cs_deathvalley

This map is my first submission to the snarkpit, and also my first cs map, alot of time went into it, a year I think. I just wanna hear a little feedback, thats all. :biggrin:

Post a link and some screen shots. I can't make the ones acessable from your profile work.

Go to www.xat.com and get the program there. Your pics should be 50k, not 500k. It way moore people will look at smaller sized screenshots and you'll excede your bandwith with yahoo in no time with the big pics.

I only looked at the first screen and it had a EXTREMELY similar look to that map in cs, which I conveniently forgot. (Arg, the one where the CT's start outside tryig to get into the warehouse... Vents and everything...)

cs_assault ?

There ya go... Thx.

Thanks Alien Sniper for that link, that program is very useful! Ya i only wanted to try to capture the feel of assault, just new and originally.. I love assault, and I borrowed a new layout, but changed it. Are you guys saying the dowload link doesnt let you download the map? It seems to work for me, the folders are public and I cant make the jpegs work when they are uploaded directly to the site, so I appologize for the terrible shots, I only have mspaint.. go figure.

There I fixed the screens. Thanks a million sniper :biggrin:

It seems I have to purchase some premium service for anyone to see large files publicly, the map is in the map folder but you guys cant dl it because yahoo is gay and i gotta pay for it, lol. So I should have my map up in a week or two.. Im glad you guys pointed that out. I think its a really fun map cant wait to show you guys!.

The map isn't very good looking, which I'm sure you know. The main thing I see going for it is the brushwork, which seems to be fairly polished if not very clean. Texturing needs work.

Judging from the pictures, I wouldn't say the layout is ripe for good gameplay. Assault and Siege do have one thing in common in terms of play: the T's are meant to camp inside their bases and wait for the CT's. You have a long, open sniper range, which I GARUNTEE won't get used much, and any T who pokes his head out will get awped instantly.

Now imagine this. You have one entrance to your base, as far as I can see. The terrorists, knowing full well that they can't even peek around the corner at the advancing CT's, are forced to just stare at the doorway until the CT's arrive. Likewise, the advancing CTs know that if they try to slowly crouch-walk under the door, they'll be dead in a snap. Such a huge standoff is unhealthy, because the only ways to end it would be to either nade spam the enemy to hell or to just go all out rambo with Paras.

Obviously, that's only one way it could play out, and I apologize if you've already playtested and that's not the case, but that's just a theory of mine.

Could ya sort out the dl link coz it dont work and the map looks v.gd and i wanna dl it thanx

Looks a little bit to much like cs_assault.

Thanks for doing the images Nukem.



As a general rule, you should try to avoid using crates. It's acceptable to use a few, especially when it's in a warehouse. some of the are huge though, which is a bit unrealistic. I can't find the tutorial that was on here that gave a list of alternate things to use to provide cover.



This area is a bit open. The ground is very flat and so are the tops of the cliffs. Try to vary their height.

Overall good work. Can't play it cause I don't have CS, so I can't give proper feedback.

Looks a bit like assault, but I like it.

Will provide very interesting teamplay.

There is about 3 or 6 entrances to the base, (Including vents and the backdoor) So yes cassius, what you desciribed is not at all how the map is. And thanks for telling me how bad looking it is, thanks chum. I think it looks dope. Theres is even tunnels and sewers from one side of map to the other, that helps alot. Once I get some premium webspace, I will be able to post a working dl link, sorry for the inconvienence people.. I am aware of the crate problem, I dont know how to make rocks to well, r_speeds are high enough outdoors. This is my first cs map.

Well, 'chum', I didn't lie to you. You'll forgive me for not knowing how the gameplay goes - only theories of course, but I had no way to download it. The fact that it's your first CS map gives you no right to excuse your way past valid criticism and insult me in turn, especially when it was an attempt to be helpful. 'Cheers', 'chum'.

:biggrin: Ok you should now be able to download the map, I'm only gonna use this link temporarily though.

oh boy.

too open-plan for me bcz i hate sniping, but v nice all the same , the dust crates look a little out of place mebe? 4/5 gonna have playtests?

I would have playtests, but unfortanatley for me, I use a lan and with the way my dad has it setup, I cannot run a server of my own, he wont do port forwarding.. But if I came across someone that would put it on a server maybe I could, but theres really nobody out there willing to do so... I would like to. Thanks for the positive comments though.

This is my take on cs_deathvalley. I am not much of a CS player, so I will not attempt to evaluate game play. What fallows is likely to be a harsh, but honest, technical evaluation from a mapping and esthetic stand point. For the most part I will not waste your time with positive comments, sticking instead to what needs improvement.

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These two screens nicely illustrate one of the main problems I have with this map: monstrously large empty spaces with little detail. to be fair, large areas need to be scant on detail for the sake of the engine, but that is precisely why they should be avoided. HL just is not suited to this sort of thing. You did still have a few r_s to work with though. Two major factors which could have improved this map are variation in texturing and terrain. I can?t really help with the former, but in terms of the latter, I refer you to the excellent tutorials which <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:City><st1:place>ReNo</st1:place></st1:City> has written on this subject.

http://www.snarkpit.com/editing.php?page=tutorials&id=16</A>

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I like the cactus

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This tunnel area has real potential, but you have defeated it in some way. I think the problem is that you have the ?bounce setting way too high, so what should have been a dim tunnel with moody pools of light became just a blah over-lit set of brushes. I?d also make those light bulbs a tad bigger?



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[color=white]T[/color][color=white]his door doesn?t really open properly, you should consider a trigger_multiple.<o:p></o:p>

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I very much like this shot, but you could have improved it with a definite sunbeam streaming through that skylight.

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[size=10]This last shot is just for the hell of it.

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Overall I think the things you really need to work on are lighting, detail and layout. try for smaller more detailed areas unless this is completely against the style of gameplay you want to promote.

Proper lighting is absolutely key to making a good-looking map. The primary rule to keep in mind when lighting your map is contrast. For instance, making it a definite time of day so that outdoors there are sun-cast shadows can make a huge difference in your level. Likewise, indoor lighting should be varied with shadowed and brightly lit areas intermingling to give the feeling of a real place, or more importantly, conveying the mood you intend.

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Good Job! you completed a decent-looking, probably fun map! You are now further in mapping than most ever get. Keep it up!<o:p></o:p>

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For your first CS map it looks good though one thing i'd say is it looks exactly like other CS maps. assault, siege (the bridge) and militia (the tunnel) and i see nothing that really goes POW and which seperates your map from others.

i kno a few peeps runnin servers that really want more custom maps , only prob is getting people to download them :/

edit: just played little game on lan, i come to the conclusion cameras on both sides are bad and just encourage camping

[color=white]I really dont quite understand what you mean about the door not opening properly?? Can you maybe go into a little more detail? It opens fine for me. I appreciate the feedback. :biggrin: [/color]

[color=white]I used -bounce 4 -smooth 180 (<is this good), -extra -chop 32 -sparse for rad. The outdoors ground and rock textures are scaled up tp like 4 I think, that is why the lighting is horrid outside. I like the lighting inside, but could be improved. I used Textured lighting as well as 6 light entities for each lightbulb in the tunnel, one in all directions. Too many crates in the tunnel. I have that many crates so in the t's rush the cts, it is bound to happen I suppose. Vents serve plenty of purpose, you can sneek up on the enemy, or hide maybe as a t waiting for ct to rescue hostages. And whats cooler than having a ventilated cave! jk. but I suspect I may take them out. Thats it for now.[/color]

Keep the -bounce perameter to 1, otherwise the lighting becomes way to uniform. I think just changing this perameter may help allot. however, you may have to make the individual lights brighter.

The problem with the door is that I feel that double doors like that should open in unison. you need to use a trigger_multiple to trigger both doors at the same time.

edit The scale on your textures will have no affect whatsoever on the lighting.

Tracer Bullet said:
The scale on your textures will have no affect whatsoever on the lighting.

Actually it will have an effect: the lightmaps scale with the textures, so that if you scale up the textures the lighting will become less detailed. This is most noticeable with diagonal shadows - the jagged "stairstep" effect.

P.S. "affect" is a verb......and how's that novel coming along? :smile:

Yeh, Gollum is correct, unless you do -notexscaling (or at least so I hear).

All sounds very helpful. Are you sure about the -bounce 1 setting will have a better effect than more light bounces? Oh, ya now I understand what you mean about the doors, that may not be a bad idea. Thanks everyone, im gonna take the map dl link away for a while and fix it up some according to what you all said. Rock on all! :biggrin:

Ooh, I'd forgotten about that switch. Never used it myself, but it could be a handy way to keep the lighting quality high when using scaled-up textures for lower r_speeds.

Nukem, don't be misled into thinking that more light bounces will increase the lighting quality. The RAD algorithm is not a perfect radiosity solution. If you increase the bounces, then the map will become washed-out.

affect; effect; I never remember which one is which.. the novel is comeing, but slowly. life always intervenes, and inturuptions of any great length are hard to deal with. Thanks for asking though :smile:

I had always wondered what caused that hideous effect, thanks for pointing that out.

Could ya sort out the dl link coz it dont work and the map looks v.gd and i wanna dl it thanx

Looks a little bit to much like cs_assault.

oh boy.

too open-plan for me bcz i hate sniping, but v nice all the same , the dust crates look a little out of place mebe? 4/5 gonna have playtests?

I would have playtests, but unfortanatley for me, I use a lan and with the way my dad has it setup, I cannot run a server of my own, he wont do port forwarding.. But if I came across someone that would put it on a server maybe I could, but theres really nobody out there willing to do so... I would like to. Thanks for the positive comments though.

i kno a few peeps runnin servers that really want more custom maps , only prob is getting people to download them :/

edit: just played little game on lan, i come to the conclusion cameras on both sides are bad and just encourage camping