DM maps but
suck in DM.

The server usually starts around 12:30AM Central and stops when I wake up around 6:30AM

What's it called? Or what is the beta map called for that matter? I'd be interested to join and have a look!

The reason everyone's talking about the map being to dark is that it's a problem that often takes a while to show up. People don't indemidately notice it but after a while they do. It just happens. Also it's very easy to change!

The map's beta filename is oreminenite2a.. The 2A is from a system I've
developed, albeit a very basic one -- add a letter then a number and
alternate between the two when making a drastic change..

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Trees!!! :razz: Maybe not in the mine but in the skybox at list.

I like it when there are only a few lights makes it feel more abandoned. Why is there a train in there if the place is abandoned? The cars I can understand but trains are too valueble to be left like that.

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Elon Yariv