Shafted

The original Bloody Ore was just a gigantic box with buildings in it. I don't know what I was thinking when I built that, but I do know I clung to HL1 mapping ideals instead of playing with Source's capabilities. The map was eventually abandoned.

My next attempt at a mine map, dm_frostbite, was a victim of my "cut and paste" mapping style which made everything look exactly the same (because it WAS exactly the same, this can be seen in Sublevels) and has lain dormant on my computer as an autosave for about a year now, because I just got fed up with Source mapping and the frustrations with creating and importing custom textures.

Finally I decided that Source mapping can go to hell, and I carried the idea of a shaft mine map over to Goldsource, and here it is. Right now the only problem I'm having is my func_tracktrains get turned backwards so the light looks wierd on them, and I have no idea how to fix that, but other than that I'm really just asking for suggestions.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Snow maps are always cool. I will schedule this for a look tomorrow, assuming I don't need any new textures (compiled in I figure). Also, props (irony!) for making a GoldSource map, nice to see the game is still attracting fans after nearly, 10 years of release!

Actually, there isn't a download yet, I haven't run a full compile. I'll do that overnight tonight

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Hay, looking at the pictures, this map isn't bad, I'll comment again when you give us a link.

Gwil, some folks will always be mapping for the goldsource engine :smile:

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Aaron's Stuff

:dorky: <- this looks more like a pimp than a geek

Anyway, I ran a compile overnight as I said I would. I hardly have any item placement right now, but all the starts are there, and I've been testing the map's capabilities. By the way, it'll handle 32 players easily, although the game itself starts complaining.

I just realized that I accidentally left -chop 64 in the Advanced Compile options all this time, which is why the lighting looks like crap. I'm worrying about the elevators, but the only way to shorten the delay any more is to just excise all the pulleys and machinery, which I would rather not do.

Shafted B1 download

Right now it's still using the working title of "bloodyore". Also, Filexoom is circling the drain so I've moved to Filefront.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

the game needs to know what is the front of the train. this is done by making it face east during the compile. when the map loads, the path tracks take care of where to point it.

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i eat paint

That's the really wierd thing, they ARE facing east

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

maybe it's west then, but the same applies. :razz:

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i eat paint

no it's east, I remember because all entities start out pointing at 0, or East. I just decided to add a minimum brightness level of 0.1, it hides the bug pretty well and doesn't make it glow like the sun

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

I'm not to sure what the hell you guys are talking about. But errrr, you got an origin on the train?

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Aaron's Stuff

Memory's a little rusty, but isn't 0 North? East should be 90.

make a room away from the rest of the map, and put your train in there to compile with some suitable lighting. it will still move to the first path track when the map starts.

Crash, no, east is 0, north would be -90 or 270.

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i eat paint

Silly of me to think they'd base their compass directions on, ya know, a compass. Oh well.

Looks promising indeed.

The green building's flat roofs scream vertical gameplay to me (everything screams vertical gameplay when I look at, I can't help it). I'm just looking at the screens and so want to jump up there.

That wall around the yard is dangerously close to the "box with stuff in it" layout you described. I'd try and tackle that early. Try to replace portions of the wall by larger buildings/rock formations/stuff... just so that it doesn't "enclose" the buildings like a fence. Those tight walkways that stay between the outer walls and the backs of the buildings usually turn out to feel a little redundant for layouts.

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Why snark works.

That wall around the yard is dangerously close to the "box with stuff in it" layout you described. I'd try and tackle that early. Try to replace portions of the wall by larger buildings/rock formations/stuff...

I'm trying to think of how I can accomplish this without breaking the theme, and failing. I mean I'm sure the workers would build the fence around the offending rock formation. I'm trying to add trees and rocks outside the gameplay perimeter, to give a sense of depth, but as far as rocks in the middle of the fences go, I'm not so sure.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Well, what mostly works is having a building with a windowless wall facing outside that can replace a portion of the fence. An example would be bootcamp. The map is enclosed by a huge wall but you don't feel restricted because the stiff nature of the wall is broken up by other buildings and architecture.

Also this is not a rule or anything. It's just a pattern that is often the result of box-thinking, so I thought I should bring it up. Just a POV. I don't even know how or if it affects your layout.

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Why snark works.

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

ok, how's this look then?

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Yea, I like it. Get rid of the wall in the background where you could now use the rock formations as a barrier. The less wall the better IMO.

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Why snark works.

Sawp d00ds

yes, I'm back again.. for the next five minutes, I guess, until something shiny catches my attention.

Anyway, finally got around to updating the screenshots for Shafted, which STILL ISN'T FINISHED...

-(/me stares blankly at the emotes list, fails to find a :slamhead: emote, settles for the next best thing. Returns with head covered in drywall power after redecorating his wall)-

...but oh well. I've been tweaking the atmosphere off and on for the past several months (more 'off' than 'on' I suppose) and I think I've finally settled on a night-time setting. All the rock formations, as you can see, have been replaced with a nice treeline texture I found. Everything else is either from DMC or R25.WAD -- both excellent texture sources.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

also since apparently it's a sin to edit posts now... The new screenshots, if they don't show up ctrl+F5 (this dumps the cache and reloads everything from the source)

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

UPDATE TIME!!! I've been working on Shafted a lot, changing themes several times (it's still a mine, but the overall setting has been taking small twists and turns everywhere, going from a shaft mine in Southwestern Wyoming being invaded by Hell to an abandoned, half-finished coal mine somewhere in southern Russia, its current setting. wpolies only get above 2,000 when you look in certain angles topside. I tried to optimize it to the best of my abilities, but sometimes you can't get it perfect. (I doubt I could get anything perfect anyway )

Anyway, enough of my crap. You want to see stuff, don't you? This'll have to do for now, my computer's running a full compile at the time of this writing.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Looks nice but the main problem I have with that space is it feels real confined. The 2D tree line you have there really isn't convincing me, maybe because the trees are all one height and I can't see any non-playable spaces, that is spaces the player can see but not get too and these non playable spaces make me feel like there is more out there. I guess that's an important thing for me, with both interior and exterior spaces I want to see signs that there is a larger world out there and seeing spaces we can see but can't get to is the biggest tease for showing this.

Also, the ground appears to be flat, and coming from a Source engine mind set (and perhaps because this is a birds eye view screenshot) it kind of ruins the space. You mentioned that your wpolies where 2000 which is fairly high for GoldSource so it's probably going to be difficult to implement some height variation in that space.

Other than that, roof textures look noticably repetative, probably not that big of a deal in game but it wouldn't hurt to increase the scale of those textures and it could reduce the number of polygons (remember, a bsp surface is cut where the texture tiles).

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Aaron's Stuff

This is looking nice for Goldsource.

My main tip would be to cut more into the floor plane, making it less flat/horizontal. You could have the right part of area seen in the screenshot a little higher than the left, like it's standing on a hill. Or add some downward stairways to a cellar level.

Try to make the ground and the surrounding walls more a part of the whole architecture. Currently it looks like the buildings and the background have no visual or layout connection. Just moving a building to touch one of the surrounding walls could help. Don't worry about "closing off" a way behind the building. Sometimes that's a good thing.

on the snow screenshot imho the snow needs to be more snowly and less paint-white

Kampy said:
on the snow screenshot imho the snow needs to be more snowly and less paint-white

I think that was an earlier iteration of the map and there's no snow anymore.

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Aaron's Stuff