/me agrees with textures being too clean, it's like they just came through and repaved the street and sidewalk, and left everything else in disrepair.

---

o

Yeah, a freshly-paved look was how I intended the texture to be.. I was just so caught up on creating a texture that fit that description to see that maybe it wasn't exactly ideal for the map. :smile: I'd still like to give it out for anybody who wants/needs it though..

---

-- midkay

I think it was a good decision to get rid of the parking lot, the map is still very open.

About the new street textures... right now they just don't work :/ I too find the default ones a litte strange but now they not only look clean, they look... painted. It doesn't fit with the rest of the map. But I think this is very easy to tweak. First I'd add some structure, some unevenness in the direction of the road (just for the texture, although making the brush itself a little uneven could be a good idea, too). Then I don't think the white stripes are necessary. The street isn't that broad anyway. Leave it as dark if you like but I think you should make it look a little more used. Try googling some photos (like this for example) and look at the contrast between the pavement and asphalt and the surrounding buildings. Also look how the asphalt is split in rectangle-shapes oftenly where parts of it where added and rebuilt.

Also the red building on the right needs something on the top of it. A roof, some structure or little rooftop buildings. Or maybe just a meter of window-free walling on top, try that first. It looks like it's cut off.

One last thing: I like the tree-house in the middle of the map. It could be what most players remember this map for. A good central point. Add as much detail to it as you like. Especailly where the wood is connected with the tree. Maybe even a ladder made of planks nailed right into the trunk. A less-quadratical shape ect.

PS: Screen 6 looks near-perfect now! I'm not sure but are these columns round? It would be better performance wise and probably even look better to make them simply rectangle-shaped.

Thanks for your reply, reaper47.

I'm happy with the lack-of-parking lot, yeah. The (smaller) park still allows for some sniping and ranged combat but it doesn't feel needlessly large like it used to.

About the new street textures.. :smile: I honestly feel pretty embarrassed. When I created the textures initially they were too light and gray, so I went to make them darker and then just became obsessed with making them this dark black, freshly-paved concrete. I really love the texture but it clashes with the map. I'll work on it later today, I think. Nice ref pic, btw, I was searching for some before I created the texture and didn't find anything that nice.

The red building.. yeah. I don't want to have the same-style roofs all over the place, so I cut it off - maybe another segment of non-windowed red building texture would work out well indeed.

I tend to overlook the treehouse during gameplay, I think because I rarely "notice" it. I like the way you mentioned it was kind of the center point of the map, I never thought of it like that. I'd like to add to and build more on it, I've always considered adding a second level reachable from a ladder linking it to the first level, giving it more of a man-made shape, etc.

@ Screen 6, yeah, the columns are round. I'm not particularly worried about performance now (around like 15fps more in the "bad" areas since beta 1, e.g. looking down the road from the far end) - but I certainly have it in mind. I've considered changing these to larger, square pillars (concrete probably) instead of these metal pipes, ever since I made this area.. I'll have to get around to it and see how it works.

I haven't done much work at all on this map in the past two days or so, I've been watching way too much Seinfeld! That and I bought "The Ship" last night, I only got to play it for like half an hour and loved it, so I'll waste some time on that today. :biggrin: I'll work on the map tonight and probably put up a few screens the next day or so. Again, I appreciate your suggestions, reaper47. :smile:

Alright, I haven't really done much work but last night I did do a lot of work on the textures: I redid the street one and also created a new "crosswalk" decal to replace Valve's which was a bit too cracked.

New textures ingame. You can see the crosswalk one as well as the street one. I'm not really done with the street since it should be a bit dirtier but at least it's looking better now.

Also, tweaked some ambient lighting. It's slightly lighter now and has a bluish tint. Subtle difference, but I like the way it looks.

As I wandered around the latest build this morning (where I took these screenshots) it kind of just hit me on the head that.. I'm ready to release a beta 2. I mean, gameplaywise and mostly visually this map is ready for a beta 2. I do need to tweak and work on a couple things, and those couple things really need to be done first, but this map just feels ready for a b2, even if just to put the old b1 out of circulation since it's so much different.

So yeah.. expect a beta 2 soon, I can say with 95% certainty that I should put one out sometime next week.

---

-- midkay

The street looks much better with the greyer color. It blends better with the pavement now. I still think it could be dirtier.

Thanks. Yep. :smile:

I got to have a run-around on the latest build with Finger a couple days ago and he had a lot of suggestions and comments to give.. one enjoyable paraphrase of a discussion snippet:

Finger: [referring to the wide stairs leading up out of the park area] "These stairs are too narrow, you should move them or get rid of them." [suggests a few alternative positions for them]
Me: "Well, if I get rid of them, then it's like a dead end. Nobody would go back there."
Both together: "Well, unless there was something worth going back there for..."

The RPG has a new home.. :biggrin: I'll toss the stairs, so the only way out of the park from the back wall is to run forward quite a ways and around the railing. I'll move the sandbox and playground crap over and put the RPG inside the sandbox.. loves irony. It should be really cool since that area's like the middle of the map, all the sniper locations have a clear view of it.. it's a risk to snag it. :smile:

Also I'm going to try and COMPLETELY redo the building in the corner (you know, the yellow, boxlike one?). I don't really care for the honestly quite boring, winding stairwell and barren hallways indoors. I ran out and snapped a shot of a building a couple blocks away last night. I love the design of it and I'd like to incorporate it into the area where the old building was. I can't honestly say that I expect it to work out, but I'm going to try it, and even if it doesn't, Finger had some useful suggestions for cutting down the size of the old building and adding some cool gameplay to it, so expect some major changes in that area one way or another.

Also the alleys behind the corner building are going to be blocked off/removed as a gameplay element somehow, especially since they're as mundane as ever at the moment.

So just lots of work is piling up and I can only attack it at a slower pace right now.. should certainly be worth it. :smile:

---

-- midkay

Surprise! This map is not dead! :biggrin: About time for an update - it's been over a month! I've been working on it a lot since then. I think the changes include two new buildings and lighting tweaks (sun and ambient are about the same, but streetlights and building illumination has been tweaked and added).

javascript:void(0)
Our new building! This replaces the yellow one with the accessible roof and winding staircase interiors. It'll have a lobby interior and you can get on that ledge with the planks across the gaps for navigation. I worked off this building a few blocks away from me to build this.

javascript:void(0)
On the ledge described above. Bright spotlights abound! A slight disadvantage to being up here... and very little room to move.

javascript:void(0)
Moving on. The hotel. Added illumination from the top, and extruded windows along the front as well.

javascript:void(0)
Another new building - this one across from the hotel. The kiosk and combine walls used to be right here. This is easier to block visibility and adds more gameplay. It's a pretty basic building that's being added onto (the accessible area is the construction site). It'll seam with the skybox and go on farther into the distance. Lots to do with this but here's how it currently looks.

javascript:void(0)
Shot from atop the construction site. Should be more supports, more work materials....

javascript:void(0)

Destroyed building with a bit more destruction than before. Still lots to do as well.


A glance inside the destroyed building - delicious, sharp lightmaps!!


A glance inside the basement of one of the apartment buildings, also have some nice lightmapping going in here.


And then just an overview of the map from the top sniper position in the destroyed building. The park has been changed - tree + fort are gone (replaced by bus stop), stairs removed, RPG positioned down there...

Okay, so that's it for now. I got to do another look around with Finger on this map last night and his suggestions pertained to the flow of the map which I completely agreed with. So this is pretty much how the final shall look (unless someone's got any complaints) - there should be some flow changes too (removal and addition of a room, more routes, etc). Expect some changes in the next update on the WIP buildings too. Maybe a skybox? :eek:

Any thoughts? :smile:

---

-- midkay

The wall in front of the new building looks really huge, but the building itself looks good. It's memorable so should help orient players right away.

I like the new version of the hotel.

The lightmap changes in the basement really make it pop. I like this area tremendously, especially how it contrasts with the rest of the level. It seem very real.

The construction site needs a lot of work. I feel like you'd be seeing a lot more girders, rebar, and concrete at that stage.

Glad you're still working on this map!

You're going for a much cleaner look now than with your original version. I like clean mapping (check out the great, over-clean mapping of SI).

But be aware it's much more difficult because there's no detail to hide even the tiniest mistake. Also for a HL2 theme (which no city-based HL2DM map can escape) you should add some 20 or 30% more chaos to the map. I mean there's no need to cover the streets in puddles of vomit... but consider some "added" buildings here and there. Something that hadn't been planned by the architect and has been added later. A little storefront, a wooden hut in the park used by the gardeners, a little garage in the backyard, an additional balcony, ect ect

Some more thoughts regarding the screenshots:

This building looks very good. You should try something with the textures, though. Especially the bright one with the horizontal lines breaks a bit with the smooth walls around it. Also the slanting parts on the top of the red and yellow parts look a bit strange. The black arch could work but only as a model. As a brush it looks too solid, too artifical for a structure like that.

Be careful around the construction site. Again, the great lighting alone sells it... but filling places like this with enought interesting things later is mostly impossible. Try to cut off large parts off the rectangle-shaped form of this room. Make it intersect with another large block or something. Make sure the squarish layout of this is gone as early as possible.

I don't know what gave you the insane idea of adding a window-less floor on the top of this building (:roll: ). But honestly, now that I see it, I think it should be smaller. And maybe not using the same texture as the rest of the walls. Maybe it should. But it definitly needs to be shorter (1/2 or 1/4).

That's why I like your mapping. You have a hand for lighting. This is so simple and easy, yet I don't remember ever seeing shadows used so well for effect before. This looks at the same time natural and "unplanned"(in a good sense) and unusual, perfect for this map. Same for the basement.

and...

Ahhhh!

No...

The tree house... The tree house! GONE! That bus station stole my tree house!

AtM:
Thanks - we'll see how these new buildings turn out. It's maybe a little hard to see how the multicolored building is structured right now without wandering around the map. Expect some retexturing and touching up to remedy that. The construction site represents very little total work right now, so the things you mentioned are most definitely on the to-do - thanks for bringing them up, though. Gotta get to that soon.

Reaper47:
Yay - I was hoping to get a reply from you. :smile: Point-by-point:

Cleanliness: This map is actually looking pretty clean when I think about it. It's not really how I plan the final version; expect more dirtiness, garbage props like bottles and boxes, stains.. much of the cleanliness is attributed to my new street/sidewalk and multitextured building textures. I'll be adding more dirt and detail to these (and on the building, Finger has suggested some floor-divider lines between windows, which I like and should help). A lot of the detail/dirt touchups will come toward the true end of the map.

'This building': Thanks for your comments. As above - I'll be breaking up the window textures a bit with some dividers and detail. The arch should really be deleted at this point - if I keep it in any way it'll be vastly different. It's merely placeholder right now.

Construction site: We'll see if I can pull it off. :biggrin: I have some ideas and a LOT of reference around - hell, two buildings going up within a one-block radius of my house, one near my school, several on the way home - lots of cool ideas to snag from those which I pass every day. I'll try my best to de-square it with lots of.. well.. construction-site stuff.. materials and supplies and equipment.

Windowless floors FTW! I'll see what I can do about this. A shorter retextured top maybe lined with rails, having some visible vents and exhausts, iunno.. I'll play with it.

Lighting and shadowing: I much appreciate your and AtM's comments on these areas. For a while I'd worked on lighting but really never spent much time perfecting it. Recently I did a lightmap pass in which I ramped up the detail on some important lighting areas and it really worked out in the basement and in the destroyed building, and on the construction site. Looking forward to more of this. (Actually, the basement is looking really stunning now IMO that I've removed the pile of sand or whatever - tons of shadows crisscrossing throughout. You'll see soon!)

Treehouse: It was its time! :wink: I don't know if I'll manage to bring it back - I don't really feel like using that massive tree, it's pretty overused and leafless.. and it gives the map a feeling of clutter or something to me.

Again, thanks to both of you - hoping to start up with regular updates again for a short while until I get a beta 2 out.

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-- midkay

Again, when I say I find the map too clean, I don't really mean the dirt, I mean the basic, big architecture. From the sceenshots now it looks like a city that was finished yesterday. Adding some dirt could be a good idea, but more important I think is adding some solid stuff, something that actually changes the shape and layout (not necessarily gameplay-wise, just form) with parts that look like they were built years later over the current structures... and over each other. Just like someone adding an additional floor to his house, or a shack in the backstreet... or something.

Hard to explain :biggrin:

And getting rid of the tree house... it's actually pretty brave. Which can be a good sign. Just remember that you deleted the map's center point. Something more funky than a simple bus station would be good!

Ah, I understand what you mean - I thought "cleanliness" and adding unintended/additional architecture were two seperate points in your original post.

And technically I still have the treehouse hidden in a visgroup. :biggrin: Maybe I'll come up with something.. no ideas yet. Thanks.

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-- midkay

They are seperate points but I think the bigger scale meaning of "cleaness", the actual buildings, are more important and need to be looked at earlier!

---

Why snark works.

Hi guys :smile:

I've been taking a little break from mapping over the past month and a half or so. Residential isn't dead, I just wanted to take some time to relax. I've recently had a bit of interest in mapping again, so I'll probably get back to it tonight.

Hey, it'd be nice to have a beta2 on new years, huh? :wink:

Gotta run, just wanted to poke my head in before I did. Hopefully an actual map update in a few days!

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-- midkay

Good to see you didn't abandon this :smile:

---

o

Progress!

I finally got around to cracking this map open again last night. My first intention was to touch up a couple things and pump out a beta 2. As I was tweaking, I made the decision to rebuild the "destroyed building", for a number of reasons. It wasn't lining up right with the other building I wanted it to, the interiors made little sense architecturally (even if they were pretty cool-looking, IMO) and it was just a tangled mess of brushes and decals.

So I've started over on it completely. This time around I'm building a 100% feasible, workable layout inside - floors, stairs that lead up and down, and doors to rooms on each floor. (Nearly done with that.) Then I'll start busting down a few doors, blow out some windows, smoke, sparks.. we'll see where it leads.

I'll probably work on this all day (hey, mid-winter break!) - so maybe you can really expect some preview shots later today. :smile:

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-- midkay

I managed to make some progress today. Nothing worth screenshotting yet though. :smile:

My plans for this building are pretty big. It'll be dark inside (not dark enough to ruin the Deathmatch aspect or anything - just not bright). I'm planning for all of the lighting to come from flickering fire scattered throughout the building. Interiors will be dirty/burned in places, and hopefully very smoky overall (maybe smoke pouring out of windows/doors). Should be lots of shadows and debris. Lots of broken light fixtures, maybe a few of them sparking and lighting up the room intermittently. For some reason I really want some swinging, sparking ropes/wires as well.. we'll see how it goes.

That's it for now.

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-- midkay

Hi guys, just a quick update for you.

Been working on this for a few days, still kinda trying to decide where I'm going with this building I'm (re)creating. It's much different than it was before...

Here's what I have as of right now. It's still evolving quite a bit though...

Screen 1 from the front corner. The building's pretty damn destroyed. :smile: Should soon be a bunch of fire all around here, and tons of rubble and concrete.

Screen 2, a teaser peek at the inside.. firelit stair/hallways, mostly. Smoke fills the whole interior of the building, and I got it to join up pretty well with an env_smokestack pouring out of the front door for nice effect.

So that's just a quick look... comments are ultra-welcome as always, but this probably doesn't represent too well what I'll end up with.

Thanks for reading!

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-- midkay

The way the building is collapsed looks very artificial. First, why is the upper floor still intact? Bombs of this size mostly fall from the sky. Secondly, why is the lower part nearly without a scratch and no rubble ect?

I see you'll add more but these are very basic, logical things that irritate me.

Oh, and it's good to see the map's still alive. :wink:

---

Why snark works.

Hey reaper. :smile:

You're right about the upper floors. I was originally going to try to keep them intact (because the player won't have access to them) but it's gonna be way harder to do in a visually-correct way. I'll demolish them. :smile: Rubble.. the ground on each level is covered in rubble (decalwise) but looking up from below doesn't show that, I need to do the ceilings too :smile: Plus all sorts of hanging/falling crap. Gimme a few days. :smile:

Nice to hear from you, stay tuned. :smile:

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-- midkay

Ok, I rubbled it up a bit!

Shot 1 - From the ground looking up. Added lots of decals for scorchmarks, plus scattered some fires around and just a little bit of rebar sticking out in places (to be improved). Still need a bunch more chunks all over the place, but it's getting better.

Shot 2, from afar.

Shot 3, from above, so you can see my delicious decalwork.

Any thoughts? :smile:

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-- midkay

midkay said:
Any thoughts? :smile:

Fires that big would either:

1)consume their fuel quickly.
2)burn the building down to the ground.

Is there no way t scale them to mere flickers?

---

The best things in life, aren't things.

Needs some rubble, either with displacements or with props.

---

Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

Hi Orph, it's been a while.

I guess that's true with about any fire in a game.. but I think you're right, I can definitely resize them and I'll try them out much smaller (1/2 to even 1/4 size of that) and see how it looks.

Thanks.

-edit-

And Stadric :smile: It's in the works...

---

-- midkay

Hi guys. Here's a not-quite-brief update on this map...

Over the past few days I've managed to get quite some touch-up work done on this map. All sorts of little things that were bugging me and that were on the to-do list got done. I did a lot of adjustment to the lighting and lightmapping as well in order to take the visual quality up a bit. :smile: I'll let a few images show some of what the map looks like as of right now:

Screen 1; a little bit of the lightmapping and lighting work I've done. It's still sunrise, but a brighter one, and the streetlights are a bit brighter as well. Sharper, clearer shadows from streetlights and buildings fall across the ground and walls.

Screen 2; a bit more lighting work. HDR is a must for this map or else you'll miss out on the soft orange glows of the sun.

Screen 3; the destroyed building a bit more refined. Shrunk most of the fires, there are just a couple larger ones now. Lots of interior work you can't see here.. I'll show that off soon. In the background: more work on the construction building...

Screen 5; not too much to see here. This is just how everything looks back here right now...

Screen 5; some very important work done here. :smile: Lots more woodwork going on with the construction building - easier to kill anyone up there with a rocket. Also a little harder to navigate up there if you're running around. Lightmapping is crucial to this area, so I took it up quite a bit - especially on the flat wooden surface to the left. Again, HDR is important - the brighter sunlight creates some really great-looking orange/pink glows.

That's all the screenshots for now. I really feel like I'm getting a lot of work done and I really really really want to push out a beta 2 within a few days or a week, if I can stay focused on fixes and necessary improvements rather than additions. The todo list is shrinking. :smile: Also want to let you know that I've uploaded an archive of all of the old images I've used in these posts at http://www.midkay.net/dm_residential - the numbered folders are "groups" of shots used in single-post updates. Promo folders are "dm_residential by midkay"-stamped. Enjoy some earlier shots if you wish. :smile:

Any thoughts/suggestions at all are welcome as always. Talk to you again very soon. :smile:

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-- midkay

I like the new, clean look. But I still think you should try and move a bit outside the rectangle shape of this destroyed building to add some rubble and debris on the street beneath it. Considering the building still burns (and even if it doesn't) it looks odd that the street beneath it is completely clean. The material from the destruction has to go somewhere outside the building also. Here's a sketch of what I mean:



The wooden construction site could need some asymmetry, too. It's too boxy. Maybe the top part could be bit more "unfinished"?

Higher Lightmap resolution create some nice, sharp shadows. I had to learn the hard way, though, that they also create megabytes of additional BSP filesize. Make sure to keep brushfaces with high resolution as small as possible.

PS: I got to play the former version of this map yesterday and it was fun. I can see the changes you did really pay of in gameplay.

---

Why snark works.

Thanks reaper. Point by point...

That drawing is useful. Rubble around that are is an important to-do and would be good for gameplay as an alternate way to access the destroyed pirtion of that building as shown in your sketch. So that's something I'll work on before a beta 2.

Construction site... good idea. some unfinished, uneven beams etc... sounds good. Thanks - would not have thought of that. :smile:

And gameplaywise... thanks for the beta 1 comment, but I think you'll enjoy beta 2 much more. :smile: Much more flow and variation.

Thanks reaper. Point by point...

That drawing is useful. Rubble around that are is an important to-do and would be good for gameplay as an alternate way to access the destroyed pirtion of that building as shown in your sketch. So that's something I'll work on before a beta 2.

Construction site... good idea. some unfinished, uneven beams etc... sounds good. Thanks - would not have thought of that. :smile:

And gameplaywise... thanks for the beta 1 comment, but I think you'll enjoy beta 2 much more. :smile: Much more flow and variation.

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.

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-- midkay

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:

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-- midkay

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. <:]

---

Why snark works.

@ 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:

---

-- midkay

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.

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-- midkay

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.

---

Elon Yariv

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.

---

Why snark works.

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:

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-- midkay

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.

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I seem to have done toilet on your floor

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:

---

-- midkay

Hey guys!

Boy, it's been a while. School's out now - been out for almost two weeks. And dm_residential's first anniversary passed as well - it's now been in-the-works for a couple weeks over a year.

That's why I've decided it's about time to finish it up. :smile:

Assuming there are no unexpected errors or crashes whilst I compile dm_residential tonight, I'll be releasing a beta 2 tomorrow. I've been doing quite some work the past few days in order to prepare for this. I'm nearly satisfied with everything, and so as I'm really close to calling it "finished" I'd like to give a beta 2 a couple weeks so I can get any and all feedback in to the map before I put out a final version.

Side note: I had a little laugh yesterday when I read the dm_residential_b1 readme, in which I said, "This is a beta release. Most of the layout is finished. Most of the details are not." In retrospect, dm_residential_b2 couldn't look and play more different from b1. It's hardly recognizable, except for the evening-lighting style.

I'll probably end up putting up some b2 screenshots tonight, or otherwise, tomorrow shortly before or when the b2 version is released.

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-- midkay

Hey again, everyone...

Last night, the dm_residential_b2 compile went fine. Everything's looking good with it, so plans are still on for a release tonight.

I've put up new screenshots for the map release, as well as a rewritten description - both on the map profile right here at Snarkpit. (Go have a look!)

Lastly, I didn't really plan this out too well in advance, but I'm expecting to have a little game tonight right after I put up the map and post the download link, so anyone can come by. Here are how I expect things to go down:

Approximately 5 1/2 hours from now (10:30-10:45PM PST), I'll post the download link to dm_residential_b2 here, and post some server details along with it (IP address; no password, public server) and get into that server with a friend, so at least two players will be there. I expect that game to go on for at least an hour, regardless of whether anyone else comes by, so it'd be awesome if anyone from here or anywhere else wants to join in. The more the merrier!

So have a look for the download link and server information right here in about 5 1/2 hours.

Hi guys,

dm_residential_b2 has been released! See the map profile for a download link, and there's also a more info link which'll take you to a page with at least one more screenshot, where I'll be adding a bit more of information and images to.

A friend of mine will be hosting a server for about an hour (or more, depending on if people show up) after this is posted. At the very least, he and I will be there for that hour. We'll be playing dm_residential_b2 only. Stop on by!

Server information:

IP: 76.166.46.252
No password.

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-- midkay

First off, there's some sort of error with the displacements in the middle of the map, as the RPG falls through that sandbox and SLAMs fall through the world. I dunno what is up with that or how to fix it.

It's clear that you have spent a great deal of time on this map. There's good architecture, good use of props/entities, good custom textures, no noticable errors, very nice lighting, and it even ran rather well for a map of its open nature and size.

However...

The layout leaves much to desire. It sucks, plain as day. All the enterable buildings are linear with only one or two ways through them. The under construction building and the bombed out one with fire are even worse in that there's one way in and they deadend at the top, forcing you to jump off to move on. This leads to predictable and shallow gameplay that will not hold anyone's attention after multiple playthroughs. There's no flow, no chance to evade your enemies, and very little vertical play.

It's really unfortunate that you have put a years+ work into this, because you've basically been polishing up a very poorly laid out and weakly designed map. The worst part is I can't really see a way to salvage the layout, with all the buildings being so spread out and the big open field in the middle. :sad:

Hey Yak_Fighter,

I haven't seen the displacement problem. All the items stay where they should be for me, and it all must work fine for the guy I playtest with all the time as well, because he always gets me with the RPG and slams. :smile:

Thanks for your positive comments, and the negative ones as well. I hadn't considered gameplay to be so poor, but as you said, there's not much of way to change things in a larger sense anyways. I feel that if there is some gameplay trouble, there are some things I can try to help resolve it; namely, some more ideas for movement into, through, and out of buildings. I'm actually not very happy with the destroyed building, as far as the way it involves itself in the gameplay, look for some changes to that as well. (Although, by the way, you mentioned there's only one way in to that destroyed building - there's actually two, through the front doors and up the debris-ramp in the front.)

If you have any particular specifics about the gameplay that you might consider to be fixable (even if it's not such a simple fix) I'd much appreciate hearing about them. :smile:

You mentioned some aspects I hadn't really considered when I did a lot of layout work, and they're ones I'll definitely have to think about before I ever decide to release a final version. :smile: Thanks again, I appreciate it.

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-- midkay

The -novirtualmesh parameter for VBSP should get rid of the displacement problem.

I'll have a look at the map tonight. All I can say so far is that it's about time you get this finished. 1 year, that's a lot. If there's as much left to change as you mentioned, it might be better to tear the map apart and start from scratch. It might actually be faster to build (surprisingly fast) and you have complete control over even the most large scale layout issues.

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Why snark works.

reaper47: Oh, cool, thanks for the tip on -novirtualmesh.. I'll try that, thanks.

I didn't mean to imply I had a lot left to change. I have a number of ideas on things I could change if necessary, but nothing major, and I think this map would be a total nightmare to rebuild (for me, since I always spend so much time getting things as perfect as I can). Nah, if I start any map from scratch it'll be a brand new one. :smile: But thank you. I'm looking forward to your thoughts!

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-- midkay

Personally, I think it would be much more beneficial to move on with a fresh map.

You've learned from this map what most new mappers learn from 2 or 3 maps. Trust me, no matter how good, your first map will always be way less elegant that future maps. Just think of all the cool stuff yet to be built.

You could easily sit here spinning your wheels for months, trying to perfect something that is possibly innately flawed.

You get an A+ in my book based dedication, receiving feedback, enthusiasm.... I'm curious to see what you will do with a clean slate.

Alright, I had a close look!

I must say that, to some point, I agree with Yak_Fighter. The buildings are just too separated. In the earlier versions I thought that the places where just a little big and it was the traveling time that bothered, but all of the buildings are connected solely via their street access and that becomes very obvious now. Also the 5-floor staircase in the destroyed building just gets horribly repetitive after the first floor and I miss the accessible roof on the opposite of the map (I love accessible roofs).

Hmmm...

I still love bits and pieces of the map.

Like in the destroyed building where you first think that the floor just consists of a single hole in the wall but then you walk around the little ledge on the outside and see a semi-secret room hidden behind it.

I also like jumping around the facade of the colorful building.

It's just... Yak is absolutely right, it's too linear. And it's too late to redo any part the way it would be necessary to refine this enough. Not with this VMF file. I suggest keeping this state, you can be very happy with the aspects of mapping that turned out really well. And for your next project, try starting with a clearer focus on classic layout structures.

Did I mention that I love the lighting? :wink:

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Why snark works.

Wow, thanks, Finger.

I think that's a good idea too, starting fresh: I'll be trying to think out some ideas for a new map soon. (Likely the problem with residential was, I had no clear layout in mind at all... whatever I did have, well, it didn't end up looking like that at all anyways.) Still, as I spent a ton of time on residential itself... I'd like to do my best to fix it up as much as possible within a couple weeks and then just release it as it is. Nah, I guess I can't change the gameplay in large part, and maybe that's a big problem in the map, but there are probably a few modifications I could make to help out a little bit, and I'd be definitely interested in pursuing those, provided they could be done relatively quickly. I'm not going to keep the map perpetually "work in progress" as I did after beta 1: I truly intend to release a final version within a few weeks. I am a little tired of it and there's not much left to change. So might as well take advantage of those few weeks before I start anew.

Thanks again for your comments - surprisingly inspirational. :smile: If I do another, I'll certainly be thinking it out some more. Sounds like great fun!

-edit-
And reaper47:

Thanks for having a run-through. I appreciate your thoughts, thanks for the specifics - they're helpful. At the least, I like to know what stands out as good and what stands out as sucky. :smile: I guess it's pretty clear the layout leaves something to be desired, but oh well - good practice, right? :smile:

Thanks again!

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-- midkay

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. :/