FF_thecove

This is a remake for FF of thecove.bsp, originally made by Zouave for TFC. The rough layout will be like the TFC version. There's not a lot to say - if you have never seen the original you should take a look at it.
http://www.snarkpit.net/cp.php?mode=maps&edit=2917

Here's the link to the pictures of my Work in Progress.

http://s36.photobucket.com/albums/e3/tfcbeetle/

For those of you that don't know, this is an adl map for FF.

I love the color of the water. This must be the third or fourth map here that caught my attention from the water color alone. :smile:

It may require a bit of googling but if you can, try and find a nice, blue, cloudless skybox for this map. Source maps need happier weather and less gray sky colors and this delicious blue water always reminds me of that.

Be careful with the buildings. The brushwork could not turn out to be right in proportions. If you add details simply on top of the current building brushwork you might get stuck in too blocky TFC proportions. Source buildings need bigger contrast between massive walls and smaller columns/windows/roofs ect.

But everything looks promising so far. Try the thing with the skybox. I think it could set the mood very well.

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Why snark works.

Thank you.

I'll "de-block" the buildings - add more detail. The biggest problem I have with map making as far as look alone goes is the border. I tend to want to make it so the player can't see over whatever the border tends to be so I don't have to make scenery behind it - I know I need to work on it.

Credit goes to SirTiger for making that water texture (as far as I know).

One question that's probably easy to answer. I've been making fake doors by using overlays, but when it gets to a certain distance it starts flashing as if its intersecting with the brush. Any way to fix that?

I like what I see definitely. The setting has the potential for a very interesting map. Don't forget playability above asthetics though. So many maps I have seen go for realism above all and lose that certain something required for DM. Multilevel gameplay and connectivity. Also, from what I can see, your getting some obvious tiling on some of the textures. Try to increase some of their proportions to reduce that or look for less repetitive textures. Nice job so far.

OK, but just to remind, this is for fortress forever, not dm. I am keeping in mind though not to screw with what made the map better.

Try throwing in some models in that building area, that is models as part of the actual buildings (ie. windows, doors, balconies, and such)

I've been making fake doors by using overlays, but when it gets to a certain distance it starts flashing as if its intersecting with the brush. Any way to fix that?

Overlays and decals tend to clip sometimes, especially on long distances. Try to re-place your overlay, they're buggy sometimes.

Generally, I'd use cut-in brushes for doors. The engine can handle brush polygons quite well for performance as long as they're placed cleanly and on-grid.

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Why snark works.

So the worst spots, unoptimized are 70-80 fps while the best are almost 200fps, is that too low for something like FF?

anything below 35 is unplayable. Shoot for the minimum to be 50-60.

"Anything below 35 is unplayable"

Theres the problem. In dm_stonepark I was getting FPS of 150 while several of the players complained about framrates in the 20's.There's such a wide range of cards out there both new and old, to which standard should you guage performance? On my latest map (You know the terrible one where I'm the only one posting there ) My main rig gets almost 200 fps in the widest views, while my laptop is topping out at 30-40 fps. I'm just curious where you would go with it?

I'm going to try to get it as optimized as possible for FF. I know I don't have the best card out there, so it seems to be a good judge..i have a radeon x850 btw.

I'd say that as long as a custom map can average 70% of official map framerates, then no-one can complain about it.

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i eat paint

a few new pics are up

Here's the first downloadable version. It still has a lot of work in store.
http://files.filefront.com/ff_thecove_a1bsp/;7700684;/fileinfo.html

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

First off, put the bsp into a zip file. I had to download a 22 mb file. Secondly, the map is missing a whole ton of textures, but I don't know if it's me or if you need to include them in the bsp with packrat or something:



Aside from that you seem to be off to a great start. The layout seems rather sprawling, but it's a bit early to judge. Nice displacement and general brush work so far. Fix those other problems and we'll take another look.

Thank you. Its me, I used Pakrat and just did auto add textures, guess it didn't find them all. I'll re-upload a new one when i find out all the ones that are missing.

edit: Try this: http://files.filefront.com/ff_thecove_a1rar/;7702739;/fileinfo.html

Well nothing has changed, I downloaded the RAR file, and there was a ff_thecove.bsp, (still missing textures)and there was a file called ff_thecove.b sp.bak.

So now its 27 megs zipped! and still no texture fix. Keep trying though.

Ok try this file. Sorry, and thanks for being patient. The file size is around 14mb now.
http://files.filefront.com/ff_thecove_a1zip/;7708772;/fileinfo.html

Better on the zip, still no go on the textures. Heres all the areas affected, so maybe you could manually find the missing ones. I would also suggest finding out how to manually add them in with packrat, (something I will be doing soon)

http://gamersdiner.com/images/ff_thecove1.jpg

http://gamersdiner.com/images/ff_thecove2.jpg

http://gamersdiner.com/images/ff_thecove3.jpg

http://gamersdiner.com/images/ff_thecove4.jpg

http://gamersdiner.com/images/ff_thecove5.jpg

http://gamersdiner.com/images/ff_thecove6.jpg

Now I am on my laptop, and using my second copy of HL2. I have HL2, HL2 episode one and HL2DM installed, If these are stock textures from another game(such as lost coast or something) let me know, but otherwise keep trying to include them in the bsp.

Best of luck

Nope. They are custom textures. Im going to really hate adding them manually.

Got it working for sure. http://files.filefront.com/ff_thecove_a1zip/;7740925;;/fileinfo.html