dm_backwash

My first source map. The main focus for this map is to make an attractive and real looking environment and gain valuable skills rather than to create a good multiplayer map with nice flow and such.

However, depending on how this small piece turns out (performance wise), I will extend the map to make it much more suitable for multiplayer by adding new areas to the map.

The theme of the map is some sort of small, overgrown dam that is no longer in service, right in the middle of an alpine forest in the northern hemisphere. I want to add alot of wear and overgrowth into the map by adding things like vines, cracks and derbies.

Here are some in hammer screenshots of the map, its not much use showing in game screenshots because the map is full bright so it won't look any different.




Now as you can tell, the map is in its early stages.

One of the things in the map I want to focus on is the displacement work, I want to spend alot of time making good quality displacements for this map (far better than what you see in the screenshots). There is still much to learn in source but I'm slowly getting there.

What do you guys reckon :dodgy: ?

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Aaron's Stuff

Not a bad first Source scene. We have yet to see the lighting in it, but the brushwork looks promising.

There are certainly a butt-load of decals on that building! I hope it doesn't detract from the actual architecture of that small building.

By the looks of it, the skybox seems to encompass the entire map, if so that's a big NO NO! I can't say for sure, but check here for all the rules about optimizing your map. If you learn them now and apply them, you won't have to weep about why your awesome map won't run later down the road. Learn them early, and learn them well!

Other than that it looks pretty promising, except for the displacements, which I know you're still playing around with. Might want to look into the subdivide tool :wink: .

Nice work, keep it up!

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Thanks :smile: .

Hehe, of course the map is not enclosed in a single skybox, I made sure that the map was built properly early on.

Yeah, the displacements look like crap, but I really want to spend alot of time on them and redo them all if I have to, so pretty much the displacement work that you see in this map will be slowly replaced later on.

I plan on doing some research into northern hemisphere alpine forests and I will be doing a bit of a Google search for some dam areas and rivers which will aid in the creation of the displacements.



The above pictures where taken by me from the singleplayer campaign of Halo 3. I will use these shots as reference when I am rebuilding the displacements, so this is a rough idea of what I want my displacements to turn out like.

Now, I need to research up this subdivide tool :wink: .

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Aaron's Stuff

For still being so new to this, what you're showing here is pretty remarkable. What leaves a bitter after-taste, though, is all the decoration you're putting on top of you fullbright map. It's plastered with props, decals. And actually, you're still in an early layout phase. I know you think you're gonna redo it all in greater detail later, but the reality is that you'll end up getting used to half-finished brushwork, nicely hidden behind props and decals. Like always, I'm speaking of experience. :wink:

I'm not really sure what to recommend. Perhaps, just doing a lighting pass before adding decals and decorative props. I've never thought of what the best order of detailing a map would be, though. What you're presenting here just feels a little upside-down, when it comes to map planning.

Awww, fullbright or hammer-shots are never a good idea to present anything I guess.

Besides that, the buildings feel a little too boxy and disconnected for a HL2DM map. It feels a little too open, too lost. But yea, it's hard to formulate any real feedback at this stage. I'm absolutely optimistic about where you're heading with this and other maps, it just feels a little too aimless, still. And, of course, too Halo. :biggrin:

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Why snark works.

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Message submitted 16 minutes after original post:
Nice idea for a setting, I've had pix in my head of something like that before.

To add to what the others have mentioned, and to contradict your M.O., I would start paying attention to gameplay mechanics before going all-out on architecture. I'm assuming this is for hl2dm mind you when I spout these things.

For instance, one thing to note is that small rooms and tight turnarounds are generally a no-no in this game, players can and will move as fast as they can around the flow. I can't see inside your buildings so I'm theorizing. Is there a connecting tunnel? Same goes for headroom, keep the crouching to a bare minimum, preferably none; ceilings should be higher than 128 if you can get away with it.

I don't know how much of that displacement work you want to be accessible, but that affects how it plays. Are the roofs accessible?

Hard to believe you've never source-mapped before! Pay careful attention to what Riven mentioned about optimizing, I can see a few potential problems here with regards to performance.

Mmm, some good advice and words of wisdom from all 3 of you guys, thanks so much :smile: .

Reaper47, I quite agree with you and I would not fill upset about removing most/all of the props and decals from this place, I think though, that a select few of them sort of establish "something" and there presence helps me visually when I am judging the map and deciding what needs to be done to it.

I would prefer to delay the lighting as much as possible because with one simple light_environment, it brings the compile time from almost instant, to about 2 hours, which is a big difference.

haymaker, some nice advice there bud, as I said before, of course the game play will always be in my head and I will be planning to build for good gameplay, but at this stage, it isn't the real focus in the map and if a trade off comes between aesthetics and gameplay, I will most likely choose aesthetics over gameplay, at this stage. Because its my first source map, I really don't know how much Half-life 2 will handle, and I hear light maps are pretty demanding for some reason, but I am pretty certain that the map's performance wise will turn out good and I will be able to extend the map.

And I was thinking about making the roofs accessible, but I decided not to, even if that means that the gameplay for the map, under the current design will be pretty flat :wink: .

Too Halo hehehe :razz:

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Aaron's Stuff

The thing that jumps out the most is the confinedness of the scene. That's probably partly because these are in-editor screenshots, but the stream just stopping there, and looking so short... it sort of makes the area feel unnatural. However, I'd need to see some in-game shots to be sure - a good 3D skybox could change a lot. :smile:

Those buildings look fine. Good architecture there, nice detailing with the plantlife, too. Looks like some sort of base or outpost? I do think you'll need to give the place some more character: perhaps it's a drop-off point for goods, or a sawmill installation, or something?

The displacements need some work. There's quite some texture stretching going on (tip: create dismaps at roughly the size that you need, don't modify them too much beyond their original surface) and many of them aren't connected correctly (tip: this devblog post over at blackmesasource.com could help a lot).

As for gameplay, it looks too small to be really playable right now. There's not much of a layout going on really, so it'd be some sort of killbox-with-2-rooms. Well, I think that's fine - this is your first Source map, pretty good actually for a first, but that also means it's more of an experiment. I often did this in the past: creating various test maps to test technical or visual aspects in isolation. Kept compile times down and allowed me to focus on those particular aspects.

You could do something similar: just beautify this map, don't limit yourself with petty terms like 'gameplay', 'connectivity' or 'flow'. Then, once you're happy about the result, make a bare-bone, grey-orange test map and see what sort of great layout you can achieve with it. Then, start filling in the visuals, taking parts from your beauty-map, glueing them together to give that layout map a nice coating. If all goes well, you should have a fun-playing and nice-looking map.

That's more or less how dm_mudanchee was made. :smile:

Oh, and, believe me: you do grow attached to certain details. They took you so much time, that you're not easily going to erase them. Or you simply start to get used to them. That's why you see stretched crates in dm_mudanchee, while I see normal crates in them, that act as cover and filler detail. :wink:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

I would prefer to delay the lighting as much as possible because with one simple light_environment, it brings the compile time from almost instant, to about 2 hours, which is a big difference.

TRUST ME!! You don't want to put off the lighting. It will take dozens of compiles to get it the way you want. I put off the lighting in de_substructure. Later on I found myself stressing for hours on what light fixture to use and were to put it. I'd would spend 20 min compiling to find the light color is off just a little. I would go back and move the color selector slider 2 pixels and recompile for another 25 min only to find i need to move it another 2 pixels.

You will save much time if you do the lighting as you go. You can make adjustments to lighting as you build the architecture. That way your not compiling for lighting alone.

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Reality has become a commodity.

I'd like to point out an inconsistency within your last post aaron:

[quote=aaron_da_killa]"I would prefer to delay the lighting as much as possible"[/quote]

And:

[quote=aaron_da_killa]"I will most likely choose aesthetics over gameplay"[/quote]

If you are going to focus on aesthetics over gameplay, then I would make the argument that lighting will probably play a big role in you focus. However, if your plan is to put-off lighting until you are close to being done with the map, then I would imagine your map won't turn out like you're thinking it is.

Lighting is such an important part of aesthetics, that it pretty much is required from the start. The idea goes: once you have your map orange-mapped, then you can start to see the ideas that you may have missed on gameplay. Fixing those, you can begin to add your lights. Lighting in Source has many dimensions. You should take the time to get to know the different options in the compile window. You can place lights in your map, and still have it compile without them and run in full-bright mode. However, I highly suggest you do bother to run lights early on to assess what problems your map may have.

You are right; lighting can take a very long time to compile, but it's something that can be optimized not only for compile times, but also for running in-game. In order to find this balance, you need to start early on compiling with vrad. By adding all your decals and models now, you are cheating yourself out of patience later down the road when it comes time in your plan to begin adding lights; compile times will go into the hours (maybe over a day!) If that be the case, you will have a headache of a time trying to figure out why your map is taking so long to compile and or why it's running so horrible in-game.

So you if you start compiling now with lighting, you won't have to compile every time with lighting. You can give yourself an idea now of what the map will look like before tweaking all your lights, and then go back to focusing on layout and other aesthetics eventually coming back to the lighting and post-optimization.

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Might I add that, if you bought your processor within the last five years, your vrad compile times for a map of this size should be way below the 1 hour range. I'd say 10-15 minutes, tops.

Try turning down the lightmap resolution (in the texture editor) for some of the larger brushes. maybe, replace the displacements by simple brushes (with low lightmap-res), I don't know how this affects vrad time, though.

In the end, you should be able to do a quick preview, easily.

I guess the main reason I think this would be a good idea, on top of what all the others have already mentioned, is that if you have basic lighting done, you won't have any more excuses for why parts don't look right.

Staying fullbright is very convenient to blame pretty much every aspect of aesthetics on the fullbrightness. Like "The texture doesn't look right... it will look better with lighting" or "This area looks odd... but it will be in the shadows later anyway."

It's probably subconscious, but I'm pretty convinced this is the way fullbright maps trick us. There's a reason not even orange room maps are fullbright. Look at Valve's early concept stages for maps. Or anywhere else.

Fullbright = Bad.

I haven't thought about the "why" for a long time now, but there definitely is some truth to this. It's a universal rule that, in the end, even applies to dev-stages.

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Why snark works.

reaper47 said:
Try turning down the lightmap resolution (in the texture editor)

Actually, turn it up!

Awww, been thinking for a full minute whether to write "up" or "down". :biggrin:

If the resolution is higher, the number is lower, so... Blister's right, turn the number "up" to 32 or 64 or whatever.

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Why snark works.

Thanks so much for the very useful feed back guys, much appreciated, really :smile: . I've been doing a bit of work today on the map and this is what I have come up with:




These pictures are in game this time, but still full bright

Changes since last

• minor displacement work
• addition of new things "across the river"

As you might be able to tell in these screenshots, I have mainly been working on "the other side of the fence", that is across the river, a space that might be accessible if the map was to be expanded later for multiplayer.

To Do list

In the short term of the map, I am planning to add the first taste of lighting into the map. I'm thinking about a really vague, almost white light environment and a few other lighting arrangements across the map, there should be a big visual difference once the lighting is in.. hopefully for the better.

I also want to do some more work on the displacements, and start adding the background/distant cliffs and rolling hills, and I want to do some more work on the playable area of the map, with a focus on the brush work.

I also need to get rid of that cloudy sky and replace it with something more pleasant.

What do you guys think and recommend so far?

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Aaron's Stuff

Those are some huge-ass stairs! :biggrin: Do them 8x12 units, it will fit best with stairs textures as well.

I must say that big watery parts are a really boring obstacle in HL2, since swimming isn't much fun, which is probably the most fundamental problem with the map. I'd almost consider blocking off the water part from the gameplay area with fences, etc.

Even visually, parts that do not look fun to visit also look worse, aesthetically. And I have to say, the water looks like a lot of frustration. From what I remember of big water maps, you mostly have to swim around, slowly, for minutes, desperately looking for land, but you're stuck to only a few landing spots where you can actually get out of the water. So doing a dam map probably holds more challenges than it would seem, I hadn't even realized that at first. Hmmm...

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Why snark works.

Even though there is water in the map, water is not really part of the playable space. I mean there is no reason for a player to want to go in the water, other than to explore or hide. The water will alsol be clipped off at a certain area so the players can't see secrets such as suddenly ending water and nodraw brushes, so its not like the players can wonder down the creek.

At the moment, the playable space is essentially in the 3rd picture (142Kb). But still, if I can make this map work and it is performing nicely, more area will be added to the map, but the water will still not really be a part of the playable space, even if you can swim around in it.

EDIT: Just a really quick update, haven't added lighting yet, but I have been doing a bit of brushwork, here is an in hammer shot:

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Aaron's Stuff

Alright guys, I added lighting to the map. So far, there is only one light, a light_environment, but next up for the lighting is fluorescent lights in the interior of the two buildings. Tell me what you think of the light environment.





It also still may be a bit early to tell, but the performance of the map is quite good, and it looks like I will be able to extend the map to make it a proper multiplayer map, this means the addition of new areas and the modification of existing areas.

I'm still trying to think up ideas for new areas in the map and how to put these areas in the map, but I'm thinking an electrical substation and some sort of pump area (I found a few models :biggrin: ) that pumps (or used to because this dam is now obsolete) the water into the water grid. This gives me the chance to add some nice narrow pathways carved into the rock with some leaking pipes. These pathways would lead to the substation and pump which will be carved into the rock, away from the dam.

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Aaron's Stuff

Now you have something to show here. It's really starting to take shape. My own personal preferences would be for a more warm colored light. More in the orange-ey family. Also that building would look better with some handrails around the concrete which surrounds it. The props seem a bit haphazard atm as well. Still though very nice start you are off to, based on the pics alone. Turn on showfps to see what your performance really looks like. Include this in the screens for snarkpit purposes only of course.

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Quote from Nietzsche....God is dead
Quote from God....Nietzsche is dead

You know what, aaron? This looks pretty damn good!

With all the props there already, I just can't help but give you an advice regarding prop-shadows, since it's so obvious in this pic. In the preverences for the "hanging ivy" prop, turn off "throw shadows", so it doesn't cause the pitch-black wall behind it. Also, for the second ivy prop, I think you have another typical prop-shadow problem: The center of the prop (it's indicated by the colorful 3 lines in the editor) seems to be stuck inside the wall brush there. If that happens, the prop recieves no light and turns out pitch-black. Fix this by either moving the center a bit outside the brush geometry, or use an info_lighting entity, to sample lighting for the prop from a better spot.

But this is exactly the reason I recommended keeping away from extensive prop-placement at this stage. You got me to write an entire paragraph on a bit of prop-trivia, while beyond all the decorative bits, you should be concentrating on the layout. Which, actually doesn't look that bad either! I still think you should block off the water with a fence or something, though.

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Why snark works.

Hey presto, personality! That couldn't have been that painful, really? 8 or 9 minutes on fast rad? ( BTW don't put fast vis on unless you're just after a lighting preview, doesn't do a complete job )

It does look intriguing. I like the idea of trading fire across the water but I worry about what reaper said before, also the performance factor inherent in water.

Before you go all-out adding more territory, consider that what you have is actually not that tiny; it's bigger than tigcrik by a long shot. Don't be thinking this game is full of players, it's not. Why not upload a bsp here?

Couple things to suggest-

-in pic 4, your foremost building. You will gain a fair bit of performance if you put a solid wall on the left side of it, connecting to whatever nodraw solids you need to put under that displacement to block vis. I know I said something about concrete and rock before, but this is a 90 deg intersection, you could put a retaining wall against the cliff base, parallel to the building, and it will look natural. Add a horizontal hint across the map at that wall height, you may be able to hide what's behind it somewhat. So in pic 8 that wall could be where that fence prop is, on the right.

• in pic 7, is that ditch accessible? If so, I would probably put player clips in there to keep the pathway reasonably fast and free of snagging on props etc.

I know you're after a showcase, but I'm gonna keep nagging the play stuff. It's drastic, but you could release a different version where the water is all mud, that would be much less pretty but would help with transit and performance.

When will you release a playable version? That'll give you much better feedback I think. :smile:

Anyway, starts looking better. I'm not so sure about the lighting though: it looks bland, timid. Somewhat brighter, warmer, as Juim suggested, would probably be better.

And a mountain somewhere in the background would be nice, to give it some more sense-of-place. 3D-skybox. :smile:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Ok guys, I didn't want to reply to anybody until I had some new screenshots to present, but I am having some lighting issues at the moment.

Again, such great feedback folks, I am really enjoying this :biggrin: . And thanks for the lovely compliments about the map.

Jium said:
My own personal preferences would be for a more warm colored light. More in the orange-ey family.

Done, and it looks better I must say :smile: .

Reaper47 said:
I still think you should block off the water with a fence or something, though.

I have done a bit of fencing off, but not completely. I was experimenting with the fencing before and I found some really nice rail models that looked really good, but they where to damn long, so I have gone with some brush based rail. I fixed the ivy to :wink: .

haymaker said:

• in pic 7, is that ditch accessible?

It is, but only for a short time, jumping off the ledge and into this ditch will result in death.

Captain P said:
And a mountain somewhere in the background would be nice, to give it some more sense-of-place. 3D-skybox. :smile:

Ah yes, distant things are still yet to be done and I will probably leave them until a bit later on, but I feel that once I place them in, it will add another element into the map and make it seem more like a real environment.

As for the comments about uploading the map, I was thinking about that but the map uses 36mb (uncompressed) worth of outside models, would anybody be willing to download that?

As for the maps extension, I am starting to come up with some solid plans and ideas, but there going to require alot of extra displacement work, which is pretty daunting. Something along the lines of Captain P's dm_mudanchee map, but not quite in a cave. That much displacement work is scary for me, considering how terriable I am at displacing surfaces.

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Aaron's Stuff

dm_mudanchee is 18.9 MB uncompressed, it's 7 compressed. And there's maps out there that are much larger. How many people will download it depends on how cool it looks and plays, I think. Past a certain size, people with slow connections won't download it anymore, but people with fast connections likely won't care too much.

However, if you can cut that size down, then that's better of course. :smile:

Anyway, why I'm asking it is because it can give you valuable feedback. The comments I got on dm_launchpad14 so far are really pushing me in a better direction (I hope :razz: ), and I'm happy I'm getting this feedback them early on. Otherwise a lot of work would've gone to waste.

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Dear god!! How is your map file 36MB??
Are you referring to the vmf or bsp? Ether way form what i can see it should only be like 5MB. Have you been turning up lightmaps?

Still, if u upload it I'll dl it. 36MB should only take me 2 minutes.

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Reality has become a commodity.

Wow, I have to say 36 MB sounds... extreme? To be honest, I haven't seen any custom models besides the trees so far, and there's no way they take up 36 MB.

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Why snark works.

RedWood said:
Dear god!! How is your map file 36MB??
Are you referring to the vmf or bsp? Ether way form what i can see it should only be like 5MB. Have you been turning up lightmaps?

Still, if u upload it I'll dl it. 36MB should only take me 2 minutes.

LOL, the map uses 36mb of uncompressed custom models, the plain bsp file isn't actually 36mb.

Basically, what your would be downloading is almost the whole models/props_foliage and materials/models/props_foliage folders from episode 2, and a few tree models which look really similar to the episode 2 tree models.

Let me just fix this stupid lighting thing and I'll upload it :smile: Should be uploaded by the weekend if all goes well.

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Aaron's Stuff

tbh, 36 MB for trees... doesn't sound worth it >_<

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Why snark works.

Alrighty guys, the map is uploaded, you can download it from here. I've managed to get rid of some of the fluff that the map wasn't using and I could probably get rid of more, but all up, the compressed rar file is 12.2mb. Feel free to download it and give me your open and honest opinions on the map so far :smile: .

Also, I am proud to say that I have come up with an extended design for this map and I am very happy with the new design :biggrin: . On paper and in my head, it looks great and I like it alot, but we'll see how it turns out when it comes to making the new areas.

I won't explain the new areas or anything because I don't want to confuse you, but I am going to start constructing them right away so some images of them should be available soon.

We'll see how the performance in the map goes, but at the moment, the space on the other side of the creek will not be accessible. Maybe later on, I can turn that place into a playable space and it may make a good sniping spot or something like that, but for now I don't want to get too ambitious and choke up the frame rate (and compile time.. omg!), so that area is just for aesthetics purposes and will not be accessible for the time being.

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Aaron's Stuff

I see a good start to map with some potential but you need to get some things fixed first.

First thing first, YOU NEED CUBE MAPS!!

you need to pack all the materials into the bsp. i have never used it but i think its a tool called packrat.

your steps are way out off size

you need to turn your windows into func_breakabule

your ladder to the water doesn't work right. you need to adjust it or make the ladder prop non solid.

you need to disable shadows on certin props.

things laying around that look like you should be able to pick it up and you can't

your displacements seam to be placed well but be to be fixed. you need to sue them and some have crazy jaged parts. you have some texture stretching problums on some of them also. for the ones with the texture problums your most likely better off destroying them and starting them over.

you need player clips badly

i was impressed by this... but is needs to be suen (spelling??)

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Reality has become a commodity.

Thanks for the feedback RedWood :smile: . There are cubemaps in the map, and the displacements are always being worked on.

Also, how come that screenshot you posted has no trees!?

Ok, I have been working on the new areas a little bit today and I have a screenshot to show you guys. Its an image of one of the new spaces somewhere in the map. What you see in the screenshot is probably about 50% done, there is still some stuff to add to it.


One of the new spaces

What your seeing is a pathway, in the direction I was facing when I took the picture (straight ahead) leads to the dam, behind the camera leads to the substation and some other buildings I plan to add in.

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Aaron's Stuff

Yes, definitely use pakrat. The download could easily have been under 6 MB with that (about 200 of 300 files weren't actually used in the map). :smile:

Anyway, that didn't look bad at all. I kinda like the rocks, they look quite natural, with all those trees added. The overhanging rock is especially nice. Granted, there's some stretching going on here and there so there's certainly room for improvement, but it's not bad.

The same goes for the overall feeling: it's really a place, a somewhere. The open place is too empty and doesn't seem to have any purpose, but the rest is all quite nice. One thing stands out a bit and that's the lack of finesse. Your stairs are too rough, the dock is too rough, too. Try some smaller brushes, more finely detailed objects here and there.

The layout is rather... well, it doesn't look like a very fun playing map so far. I understand you're adding an area behind the little stream/path? I don't think that's a good choice, because that path is too long (so it's a boring corridor that delays combat time = fun time) and it's hard to walk through (reducing props and widening it would help). You'd better keep things tightly together, with better use of the area's you already have. Otherwise you'll end up with 2 or 3 'rooms', each with 2 corridors to the others, which makes combat inside these rooms somewhat dull and movement becomes too predictable.

Might I suggest doing an orange/grey testmap for the layout? It helps me a lot to focus on the gameplay. Nice looks really do make it harder to fix a broken layout.

@RedWood: it's sew, not seu. :smile:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

this already has that sense of place you need, well done.

impressions; besides obvious technical things..

• concrete area is too un-brokenup, maybe liquid tanks and another elevation change
• i enjoyed jumping off the car onto the dock
• i threw all the props in the water ( the trash can should be phys )
• it's common prctice to keep headers for wall openings at the same height
• the pipes imto the rock didnt do it for me
• tiny thing, that stair texture is common on the tread rather than the riser
• for me, the size is pretty damn close, i wouldn't go too nuts expanding. this has teamplay potential i think. just a layout on the car side tha you have already and finesse on the flat area.

aaron_da_killa said:
There are cubemaps in the map

Merely having cubemaps in the map doesn't do anything. You need to compile them ingame, which is done by loading the map, opening the console, entering 'buildcubemaps', and waiting a few minutes. You would then need to distribute the .bsp in your hl2dm folder instead of the .bsp in the hammer mapsrc directory.

From the pictures the map looks pretty neat, you just need to cut the filesize before I can run through it :razz:

I think you have to enable cheats first, before building cubemaps.

so:

sv_cheats 1

buildcubemaps

map dm_backwash

Now you can distribute the bsp.

If they fixed it since then, great. But I don't remember that being addressed in any of the patches. Lemme' know if this has changed.

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Quote from Nietzsche....God is dead
Quote from God....Nietzsche is dead

OK, had a quick run through the map. I have to say, I feel almost exactly the same after I saw the map ingame as when I was just commenting on the screenshots.

You got a pretty good looking scenery here, I admit.

Layout-wise, I miss height variation and variation in general. You basically got a huge concrete field and two basic buildings. Not that exciting. Jumping into the water is as tempting as it is annoying.

Also there are so many props and decals and small, decorative things already that it feels a bit weird, since the map looks unfinished at the same time. I see all these great bits, like the displacement rock-ledge above the main area or the finer details on the building's walls... yet there is so much in-between that feels so rough or simply empty in comparison. It's almost painful since this could be not only a nice, but an actually great looking map, if you built it denser and without the empty, boring parts in between! And it's so hard to give you any real, usable feedback on this. It's a very general thing and I don't know how else to put it. :/

One more, minor thing: You don't need an alpha value for the transparent windows in Source, the texture has a correct shader from the beginning. Do not use any settings of this sort for the brush entity you're using.

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Why snark works.

Thanks for the nice new comments and testing it guys :smile: , this feedback is extremely useful to me. In fact, I'm thinking about printing this thread when the map is finished and adding it to my newly created portfolio.

Ok, both reaper47 and Captain P commented on the over hanging rock thing that is in the downloadable version of the map, but I had to remove it and replaced it for something else, before you see the images, I just want to let you know that it isn't finished and open for suggestions.

Captain P said:
I understand you're adding an area behind the little stream/path? I don't think that's a good choice, because that path is too long (so it's a boring corridor that delays combat time = fun time) and it's hard to walk through (reducing props and widening it would help).

I was actually hoping that the "path" was less of a path and more of just a narrow space. I'm going to put a decent amount of cover on the path, as well as add some weapons. There are also some entry/exit points along the path that would lead to new areas, so players can come from a variety of different directions. So I am hoping that there will be quite alot of exchanging fire on this winding and slightly sloppy (there is some height variation right there :razz: ) pathway. It is also the only way (at the moment) between the two most important areas, the dam and the yet to be built electrical substation, which will be roughly the same size of the dam area and have some buildings too.

haymaker said:

• concrete area is too un-brokenup, maybe liquid tanks and another elevation change

Yes, I have been thinking about that too and have looked at what I could possibly to do that area, but I am a bit reluctant to changing it, but it feel like something needs to be done there.

Jium said:
I think you have to enable cheats first, before building cubemaps.

I just tried it, sv_cheats 1 is not necessary :biggrin: .

reaper47 said:
Jumping into the water is as tempting as it is annoying.

I don't know if that is a good thing :razz: . But once I get the ladder working properly, it should be pretty easy to get out. Also, I am going to add a push effect instead of a clip to keep players inside the areas they are supposed to be in. I think that a push effect is better than a clip because it seems more "fair", than just some invisible wall and a small amount of players (I know I do in some games) will attempt to get past the push by sprinting, grenade jumping or whatever else they can think of, to try and get past the push effect and go into an area they aren't supposed to, so I suppose this will give some players some amusement, even though I will make sure that they can't get past it :biggrin: . But I suppose this could be a good opportunity for an easter egg as a reward if a player gets past the push.

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Aaron's Stuff

Oh, two more things: the lighting is ok, but feels sort of dim. Too cold without actually being cold. Hard to tell, but I think some warmer, brighter, more intense lighting would work well here. It's too average right now. That, and those tree models. They're too undefined in terms of texture. It's like I'm seeing a bunch of green, rather than individual leaves. As if they lack lighting somehow.

As for adding new areas, I strongly urge you (again) to get a solid layout working first. I've taken the same approach as you do, many times, and almost every time it failed: I had some great-looking areas, some good athmosphere, but when it came to connecting them, to making them work well in terms of gameplay, I got stuck, it failed right there.

As for easter eggs, noclipping around is usually the most effective way to find them. I don't know how many players know that, though. I like the idea anyway. :smile:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

The new spaces

I have some bad news, I haven't been able to get the new areas to work and I don't really feel its worth more time than I have already spent trying to fix them. The frame rates where getting disgusting and it was hard adding in vis blockers to stop the whole level from being rendered from either side. So its back to square one, the original design. I may as well just admit that the map has pretty much no gameplay, unless you consider a crammed, fast paced run and gun fest gameplay (nobody say killbox :razz: ) gameplay. But don't let the gameplay description turn you off the map, hopefully the other aspects of it will turn out good.

New Stuff

Well, now that the new areas are out of the equation, I can put a bit more effort into the remaining space and add some more detail than I would have been able to. Here are some new screenshots:



You can also download the latest version of the map here.

To conclude, here is a list of some of the things added since the last version:

• More props
• Subtle green fog
• Very rough weapon and spawn point placements (no ammo yet)
• Fish in the water
• Background hills

So again, please feel free to tell me your opinions on the map :smile: .

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Aaron's Stuff

DAMN, aaron, I still remember you talking about nothing but Halo in the general banter until our heads exploded, and now you create visuals like this. That's beautiful man. I don't even care anymore that you so heavily rely on props you took from Ep2.

You can be proud of this. When it comes to the finer gameplay details, I think you should have a bigger and more detailed plan from the beginning. Not much to change, here at this point. For your next map, don't open hammer until you have a unique idea for every corridor/room in your map. Pick existing maps you like and try to figure out what it is exactly you like about them. Or what you hate about them. It helps with coming up with more detailed layouts for your own maps.

I see lots of potential. Finish this up, quickly, and start fresh on a new map, and it could become an excellent one. I guess you learned a lot from this.

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Why snark works.

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Wow, I have a real feeling I've been here before! Looks a LOT like parts of BC I've been to, especially Vancouver Island. Nice job on the bridge. Trippy.

I think you will not regret mothballing your expansion. There is plenty of square footage here, especially where you ahve started the hole in the concrete.

some things I would def do;

-move the window headers to the same elevation as the door's, they're just a bit sticky for jumping through
-make that winch prop a _phys_override, I've found it's one that works decently, and the trash can
-similarly the washing machines, make them puntable, can create an rpg shield that way
-The hole is a start; atm it's a nasty trap. I was envisioning something more dramatic, a ledge to jump off, perhaps a tunnel to the nearest building
-I was able to get behind the displacement at the corner , where you have a tunnel fenced off. But you likely haven't done nay clips so that's understandable.

I'm sure you have a plan for the car side, I'm looking forward to that. And once you figure out what's going on with that open area, it'll be time for weapons and powerups!

Good visual improvements there. :smile:

I like the mountains and forests in the background a lot. The bridge is a good one too, and the fenced off underpass makes the area feel more real, less artificial. Performance isn't too good now though (10 fps at some points, 20-40 overall), you may want to cut away some of those trees (pun intended :wink: ) and perhaps use a cheaper rock material, though world and prop rendering seems to be the main issue here.

I don't think a hole in the center of that square works well. A building would do better, as it provides more cover and creates at least a little bit more layout.

As for player pushers versus clipping, the way you have it right now just doesn't work. The push feels just as artificial as a clip would. It's better to denie access to the water altogether. The same goes for the dam: falling in the small path is an instant kill, but it's not obvious by the look of it. The broken fence makes it misleading: it's an invitation to jump in there. Just fence it off. :smile:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Wow, such lovely and helpful comments, much appreciated :smile: .

reaper47 said:
I guess you learned a lot from this.

Oh yes, I sure did.

heymaker said:
-The hole is a start; atm it's a nasty trap. I was envisioning something more dramatic, a ledge to jump off, perhaps a tunnel to the nearest building

and

Captain P said:
I don't think a hole in the center of that square works well. A building would do better, as it provides more cover and creates at least a little bit more layout.

Well, I still haven't decided what to do with the hole. I was actually thinking of making it a tunnel to some place like heymaker mentioned but I'm not to sure yet. But there is a weapon (and maybe more weapons soon) down there, and I've also just added an explosive barrel (that I want to be respwanable). I was hoping that players might decide to hide down there because its fairly dark (see screenshots below) or have some sort of sneaky attack that involves the hole.

But I've made some changes to it.



Yeah the hole is still there because I didn't want to remove it just yet to see what it might turn out to be (because I quite like it :smile: ). But I was thinking about what Captain P said and I thought that a building would be quite suited to this area. Tell me what you think of it people :smile: .

I've also made some texture changes.



In this image, you can see that the side and the top of the platform that this particular building is sitting on has had its texture changed. Also the interior walls of the building have had a texture change aswell. And you probably can't tell but the stairs have been lowered to.

Also, I have come up with my first idea for an easter egg for this map. Currently in the map (not available in the current downloadable version) there are 4 skulls hidden in the level, there not terribly hard to find at all and don't require some ridiculous stunt to get, but I was hoping of somehow having some way of some event happening once a player finds all the skulls. Once I figure out how to do this (if its even possible) I'll try and make something happen, like that player gets an rpg, or an rpg is dropped into the map or something. If you have any suggestions for the event, just let me know.

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Aaron's Stuff

Hey guys, here are some of the latest screenshots of the map:




Now the map is almost finished at this point. The only thing really left is to polish the displacements and take a long and hard look at the level and try to make it look as real as possible, weapon/spawn placements, add ambient sound and maybe some nice effects work (sprites, dust, steam, smoke...) and I musn't forget, I want to add a distant snow capped mountain like you can see here

I was also thinking about adding the citadel in with the mountain as well. If I was to add a citadel, it would have to be placed somewhere on the right of this image because that is the direction of the city (the creek flows toward the city) and the mountain will be in the opposite direction (the creek came from the mountain). It may be a bit difficult though and would require some adjustments to the fog.

The weapon placement is pretty much complete and to be honest, I'm not fussed about it to much, this is just a warm up map really to prepare for my next work in the source engine.

So hopefully, the map should be finished within I imagine the next 2 weeks at most. So if you have any suggestions, comments or advice, please feel free to post them in this thread :smile: .

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Aaron's Stuff

Congrats on yr first source release Aaron! Atmosphere to spare here, well done. Love the dragonflies, did you model that?

Sadly I found many hindrances to gameplay, but as you have stated it's meant to be a showcase, so I won't go into them unless you ask me to. I found performance to be low to medium in the corners, which means good considering the open plan and the amount of content.

Good work! I'd love it if you kept HL2DM as your platform...arguably the most challenging source game to map for...

What the hell , how did you know I released the map? I haven't posted it on snarkpit yet. The site has some glitch (and its still here) so I thaght I'd better not.

Anyway, thanks for the nice comments, I got the dragonflies (glad you noticed them :smile: ) from another map called de_forest.

I agree with you about the gameplay, but this was my first map and all I wanted to do was just create an environment (preferably small) just to ease into things, and now I think I have adjusted, made the transition over to source and am ready for some more source mapping :biggrin: .

As for my next project if I decide to go ahead with it is a small singleplayer thing for Half-life 2, some might say its to ambitious but I sure hope not, I'm expecting a dev time for this of about 6 months or less (considering this map took about 35 days to make). I'm pretty excited to build this next thing, so hopefully that motivation will last right to the end for this project.

Anyway, let me just update this maps profile with the new screenshots and download link and such, and the rest of you guys can download it if you want to. :smile:

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Aaron's Stuff