TF2 - my new map teaser

hay guise! you've been such a great help I gotta feed you with some pics so that you dont think 'hey that Kampy guy prolly makes nuttin at all'
(I usually never publish any pics of my maps before release) hf

here's the latest: the scud launcher!

I didn't reply because TF2 isn't my area of expertise.

Are the vehicles actual models or are they brush based? The windows on the truck look pretty dodgy and the blue on the tanks and patriot missile thing don't go down to well.

The environment itself in this looks a bit rough. The rocky displacement surfaces are pointy and the texture looks a little weird with those shadows? I assume the shadows are baked into the texture? Again, not my area of expertise but I would think you would use a texture like that only at a distance.

I also think that the lighting could probably be improved. I think the areas on the right of the same screenshot need to be lit more.

Anyway, that's all I got really, I've only every played TF2 once even though I own the game and have never really looked into it. Looking forward to seeing the next batch of screenshots!

---

Aaron's Stuff

agree with aaron here, try to use models where you can in these instances. that way you have the option of setting fades at least when you're optimising. speaking of which it's not a bad idea to hide complex models in lil alcoves and such so's you can be aggressive on the fades. glhf

aaron_da_killa said:
Are the vehicles actual models or are they brush based? The windows on the truck look pretty dodgy and the blue on the tanks and patriot missile thing don't go down to well.

They are mostly brush based. The extreme blue and green in the vehicles and buildings is intentional. ^^

aaron_da_killa said:
The environment itself in this looks a bit rough. The rocky displacement surfaces are pointy and the texture looks a little weird with those shadows? I assume the shadows are baked into the texture? Again, not my area of expertise but I would think you would use a texture like that only at a distance.

As for the rough terrain I think it's okay I thought it would look worse if I smoothend it. I totally agree on the texture though. TF2 has little textures for this kinda purpose so I had to take something like this. I might make my own texture instead if I find out how to include the texture into the mapfile.

aaron_da_killa said:
I also think that the lighting could probably be improved. I think the areas on the right of the same screenshot need to be lit more.

I havent worked on most of the lighting so far. Hadnt had time for that. So indeed I will have to do that.

aaron_da_killa said:
Anyway, that's all I got really, I've only every played TF2 once even though I own the game and have never really looked into it. Looking forward to seeing the next batch of screenshots!

yeah alright Imma feed you some more later. thanks for the tips.

haymaker said:
agree with aaron here, try to use models where you can in these instances. that way you have the option of setting fades at least when you're optimising. speaking of which it's not a bad idea to hide complex models in lil alcoves and such so's you can be aggressive on the fades. glhf

I dont know why everyone just keeps suggesting to turn stuff to models... its not that easy, you have to get XSI, and if you can bear using that piece of shit program without finding a cracked version of maya or studio max, then you have to completely relearn a entirely new tool, of which going from hammer -> modeling program is a pain. While it would be a good learning experience, its not something to be suggested lightly.

Kampy- try doing a search for some free tank models on the internet, and refer to a tutorial to import those models into hammer.

If you cant find models for those props you made, you can turn them into func_lod - which fades the brush object at a distance that you can set.

I like my brush-work :P I tried modeling and it's hard.

omegaslayer said:
you can turn them into func_lod - which fades the brush object at a distance that you can set.

func_lod? sounds freakin awesome! I was looking for a function like that

P.S. does that mean the engine doesnt see it either?

P.P.S. thewall.de says yes! omg I love this function. it solves all my problems!

func_lod known to be a processor hog especially on lower systems. doesn't work the same as prop fades. use with care.

I wasn't suggesting turning your brushwork into models, more like go cruise the net to find modeled alternatives.

whats a "processor hog"? whats "prop fades"? I used the func_lod on most of my prop_details now. Not good?

Kampy said:
whats a "processor hog"? whats "prop fades"? I used the func_lod on most of my prop_details now. Not good?

By processor hog (processor pig) he is referring to how much processing power is consumed from the cpu by the func_lods. I assume this means that there is extra overhead associated with func_lods, maybe for every func_lod the game engine needs to perform a few extra tasks every frame so the performance benefit gained by the func_lod should outweigh the extra processing required for the func_lod.

By prop fades, he is referring the the ability to only render specific props when the player is within a certain range (so pretty much like the func lods). However although prop fades and func_lods do the same thing haymaker is saying that they work in different ways and that the prop fades work in a more efficient way to func lods.

---

Aaron's Stuff

prop fades? how does that work?

aaron_da_killa said:
The windows on the truck look pretty dodgy and the blue on the tanks and patriot missile thing don't go down to well.

Well, I guess the texture choice would look pretty bad if you didn't realize what he was trying to do here. Has anyone else not noticed? 1. The map for an avatar, the tanks, patriot missile, spy plane, AA missiles... I guess you guys have never played Command & Conquer Generals? I for one am all about brush-based constructions. And if there was one Source game where they should be accepted as part of the natural setting (as opposed to using more realistic models) then it would be TF2.

Speaking of brushes for models, how often do you guys do it? Q. If there is a regular model that you could use instead of re-creating what you want out of brushes, would you use the model because it was easier? I know it probably depends on the model and situation, but If you were Kampy in this instance, and needed a colored tank for your map, would you look for a model instead of trying to make it out of brushes first? I think brush creation modeling is a lost art with the advent of the Source engine. People are looking for more intense detail and need it to look more realistic, so most mappers will venture towards making or looking up an adequate model for their needs instead of trying to create a simpler (or just as complex) version of the detail they want in brushes. I applaud Kampy here for sticking with the lost art of brush-modeling. Of course he took or takes for granted that maybe a lot of people still do this, but in reality not so much. He comes from a long time of experience mapping for the goldsource engine and is adapting his needs for the Source engine, so to him, his only option would have been to brush-model his constructions. So let us not spoil his (should I say naivety) for brush-modeling; I for one, welcome it.

---

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

In principle I agree fully with your sentiment Riven. I did the same thing for my first release, architecturally. It ended up being a shit map in terms of performance and gameplay, though, so my point of view is biased.

There are plenty of great brushwork source maps out there in terms of architecture but by today's standards I see a lot of detail work that is hit and miss depending on the subject.

I agree that it's easy to fall into prop-trap mindsets, there's far too many pipeset32d or what have you out there in MP maps, but I think that is also partly because of an author's desire to over-detail to SP standards. As this is for MP I'd urge someone to consider the players and their expectations as much as their own artistic ambitions.

edit: on second look the screenshots are really not very flattering, there's no shadows on the tanks. They could use a more detailed texture too, and some dirt decalwork etc. Give us some closeups with real lighting!

Riven said:
Well, I guess the texture choice would look pretty bad if you didn't realize what he was trying to do here. Has anyone else not noticed? 1. The map for an avatar, the tanks, patriot missile, spy plane, AA missiles... I guess you guys have never played Command & Conquer Generals?

Huh! I see what's going on now.

I actually looked at this screenshot and thought "damn that looks like the patriot missile from Red Alert 2" (I guess you could consider that game part of the Command And Conquer series), hence why I said patriot missile thing. I still think the windows on the truck are butt ugly, at least align the texture or something.. unless that's how it appears in the game (C&C Generals).

Myself, I like brush based constructions. Not sure why but they seem to be more genuine than models in a lot of cases and seem to have more character in a lot of cases, a well made brush based object that is.

Perhaps that's just because some models Half-Life 2 models have just become a cliche, the crates, oil drums, pipes, fences. Not to say they can't look good in a nicely composed space.. but seeing a brush based object is always a nice change.

Would I use a less desired model as opposed to a more desired custom made brush based object because it's easier? I think I would sometimes, mostly without even thinking about it. For example, I would just use the default gates instead of even considering making myself better looking gates just because they're available, same with the crates.

However I'll never force the use of a generic model if it's detracting from the map. For example that space I recently sent to you Riven for the compilation map, you may notice that the two roadblocks are brush based because the default model ones didn't quite fit in nicely plus they where perhaps a bit too high.

"Kampy" said:

aaron_da_killa said:
The environment itself in this looks a bit rough. The rocky displacement surfaces are pointy and the texture looks a little weird with those shadows? I assume the shadows are baked into the texture? Again, not my area of expertise but I would think you would use a texture like that only at a distance.

As for the rough terrain I think it's okay I thought it would look worse if I smoothend it. I totally agree on the texture though. TF2 has little textures for this kinda purpose so I had to take something like this. I might make my own texture instead if I find out how to include the texture into the mapfile.

I think you should smooth over those spikes to be honest, not the whole hill in general, just the spikes.

What you could have done is created those hills with the "radius" too low. Sometimes I do that and it results in spiky terrain. Or you just need to throw in some additional polygons into those displacements, don't fear, displacements are cheap to render, cheaper than normal brush geometry.. unless spiky geometry is a TF2 thing.

---

Aaron's Stuff

Kampy said:
prop fades? how does that work?

cough

(I might work on the mountains again - they already have the highest detail level, but I might just smoothen them - although I really 'like the spike')

Kampy said:

Kampy said:
prop fades? how does that work?

cough

(I might work on the mountains again - they already have the highest detail level, but I might just smoothen them - although I really 'like the spike')

Check this out.

---

Aaron's Stuff

my own sand/mountain texture combination: still working on it

prop fades? how does that work?

Come on, Kampy! Just browse the Valve Developer Community a bit, all the basic stuff is explained there.

Are those hills rock or sand? If they're rock than I guess you could justify the spiky terrain but if it's supposed to be sand than it's way to spiky.

Just bear in mind, it is possible to smooth out those spikes without making the mountains look boring/uniform/ugly/dull.

Anyway, I'll stop going on about the hills.

Edit: I clicked on the image to see full version and those hills are damn spiky, gotta flatten them out.

---

Aaron's Stuff

reaper47 said:

prop fades? how does that work?

Come on, Kampy! Just browse the Valve Developer Community a bit, all the basic stuff is explained there.

I did! I even googled it. I obviously couldnt find it, because it's not called prop fades

(already smoothend the hills a bit.)

P.S. thanks for the link, but the 'fade distance' options can only be used for models

P.P.S. So would you recommend removing the func_lods and making func_details again?

smoothed

Kampy said:
I did! I even googled it. I obviously couldnt find it, because it's not called prop fades

Kampy said:
P.S. thanks for the link, but the 'fade distance' options can only be used for models

Well prop fades probably isn't the official name for it. Usually in the Source engine, the word prop means/refers to a model and fades is self explanatory I guess.

Kampy said:
P.P.S. So would you recommend removing the func_lods and making func_details again?

I don't know what the deal is with func_lods and what overhead is associated with them, I assume that the extra overhead has to do with checking how far the player is from each func_lod every frame and making the func_lods opaque when the player is in between the min and max fade distances which is the same for the prop fades anyway, but there might also be extra complexities associated with fading out bsp geometry (brushes).

I've never used func_lods before so I have no idea.

Assuming that Valve created logical code, I can safely assume that your getting a benefit from tying the multiple brushes to a single func_lod entity. I guess the more complex the brush based object is, the greater benefit you gain.

Don't think you should make the vehicles a func_lod though or at least not the whole vehicle (maybe little features only), that's something that you want to be visible to the player at any distance. Ofcourse, the vehicles won't be rendered if the engine can't see them.

In regards to the spiky terrain.

Here are some areas I think you need to fix.

If you have a look at one of my older crappy maps - screenshot - (that I need to go back on and fix up), the terrain is a bit spiky but not as spiky as yours. Not to mention that the terrain in my screenshot is rock so the spkyness is justifies.

---

Aaron's Stuff

your link somehow didnt work, but tbhwy Im quite satisfied with the spikeyness of my hills. gotta really work on other things - maybe Ill check the hills later again.

Kampy said:
your link somehow didnt work, but tbhwy Im quite satisfied with the spikeyness of my hills. gotta really work on other things - maybe Ill check the hills later again.

Ah that's right. You need to copy/paste the url into the address bar.

Anyway, fair enough. Show us some more screenshots asap!

---

Aaron's Stuff

I never used func_lods before either. Maybe I should have? Maybe some stairs or a brush-based fence consisting of lots of little planks, brush based decorations, etc...

Generally, though, you don't want world geometry to fade. Rather use it to block visibility. Almost all of the more detailed parts should be done using props/models with Source either. A single brush-face is about as expensive to render as 100 model-faces.

90% of optimization is still done with a) VIS optimization and maybe an area portal or occluder here and there and b) avoiding of expensive shaders (water), particle effects (func_dustclouds close to the player) or, as you figured out the hard way, dynamic lights!

reason I advised against func_lod there was because I did try using it on shipshape, for some detail at the stern, and found it to have negative impact. I think the deal is that you can't control the start fade point, only the end, so it actually creates more work for the engine than it's worth.

When I do prop fades for MP maps I've been getting aggressive with the start /end points to minimize that, ie start @1352 end @1368 depending on the location etc. For little props like lamps and stuff you can get even closer, like start @511 end @512.

In this case Kampy, to save a chunk of server overhead, I would break up the brush-models and select as many parts as you can to be non-solid func_illusionary, and make the remainders func_detail. For example the straps holding the rocket; or even the wheels, where you can just make a big tools/invisible block to handle the simpler collisions ( make tools/invisible func_detail, it blocks vis, in ep1 anyway ).

Here's the China bunker look at the shape

HA HA that's awesome! -lol, you could limit the number of players allowed in there at once The brick looks fine, but doesn't resemble that concrete style texture from the original. Also, I'm guessing that that entire building is a func_detail eh? That's what I would turn it into, because there's no way that keeping that as world brushes would help vis.

/2cents

Nice job! I can't wait to play this map!

---

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

you could help me a bit. Im at a state where Im totally unsatisfied with the map, but dunno what to change. Maybe I can send it to you to check it out. Of course the bunker is mostly func_detail and there's a picture of BlackLotus at the wall with a red-heart next to it

P.S. the concrete textures looked really bad on it so I chose the bricks

alright new screenshots for all you hungry animals out there remade large parts of the base. more satisfied now. still a lot of work to be done (for example lighting on the blackmarket part)

what texture scale do you ahve your sand set to? Looks 'stretched' esp in pic 3 with the tower. Also wondering what you have the light_env angles at, somehow the shadows aren't that effective.

Set 'disable shadows' to yes to fix that ugly fence shadow from the chainlink model there @ US flag building. If you get adventurous you can use blocklight for some fancy effects.

blocklight? sounds interesting. whats that? (if its complicated) do you have a tutorial?

Nice batch of screenshots! It really does look like C&C Generals!

A blocklight brush is simply a brush textured with the block light texture that appears invisible in game but blocks light as a normal brush would.

---

Aaron's Stuff

!!! (( S-C-R-E-E-N-S-H-O-T-S )) !!!

There's still a lot of work to be done! But it's so much that I probably miss half of it - so criticize! Dont hold back.

things that are on my list: complete fence, work on windows of the arabian buildings and of course lights (though also give tips on light issues)

I have to improve this!

hay guise! thanks for all the helpful comments you didnt post ^^"
Just wanted to say that Ive been working hard on the weak points and details.
It's coming to a state where I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. maybe Ill post some more screenshots soon.

I didn't comment because I haven't played C&C before and I've only played TF2 once for 10 minutes and this is a C&C themed map in TF2.

It seems that you've scaled down pretty much everything, the tanks and buildings look pretty small. So I'm assuming that the direction here is that you sort of want to build a whole C&C map with several bases right?

So what game type is this? Capture the flag or territories?

My only thought is that there is alot of big open spaces, I can't remember what the walk speed was like for the different characters but imagine being the Heavy having to traverse through this map, might get a bit tedious.

---

Aaron's Stuff

I was always bad at lighting - is there a good advanced tutorial on how to use the lights? I know of course the basic features, but some tricks would be helpful.

I think the lighting is alright now- maybe. anyway here are some brandnew screenies:

the US warfactory the chinese supplycenter hf

Ive added maps to the maps^^
before every mission there is a mission briefing
check it out ^,^

Ahh you have a broken texture.

Cool deal on the maps. its looking good.

doing the final compile
gotta put all the stuff into the bsp with that program and then look for a server to beta test map my- or anyone here wants to join a map-test-session?

Id be happy to hop on a server and test it with you. Let me know when.

nice. steam-added you

would be awesome if you had any friends to join us. I might find two more of my friends at the most who might join. So right now it's me, riven, you and maybe one guy from another forum and we need at the very least 6 people. anyone else btw? ;-)

I also have 2 sons who can join us.

haha awesome ;D

btw we did the first beta test today and it was still very much to do. Beta2 is almost ready and I have a server who runs the map. so be online