dm_torque

Looks pretty nice tbh and fun

Call it torque 2

[/lowiq] It's looking good, but try to avoid blocky right-angled buildings everywhere if you can, and whack in some giant Combine barricades! Check out the DM Overwatch match as a guide to making this sort of level...

Joe, i know you favor the name, but consider a new one. yeah i know i used Deja Vu twice, but i was dumb for doing so. #1 took thunder away from #2. it was a good map, no one seemed to notice.

/ 2 cents

Try to fill up those floors if you can...they look a bit empty. Other then that looks swell, as usuall

Looking impressive, and I can imagine the gameplay must be interesting as well.

What about adding some wrecked cars on the streets? They provide covers and potential spots for weapon spawning.

I would also experiment with light_environment a bit. I believe it could enhance the atmosphere of the map. What about rain?

The basic structure is looking pretty good, but at the moment the texturing and detail is pretty bland and almost non-existent. No offence Yak, but at the moment I wouldn't class this as your best work. If this is all the detail you are doing then make sure the lighting is really spectacular, because that will certainly make or break it.

I can always rely on the Snarkpit to put me in my place I'm glad I never get any serious 'this is awesome' comments, cause then I'd release substandard work.

Now I'll go blow up sections of this map and redo it to make it look better.

I also appreciate you putting me in my place ;D. Sorry mate, thought you'd want truthful commentary, didn't mean to come across so harsh. I just figured that the texturing, particularly in the first pic, was repeated too much. Also that you could probably afford to place some more props to enhance the realism of the scenario, as it seams really empty at the moment. Lighting will definately improve the situation though. Please forgive me if I gave any offense.

Woah woah, I wasn't offended at all. I appreciate the harshness, as I get too enamored with my creations and fail to make changes when needed. I always want the truth about my maps. I don't want a bunch of people rubber stamping my maps as above average because of my name (haha like that even happens)

A bit touchy are we Mr. Smith? :P

why is it of late, these maps are not making it into the maps forums were work-in-progress shots can be posted and commented on?

i'd have figured by now that it was the obvious location to have a conversation. shrugs

i actually enjoyed the shots with the green lines, what an odd texture

Orph, I'd rather wait until I have a playable beta before posting the thread as it makes critiquing easier.

True, but look above this, it already looks like a thread.

still, its your call ol man

I'm pretty close to finished with this map. All I've got to do is place the weapons and player starts plus all the vphysics and normal clip brushes around the sky. Hopefully I'll have a beta download later today around noon, unless I sleep in way too long yet again. I'd appreciate any comments you can provide.

what stands out a lot, especially the building in the center of the first pic, is the amount of intact windows in a building that has been otherwise devastated.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting fishy</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>what stands out a lot, especially the building in the center of the first pic, is the amount of intact windows in a building that has been otherwise devastated. </DIV></DIV>

I'd have to agree and carry it one step further.

if you have been around structures like this, there is a lot of dust. the air is too pristine/clear. the environment and the shape of the structures clash.

also, buildings that are uninhabited even for a short period of time have rampant plant growth. grass will crop up even on the upper floors of a fair sized building. (bird poop and updraft winds.)
if i were you, i would think about un-tidying up the site/map/area.

Yeah. The structure of the map looks fine to me, and you did some cool things with the lighting (see 3rd to last screen - wow) but it's like the map has two halves: a ground level that is basically unscathed, and a rooftop level that's all f**ked up.

Though I hate to say it, the lighting needs to be a harsher color, if only a darker gray. Subtle fog (and maybe even dust/fire sprites here and there?) would do you a world of good.

I don't want to trash the map; the effort you put into the design/architecture is apparent in the screens. It just lacks the extra umph of polish needed to jump out at the audience.

seems everyone is doing destroyed buildings nowadays :smile:

in the bottom half of the first screenshot, the left roof texture seems a bit overscaled, and in the right roof texture, the tiles dont fit in the triangle. have an edge so that they dont end abrubtly.

I'll see what I can do, but I'm already below my target FPS in certain areas so I don't know how much more I can add. I agree that the pictures aren't stunning and that the map probably won't be well received, but that's nothing new for my maps :/

The windows on the orange building will be blown out, that is a pretty obvious oversight on my part. I don't know how many plants I'm going to be putting in the rafters of concrete and brick buildings... now if they were completely destroyed leaving only an empty shell and rubble on the ground then sure, but these buildings aren't very realistically destroyed. The ground is probably too undamaged, but I can't start tearing up the road in any significant way because players still need to be able to get around the level. I refuse to use any of the concrete pile models down there because they present too many snags and sticking points for an area that basically connects the entire level.

Thanks for the suggestions.

EDIT: What picture are you talking about? There are no tile roofs in the first picture.

the purple-blue tiles. it seems its not really a roof, more a floor of a 1st storey cause there seems to be a door (lower right). on the second pic it looks like a connecting terrace

the purple-blue tiles. it seems its not really a roof, more a
floor of a 1st storey cause there seems to be a door (lower right). on
the second pic it looks like a connecting terrace

Tiles are actually cut that way though
... And honestly, I doubt he could cram much more detail in that open
of an area.

Yak, very nice architecture, I like it. I don't
think you have to go as far as making an ass load of foliage
or something like that, but messing around with the "dust
particle" effects would be a good idea, especially in the area
shown in screen #6/7.

It also seems like there should be some
more bare wires and such. But, that's just some extra
detail.

Anyway, get optimizing, I
suppose.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting BlisTer</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>the purple-blue tiles. it seems its not really a roof, more a floor of a 1st storey cause there seems to be a door (lower right). on the second pic it looks like a connecting terrace </DIV></DIV>

Oh! That's a combine structure that connects two buildings, not a roof :razz:

And dust particles are a good idea for that one enclosed area. I should have thought of that one myself. :smile:

if it rains, in a building with no roof, puddles form in the lower levels.

shade will slow evaporation too so, you could put stagnant water in darker places.

trash isn't the only form of debris.. dirt piles on the windward side of things.. rain washes dirt away on others.

when i said "rampant plant growth" i didn't mean a second tropical rain forest.. just put some grass stems on places that in a normal building would have it.. places where footsteps would not trample it if it were real.

with dust, comes beams of light, use that to effect.

sounds, don't forget some sounds.

hope that helps.

ah, ok. I think I have some ideas on how to impliment these things. I'll see if I can shove them in there. :wink:

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Yak_Fighter</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>ah, ok. I think I have some ideas on how to impliment these things. I'll see if I can shove them in there. :wink:

</DIV></DIV>
teamwork, its such a f**king cool concept :smile:

dm_torque is now released. Feel free to tear it apart, as I'm taking the lessons learned here and applying them to my next map. The download link is up above. Right-click it if Tripod spits out an error message.

EDIT: There's an alternate download link at www.punkassfraggers.com: Look for dm_torque

It doesn't look very different from the earlier shots, and that's because I really couldn't add any additional details for the following reasons:
-I tried to add fog but it screwed with the skybox turning the models gray and leaving the sky clear, either I did it wrong or it doesn't work in that situation.
-I didn't have any updates from December 17 onward, so I didn't have the patch that fixed detail props not showing up after compiling. I couldn't add little bits of grass in the buildings because the grass didn't show up.
-I tried to use beams of light in the dust mote areas (those I did add) but they didn't look right in that situation.
-Breaking out the windows in the orange building caused a FPS drop in an area that already had a low FPS. I felt the small and unimportant (and ugly!) asthetic change did not justify the performance hit. It's strange that they had orange wall damaged props but no orange wall damaged textures.
-I tried to add a citadel, but I basically ran out of time.

I'd appreciate any post-release complaints you may have.

Link working for anyone?

Right click, save as

unless I've already used up my bandwidth...

I LOVE THIS MAP !!!! i love the broken buildings i like the stuff i like everything...the archtictures...and ALLL AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA this map is nice....I LIKE IT !!!!!!!!!!!

I think this would be an excellent map if you just learned to use env_cubemap. Your cubemaps aren't placed correctly, or aren't built, so it's using the sky as an environment map. Check out the SDK documentation and see sdk_dm_lockdown for examples on that. A little more work and you'll have a 9 map. This is good stuff. Don't let an easy thing like envmaps bring it down!

Huh? The env_cubemaps were properly placed for reflections due to textures, and buildcubemaps was run. I just took a look and you're right that a handful of static props reflect the sky instead of the surrounding environment for some odd reason, but it's barely noticeable and so insignificant that it really doesn't matter. I don't see why something akin to a few texture misalignments would be such a big deal, but whatever, nobody's going to play this map anyway.

I just played this map 1on1 yesterday for some time.. And we really liked it, the flow/gameplay on this map is pretty good.. But I feel the room where the combine rifle is on ground level (pic 6 above) didn't get used alot because it doesn't hold any important stuff (outside the combine rifle).. We bassicly fought over and on the RL & crossbow roof area's all the time.. So maybe you can make that area a bit more interesting to go to by adding a combine supercharger or something..

P.s. having the RL and crossbow on top, and their ammo on groundlevel is pretty smart.. Stops people from camping on top all the time..

Thanks for playing it! :smile:

You have a good point about the hotel that I didn't think of. I guess I overstated the importance of the overwatch rifle, but that's what I get for not being able to playtest the map or get any critiques before release. The original design for HLDM had the gauss rifle in that room and the map had one less stairway leading up to the top. Goes to show how difficult it is to port maps between the two games :wink:

Np m8.. Are you gonna work on this map more (by maybe adding stuff to that room etc), or is this the final version?

Unfortunately it has been released. I have an ironclad 'no re-release' policy with my maps so I'm just up a creek without a paddle for this one.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting BlisTer</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>seems everyone is doing destroyed buildings nowadays :smile: </DIV></DIV>

Because that's the only got-dang textures they gave us!!! GRRRRRRRRRRR!
I am trying to make a Medieval Castle and I have about 3 textures to Choose from.

More on the cubemaps. The cubemaps in the bsp I downloaded from
punkassfraggers were not built. Once I built them it looked
fine. Maybe you copied it out of the mapsrc instead of hl2mp/maps
or something?

hmm, actually that sounds like a definite possibility. Stupid me. Thanks for catching it.

Quite impressive. I like the layout...multi-tier, good connectivity, with no overly long routes. Like others have stated though, there are a lot of right angles. Unlike a lot of other levels I've seen, the performance is pretty good too.

One comment last would be that pickup and dynamic prop placement needs work. Some of the pickups seem randomly strewn around in the middle of a room etc. And as for the dynamic props, in places there are 2-3 identical ones right beside each other. I particularly remember 3 combine balls clumped together in a corner when just 1 of them would have sufficed.

p.s. are you the yak_fighter who used to do HL1 prefabs? If so, I remember using some of them in my own HL1 levels.

Yep, that's me. Thanks for taking a look at the map!

This is my kind of map! I was a bit aprehensive when I first spawned, but then I started exploring and imagining frantic and very dynamic DM battles going on. Can't wait to play this one with others!

Ermmm... haven't actually played it with others yet... as it stands, I'd give it a 10. I don't expect that rating to change much after trying it online. Nice work!

-- EDIT --

Ok... I ran it on my test server (DM) for a bit and had some other players hook-up. It really calls for four players or more... much larger than immediately appears (not a bad thing at all). Had a really good time!

This map (intentionally or unintentionally) borrows elements from dm_overwatch, but extends these elements to accommodate a larger server and better balance.

It takes place in a war torn city-block, complete with rubble and surrounding buildings. Citadel walls devour the surrounding area, sirens are going off, and smoke bellows out of ruined buildings. Yep, this is the war torn City 17 we have all grown to love. Unfortunately, some awkward architecture and texturing somewhat offsets the immersion, mostly concerning the ruined apartment courtyard area. Minor framerate issues also crept up, mostly due to the open nature of the map, but are very tolerable.

Now the connectivity! Wow. While still maintaining the structure of a city-block, areas seamlessly flow into each other. Well, a nearly seamless flow - there are a few mundane hallways that are used to connect some of the outlying areas and make it difficult to pinpoint where exactly the player's location is. Which leads to another minor problem: The interiors of the surrounding buildings (unfortunately) borrow a bit from Half-Life 2, with little variation in the interiors and a spartan level of detail. Thus, the lack of landmarks increases the learning curve of this map a little; still, nothing fatal.

Weapon placement is also done well - most of the weapon locations are easily distinguished, and the rocket launcher at the top "draws players in" (to quote a fellow Snarkpitter) and seems to promote conflict. Overall, an impressive accomplishment that the author should be proud of, despite any minor imperfections. Whatever dm_torque does well, it does very, VERY well. An easy recommendation into any server rotation.

Verdict

A spicy, zesty City 17 map with great flow.

This map (intentionally or unintentionally) borrows elements from dm_overwatch, but extends these elements to accommodate a larger server and better balance.

It takes place in a war torn city-block, complete with rubble and surrounding buildings. Citadel walls devour the surrounding area, sirens are going off, and smoke bellows out of ruined buildings. Yep, this is the war torn City 17 we have all grown to love. Unfortunately, some awkward architecture and texturing somewhat offsets the immersion, mostly concerning the ruined apartment courtyard area. Minor framerate issues also crept up, mostly due to the open nature of the map, but are very tolerable.

Now the connectivity! Wow. While still maintaining the structure of a city-block, areas seamlessly flow into each other. Well, a nearly seamless flow - there are a few mundane hallways that are used to connect some of the outlying areas and make it difficult to pinpoint where exactly the player's location is. Which leads to another minor problem: The interiors of the surrounding buildings (unfortunately) borrow a bit from Half-Life 2, with little variation in the interiors and a spartan level of detail. Thus, the lack of landmarks increases the learning curve of this map a little; still, nothing fatal.

Weapon placement is also done well - most of the weapon locations are easily distinguished, and the rocket launcher at the top "draws players in" (to quote a fellow Snarkpitter) and seems to promote conflict. Overall, an impressive accomplishment that the author should be proud of, despite any minor imperfections. Whatever dm_torque does well, it does very, VERY well. An easy recommendation into any server rotation.

Design

Gameplay

Verdict
A spicy, zesty City 17 map with great flow.

Pros
Very good connectivity and it looks pretty much like City 17.

Design
Awkward architectural and texturing choices, lack of landmarks, hallway-itis.

Pretty awesome level! We had a great time playing it on the snarkpit server tonight, its a very worthy addition to the map cycle. The main outside area looks great and has loads of gameplay potential. The RPG roof proves a great hub for the level and pulls players torwards each other, yet despite this the RPG doesn't dominate and ruin gameplay due to the abundance of cover. My one main gripe with the level would be that there are a tad too many corridors, and many look the same, but as the map plays nicely with them there (plenty of melee opportunities!), i guess not really a valid complaint. Excellent job, and ideal for the server since it works great with 4-16 players

Yak, after playing it on the Snarkpit server I was mightily impressed. It played great and looked great. I don't what it is with those screenshots, but they don't do the map justice. The only problem I was having was with that pink/black chequers appearing on props and models, but it might have been my PC. Excellent work.

Wow, just tried this map tonight and it truly is great. I have yet to try it on my server with other players, but from the looks of it I don't think the players on my server will be disappointed.

Just had a play on this and its a fantastic map. The layout is great, and the gameplay is supurb.

The map just appeared in the new fileplanet 10 map HL2DM pack, you might be interested to know

http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/HL2DM_mappack/

/Me corrects oversite and rates map.