The Hive

Ooo! I'm a RE freak (as you can tell from my profile) so keep up the good work man and make this map nice

OMG! This looks really nice. The first and third pictures just look sweet. Only thing I'd suggest is adding those metal crates from the movie to screenshot 2. Good job.

Oh man. Nice. I think ralph has a good suggestion there. I'd suggest to have the Umbrella Corps train travel by every once in awhile

If you're serious about this as a project, I'd suggest getting a texture artist to help you out. Your architecture is fine, but the bland textures let it down. Nice work so far, hope you see it through.

If done nicely, that laser room from the film would make a nice puzzle-esque thing or even a cool scripted sequence.

I have been working on a new single player game based around the Resident Evil movie. I am currently working on The Hive's entrance, an underground trainstation located below Raccoon City. I plan to map the rest of The Hive including such places as the office area; the labs; Dining Hall B; the Laser Corridor; and the Red Queen's chamber. In the distant future I may turn it into a halflife 2 mod. Advice, Idea's and Critiques are welcome.

you cannot direct link to a geocities address..

that third screen in the map profile reminds me of a Nightwatch shot. I'm not accusing you of anything, they just look similar. :smile:

TBH, the shots look really bland (although fair enough, the sets in the movie were blander than bland as well :smile: ). I suggest you try to create a larger ligh/dark contrast in your lighting, should make it look more sinister. Also, try to use some better textures; instead of copying the movie's bland sets, spice them up a bit.

Darker boy! DARKER! Them zombies don't like the daylight you know!

Pretty much as others have said. your archatechture looks great, but those textures are terminaly insipid. More contrast, some colored accents.. ect.. it just isn't very interesting atm.

Thanks for the advice guys, I think if I turn down the texture lighting a bit, it should create more contrast to the area, I still have to add the train, security booth and entrance into The Hive, along with some barrels, metal crates, and forklifts. If anybody has links to some better textures, it would be great if you could post them.

This is one of my first maps and I appreciate the constructive criticism. I'll keep updating the map profile as I complete and tweak the different sections of The Hive.

It looks great so far. Only thing you should do is add more to the second screenshot, and since you mentioned that I hope to see more.

Oh man, I can only bet the r_speeds are sky high. What you have looks good, but I can almost guarantee you this will not be a playable map.

I can only see the 1st and 3rd but they both look great. The first one could use some cool graffiti on the wall and have 1 of the lights flicker if you can afford a dynamic light there. The third pic looks great. In fact it looks too perfect. Have something to break up the linearity of it perhaps. Also some subtle highlights with colored texlights like a very light blue might look good here.

I'm a fan of Resident Evil. Good luck to you! Hope it works out well. :smile:

The Trainstation and Dining Hall B are going to be the largest area's with alot of detail. Since this is probably going to be transfered to Half_Life 2 I'm not to worried about the r_speeds. Right now I'm shooting for about 2500 w_poly, the main station in the pics is about 3000 w_polies, but I am going to try to optimize it the best I can. My computer is an HP 500Mhz, 256MbRAM, with an Intel 10Mb Video accelerator and it runs smoothly in GL. It however, will not run in software mode. Does anybody know of some good train models??? That would lighten the w_poly hit quite a bit.

sigh

I really don't think it's a good idea to make a map for HL2 before the game is released. It's unlikely to transfer well.

It's rather like trying to make a rich, dark painting in watercolour and then "port" it to oil paints. They are different media; they require different techniques.

Either make a map that works within the constraints of HL1, or wait for HL2. What you have at the moment is a bad map for HL1, and realistically that's all it will ever be.

i do believe that its only the basic world geometry that you will be able to port to hl2. all of your textures will need to be re-done, as will every entity(point and world)

so if you were to delete all your point entities, and move all your brush entities back to world brushes, then retexture everything with aaatrigger, you will be left with what can get ported.

which wont be much. :sad:

Gollum said:
sigh

I really don't think it's a good idea to make a map for HL2 before the game is released. It's unlikely to transfer well.

First off, porting HL1 maps to HL2 maps should be fine. Read the VERC faq on the Source engine. All you have to do is re-model and re-texture the map. At this point the map has no models, or point entities, and needs to be re-textured anyways. :smile:

Its rather like taking a rich, detailed photo of a concept, and then "port" it to Half Life, different media that compliment each other.

Secondly, this map works great within the constraints of HL1 as long as you have a post 98' computer. If not you can probably pick one up for under a hundred pounds. Realistically you have no idea how good this map plays for HL1 because it is just a beta, and you havn't played it. Your basing your comments on a couple of very early screenshots.

Hohoho! This should be interesting rubs hands with glee Let me be the first.

Smoke said:
First off, porting HL1 maps to HL2 maps should be fine. Read the VERC faq on the Source engine. All you have to do is re-model and re-texture the map. At this point the map has no models, or point entities, and needs to be re-textured anyways.

Have you seen the engine? Do you know how to retexture the map? Heck, we don't even know whether the texturing works the same way. Heck, we know NOTHING because it hasn't been released yet. And no, a leaked alpha is not the game.

And besides, texturing is probably half the work in a HL map. So you have less than half complete...

Smoke said:
Its rather like taking a rich, detailed photo of a concept, and then "port" it to Half Life, different media that compliment each other.

There are certain restraints to computer games. Things like "We don't have an infinte number of polygons to work with" and "Games cannot compute mllions of photons working at the speed of light". Little things like that. It helps to know the capabilities of the engine before starting off on making something look more "realistic". So You can't port a "rich, detailed photo of a concept" without losing some of that richness and detail. You really need to learn how to work with HL for making the best maps. You can't port reality.

Smoke said:
Secondly, this map works great within the constraints of HL1 as long as you have a post 98' computer. If not you can probably pick one up for under a hundred pounds.

Simple question. What are the r_speeds in each of the pictures? Anything greater than 1500, and you're screwed. Because no matter what, the engine can't handle it very well. Games are not designed to scale infinitely based on GPU specs.( And a hundred pounds is a huge lot of money to play a game.)

Smoke said:
Realistically you have no idea how good this map plays for HL1 because it is just a beta, and you havn't played it. Your basing your comments on a couple of very early screenshots.

I can tell you with enough confidence that it probably will play bad. I see a room FULL of carved cylinders and pointless detail (the wall lights). That's enough reason for me. Fix it, or prove me wrong. And No, "My GEFRCOE FX5900 pwns j00000!!11" is not a valid reason.

Like Vash said: "Welcome to the snarkpit. We'll eat your legs"

Smoke, you can take my advice or leave it. It happens to be very good advice, from someone who knows about pushing a game beyond its normal limits. But it's up to you.

Go ahead and prove me wrong; until you do, I maintain that this method of mapping is a grand waste of your time.

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

fraggard said:
I can tell you with enough confidence that it probably will play bad. I see a room FULL of carved cylinders and pointless detail (the wall lights). That's enough reason for me. Fix it, or prove me wrong. And No, "My GEFRCOE FX5900 pwns j00000!!11" is not a valid reason.

Like Vash said: "Welcome to the snarkpit. We'll eat your legs"

Carve isn't part of my vocabulary, and I appreciate the advice!!!, thankyou and keep it coming. This pillar was made at 24 sides apiece, I could cut the w_polies in half if I switch down to 12, that would bring the r_speeds to about 1500 w_polies. I could also cut the amount of wall lights down. Smoke a J and relax a bit guys.

Well, if you can get the r_speeds low enough, it will work fine for HL. Good luck; the sooner you cut down on polygon counts, the more likely it is that they will be low enough in the final version. If you leave the r_speeds reduction until the last minute, then you may have to start all over again (there's only so much you can get from tweaking; already you are thinking about rebuilding some architecture).

And thanks for your kind offer, but sadly spliffs and essays about modal quantification don't go well together :biggrin:

speaking as someone who has had to repeatedly re-texture other peoples maps on several occasions, i can tell you this... not making a map for HL2 on the pretense that you might have to re-texture it is a poor choice, it can be done, and would be easier since its your map to begin with, i have re-textured several maps in the past 5 years, and none of them were my creations, it was tedious, but not overwhelmingly so.

the stolen alpha hammer has the option of, using the HL2 materials wads, or the HL1 wads, by simply clicking it into the path.. maybe the released version will too.

as to the engines ability to render, it is on several magnitudes greater than HL1 in its ability to draw without slowing down, but no where near U2's ability, as per the alpha, which i suspect, consist of maps not fully compiled properly, so the engine works harder than necessary.

even if porting ends up being a chore, IMO its worth the effort, if you bare in mind some bits of info..

1) the entities will not be the same.
2) the materials will have alternate settings, to allow for wood to act like wood, stone like stone, and steel as steel.. you will need to render these once its ported.
3) from what i have seen, large portions of the HL2 maps are not constructed from world solids as in HL1, you may be forced to reconstruct things such as stairs and brick-a-brack, in order to render a quality release.

anywho's even if i am wrong on all counts, any mapping at all, is good mapping.. keeps those creative juices flowing so to speak..

/ 2 cents

Smoke said:
Carve isn't part of my vocabulary, and I appreciate the advice!!!, thankyou and keep it coming. This pillar was made at 24 sides apiece, I could cut the w_polies in half if I switch down to 12, that would bring the r_speeds to about 1500 w_polies. I could also cut the amount of wall lights down.

Okay, A few more things I could think of to help:

• The recessed lights along the wall could probably be done better with textures
• The textures mostly seem like default HL textures. You could get much higher detail from some newer ones. You might find what you need if you look around.
• The crates seem terribly boring. Unless you really need them, you might want to get rid of them
• Defintely reduce the number of polygons on those pillar tops. 8 usually does just fine. You could mask the blockiness with some proper textures.
• The boxy rooms. Try modifiying the actual layout of the room itself, so it looks less like a box full of pillars :/

I wouldn't know anything about porting it, so Orph's advice is definitely much more authoritative on that. Good luck with it anyway

fraggard said:
Okay, A few more things I could think of to help:

• The recessed lights along the wall could probably be done better with textures
• The textures mostly seem like default HL textures. You could get much higher detail from some newer ones. You might find what you need if you look around.
• The crates seem terribly boring. Unless you really need them, you might want to get rid of them
• Defintely reduce the number of polygons on those pillar tops. 8 usually does just fine. You could mask the blockiness with some proper textures.
• The boxy rooms. Try modifiying the actual layout of the room itself, so it looks less like a box full of pillars :/

Those are some great idea's, I think 8 polygons is a bit low for the top of the pillars but should work fine for the pillars themselves, and the textures aren't default HL. I got them from a fairly good site. You should check it out.

P.S. Broadband internet would be recommended for this site. Along with some basic french, although I think it has some english subtitles.

http://perso.club-internet.fr/lemog/lemog_textures/acc_textures01.html

Here's one of the concept images that I have based the trainstation on. It was the actual subway station that Resident Evil was filmed on.

that last pic is just great. they are right about the textures, but the architecture is sweeeeeett

If you're not doing any of the above ground parts you could create a pure white sky and use that to texture the those lights about the pillars. It'd mean you have no texture lights being split up and increasing poly's. Just a thought.

Well I think most of the comments here have been incredibly harsh - I must say as a map at the beginning of your level design life its extremely impressive.

1500 w_poly however, is much too high for what you have here. 24 sided cylinders, is miles more than you will ever need, 16 is the most you should ever go for in normal circumstances.

While most people have criticised your choice of limited textures, I think it works to your advantage. What I found striking about that particular set in the film was the material simplicity. The stylised architecture complete with clean materials is extremely atmospheric and personally I think you have done a reasonable job of capturing that. Rather than just use texture lights I suggest you play around with light_spots to achieve the pools of light below the pillars like in that photo. Get new crate textures, vary your concrete textures slightly, get your extra details in (handrails etc...) and I think you will be doing yourself proud at your current experience level.

DO try and lower w_poly to below 1000 though, what you have here does not merit higher.

[size=13][color=white]

Like Vash said: "Welcome to the snarkpit. We'll eat your legs"

Finally, someone realizes my infinite knowledge!!!11

/runs off into woods without pants

Like the others said, you are not even close to HL2. Did you forgot about static mesh's? Half-Life2 is heavy on them. Once your done actually retexturing your map, you'll find ALOT of static mesh's that'll replace objects you already have, and will cut down on r`s. And dont think for a second HL2 is some superb, r-speed-killer. Sure, it is REALLY powerful, and true in most case's R_speeds wont even be in your mind, but HL2 isnt a PERFECT engine. It still has its limits as well...

Dont forgot about lighting :biggrin:

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I just noticed you are using hi-res textures, above 256x256. Generally this isn't recommended, as it could cause issues on older systems, so you might want to consider resizing them in Photoshop / PSP / paint / wally.

I say well done Smoky. I think your map looks very nice, and considering you want to release it for HL2, I don't see how it's overly ambitious for that engine (based on the hl2 video clips). It looks like you have spent a lot of time on it, when I saw your concept picture my first thought was 'wow', because I thought that was taken in game! haha :smile: It doesn't look like a box full of pilars to me at all.

Anyone else really like the stairwell? :smile:

The stairwell is probably the most impressive shot actually, I forgot to mention it as I was looking at the posted screenshots rather than those ones. It is really nice in terms of brushwork, though I must admit I don't recall the area from the film. Is it just an area you designed yourself smoke?

The stairwell is an area that I designed myself to fill in some of the gaps. It is intended to connect some of the office zones in the upper levels of the Hive. The movie gives me some good areas to work with, but the bulk of the Hive wasn't shown in the movie and will have to be designed and built. This project gives me a lot of sets that will be based from the movie, as well as a lot more that will have to be designed from scratch.

I just finished tweaking the pillar lights to turn on in sequence as the train enters the station. It is only availiable in Spirit. I ran into the "too many direct light styles" error and was forced to have three seperate portions turn on as you pull in. I would have liked to have each row seperately turn on like in the movie, but I am forced to group a couple rows together due to the engine limitations. I have wondered wether there is any way to increase the light style limitation? In any case its beginning to come together, I cut the w_polies in half with more efficient pillar and wall accent lighting designs and reworked the subway tunnel entrances to look better and eat up less w_polies. I should have an example map to download soon.

Does anybody know where to get good detailed crate and barrel models, I have very few spare w_polies and I want to put a lot of supplies and whatnot for the atmosphere of the supply bay. To do it with regular world brushs would just add to the r-speeds that are already pushing 1400 to 1500 w_polies.

Not sure where you'd pick up some public crate and barrel models.

Ask your light styles question in the editing forum though, you'll be sure to get a response then.

Search for "the doener king", I don't know the exact URL but he has a lot of models on his website. Not sure if there will be anything of use for this particular need but as far as I know its the largest repository of world models for HL around. Oh and the website is mostly in german, so finding models may take some trial and error :smile:

Once you get a beta version of the map online I'm sure a lot of folks will be able to offer advice on lowering w_poly without changing much in the way of appearance.

Here is his site:

http://thedoenerking.myexp.de/models.php

You'll have no trouble finding the models you need, and there are definately some nice ones there that you can use. :smile:

Theres links to his stuff on this website in the prefab section or model section or something... I know theres links and stuff on this site.