dod_belfort

It'd be good to have a little area to talk about this map here. It's late so I'll give details later.

wow.....very impressive gorby....i dont know alot about DoD maps, but this looks pretty damn nice from what i can tell....

Doc Brass...

Does belfort exist?
btw - Since your canadian I can probably ask this.

Do you have any images of operation rutter/jubilee Dieppe raid's ? im planning on mapping it for CoD (although it will only contain british & no canadians :/)

Looks really nice. A problem I've had having small water sections on rockwork is that the water sometimes has stepped edges and things when viewing from different distances. Is it all working fine here?

beautiful. I have one and only one suggestion, in the first screen shot, the stone wall seems a little jagged (at too extreem of an angle) possibly lessen that or add a straight edge to lessen the sharpness of that angel. that's the only thing that sticks out. everything else looks magnificent!

I was planning on making a map for DOD, but the map I wanted to make would be much better suited for CoD, it has open areas in the middle (a small beach area leading up to a town) on the sides there's small forest areas, and you can dig underground :biggrin: . I also wanted to impliment spot lights and guard towers, and have the map be pretty dark, and the spot lights would get shot out and everything. it would be great. . . but I think making that for DoD would be way too hard. I was thinking the map would be the size of overlord . . . until I saw the r_speeds on that map . . . Jesus! (tops at around 1850!)

Anyway. I love dod so I'll be sure to play this map tons!

rock on.

aesthetically its wonderful, i personally could not do it, my compliments.

with that said, i personally have always shied away from mapping, that relied on the textures alone to give the items shape, (IE your house looks like a house only because it has a house texture on its walls)

but i fear i will have to change this outlook, as since i have had the HL2 rip, i have noticed that the scale of the maps are so large, that you could never achieve the maps otherwise. the sky scrapers alone would take you months to make if you built them in pieces.

all in all, a very sweet looking map gorby

The tiles on the lip under the roof look unnatural and so does that trench on the far side of the river. Other than those wee things good work so far :smile:

Orpheus said:
aesthetically its wonderful, i personally could not do it, my compliments.

with that said, i personally have always shied away from mapping, that relied on the textures alone to give the items shape, (IE your house looks like a house only because it has a house texture on its walls)

but i fear i will have to change this outlook, as since i have had the HL2 rip, i have noticed that the scale of the maps are so large, that you could never achieve the maps otherwise. the sky scrapers alone would take you months to make if you built them in pieces.

all in all, a very sweet looking map gorby

THis is one of my major problems. I tend to model everything, and it really kills my r_s when I try to do larger maps, particularly dod.

looking good Grob, I'll take a better look later.

Orpheus said:
but i fear i will have to change this outlook, as since i have had the HL2 rip, i have noticed that the scale of the maps are so large, that you could never achieve the maps otherwise. the sky scrapers alone would take you months to make if you built them in pieces.

Ah, so there still is a place for prefabbing in HL2?

If true, suck it all you modelers. Prefabs > Models!

As for the map, it looks nice, but I can't see anything in those screenshots that would separate your map from all the others... guess I'll just have to wait till its farther along in development.

Yak_Fighter said:

Orpheus said:
but i fear i will have to change this outlook, as since i have had the HL2 rip, i have noticed that the scale of the maps are so large, that you could never achieve the maps otherwise. the sky scrapers alone would take you months to make if you built them in pieces.

Ah, so there still is a place for prefabbing in HL2?

i would say YES and NO

its going to depend entirely on what is made.. the pipes in the maps i see are HL's version of meshes, so are the stair cases and boots and books and computers and... ect..ect.ect.

i would think that things like items that involve entities and moving parts will still be prefabable, but props ??? no.

the staircase i saw, is a prop, but you can still walk up it to the next floor above.

the computers and crates are props that are user movable, either by nudging them with your player, or shooting them into movement.

i think prefabs will be less valuable as in HL.

If true, suck it all you modelers. Prefabs > Models!

Except models still allow greater detail at far faster rendering speeds and less memory consumption. Ouch! :smile:

but i fear i will have to change this outlook, as since i have had the HL2 rip, i have noticed that the scale of the maps are so large, that you could never achieve the maps otherwise. the sky scrapers alone would take you months to make if you built them in pieces.

Well, also, Orph... it's a simple matter of LOD. You're not going to see the top on the outside of a skyscraper. No sense spending 800 polys on various details that high up. Just extra background detail to fill things in, not primary detail. But if you need that one building to be decked out, you can easily have it, I'm sure :smile:

To the map itself... I think it looks great, particularly the riverbed. Which texture set is that, may I ask? Seems to all come together very well.

KoRnFlakes said:
Does belfort exist?
btw - Since your canadian I can probably ask this.

Do you have any images of operation rutter/jubilee Dieppe raid's ? im planning on mapping it for CoD (although it will only contain british & no canadians :/)

Go check the Imperial War Museum website, or the Commonwealth War Graves Commision or so forth.. there should be (is) photos of most notable operations.

Yes, the map looks excellent :smile: That white texture on the houses doesnt quite fit somehow... I think the scene in general is too bright, perhaps change it to a late afternoon/early evening lighting? Atmosphere and looks !

Looks great. Totally DoD-style.

Just wait till it's released. I'll show you, all of you! Prefabbing's not dead, you'll see!

.

.

goes and learns modeling

It's a combination of about 7 wads, and personally the map is almost too dark, I believe the light level is just right. In game is a different result than these pictures. Thanks for the comments everyone. And yes, Belfort is a real place, I looked at some old maps of the siegfried line etc. for places that had names that were short enough to be catchy and unique too.

A couple of teaser pictures of the additions to the first main area. This area is essentially complete now, details and a little reduction of r_'s is in line. This only one of the two large areas and many smaller areas in the map. So I've got a bunch to do still. Enjoy.

Stop! I'm drooling lol. ( I think I like DoD a little too much.)

It looks even better in those shots. Scratch my original comment on the wall there, it looks completly different once you're next to it.

I love the broken tree, I didn't notice it in the earlier shots. This, so far, looks like a small teams map. Or, is there a LOT that you're not showing us? lol

Either way I can't wait to play it. (Dunno what you did, but the terrain looks wonderful, as opposed to some of the screens earlier, It's probably the angle.)

[EDIT]
I Think I know why I like how this map looks so much. It totally reminds me of the CoD Dawnville demo back before CoD came out. I almost crapped my pants when I played it. Your map is really reminding me of the area towards the end of the demo where they're firing off the morters and stuff. Man that game kicks so much ass, you're map will inadvertantly kick ass too lol
[/EDIT]

Is it possible to jump over that broken bridge ? Looks awesome.

Thanks all. Yes, you can jump across the bridge, but it takes a precise jump to go from the low point -> up. And I haven't played the CoD demo, this map was actually a very old floorplan that I had made and just decided to make a map out of it.

I made a small page to show updated pictures on. Page 3 has 4 new pictures. Enjoy.

dod_belfort: The Page

just an idea... around the bridge area... the sides they just fall off... how about making them like 30 deg like a slope and not 90... but hey thats my idea... i prolly would do it...

It -was- like that, but you have to realize how crappy HL is with angles, you get stuck on everything...it's brutal, but you can't get around the clip hull, it does what it wants. I might make a bit of brickwork instead to make it more natural, we'll see.

yeah... the dirt on the high part of the bridge just lookes like it would fall or cave in.... into the stream that is..

In regard to the images you posted on the site, which you put up for the map . . .

I love you, Gorb. lol

Seriously, this map is looking awesome. It looks like such great amounts of fun . . . :smile:

Half the official dod maps don't look as appealing as yours.
I can't wait for this to be a beta at least.

:biggrin:

[EDIT]
Sorry about some of the grammer and wording there, I'm really tired.
[/EDIT]

I've about doubled what I had before, some recent shots are here. I've customized the smoke sprite to have a proper fade and not be harshly chopped off, and edited a bunch of other things to make it look nicer. tamed the r_speeds back down to the 0-700 range with a spot or two touching 850. epolys are also below 5000 in all areas that I can see. I'm probably going to use this map to show examples for some of the stuff on my tutorials. We'll see.

The new areas are really rough right now, and haven't been heavily worked on, this is just a little preview per-se.

Why is the river enclosed between two walls?

How do u no that there isn't a sewer or a little gap cass?
i particualy [is that right?] like the 3rd pic which u posted, with the car and the bridge, looks F'ing great

keep up the gd work!

People don't build walls over rivers like that Sloth, wether there is a gap for the water or not is irrelevant. There probably isn't any easy way to make it look realistic and restrict player access.

Looks great btw. :smile:

Hills with sewer drains would work well here I reckon - not only does it restrict player access in a reasonable and believable way (ie. clip brushes over the hills makes it seem too steep to climb, and make grates of some description over the sewers) but the hills and sewers could make realistic view extents (ie. too dark to see far into sewers, hills go up and then drop away out of sight). I'd say win win personally, better than walls at any rate. Would of course use up some of those precious polys, but I think it would be worth it. Shove some foliage as the hills rise and it could look very cool.

just cover the end with tree growth so they cant see past it & then surrond that with some barb

There, I killed an r_speed and esthetic bird with one stone. It looks better and now the entirety of the map bar 2 spots runs 100 fps constant on my 1.33Ghz with a GF2Ti.

Yummy stuff.

Very nice. I think that the r_speeds would be worth it on this map. because the 'fun' factor looks like it will be pretty high....especially for an MG :biggrin:

Got me a nice blend for the mud/grass. Added a bunch of new sections, I'll take a picture when they're a bit more finalized.

looking great m8, keep it up.

With so much eye-candy,wont w-poly r_speeds be about 2000 [and de_dust has 800 (!!)]. :sad:

With so much eye-candy,wont w-poly r_speeds be about 2000 [and de_dust has 800 (!!)]. :sad:

That's the secret to good mapping. :smile:

It's looking better and better Gorb. That house on the hill looks a little strange though. Is part of it built into the hill?

Andrei said:
With so much eye-candy,wont w-poly r_speeds be about 2000 [and de_dust has 800 (!!)]. :sad:

The very very highest is 900 in -one- single spot. The rest is all below 700. And I'm probably going to angle that house anyway, to block a bit of the inner view.

10 new picture for your enjoyment (including a current layout picture) are here.

I've added the innards of the church so that the two areas to the sides are now connected. They layout is roughly 60-75% done now. There are still a few areas I need to connect up and build. The r_speeds are below 700/4500 now.

I now have custom:
-mortar sounds
-background sounds
-hill model
-phone_pole model
-chimney sprite
-many textures
-victory sounds
-more to come

Looks sweet! I'm definatly looking forward to this one

looks great! In the pic of the inside of that house (not the church) it looks like it could use some trim around the base of the walls to break up the boxiness of it.

Gorby...stop blabbing and finish the map :smile: . I cant wait!

I'm working, I'm working. :biggrin:

I've added some more to the north, and cut epolies in the middle down about 1000 or so. r_speeds are less than 700 in all parts except for two which reach 900. I really don't like having them...but for now they have to stay as I can't find a way around it. (The VIS is a tad gimpy and allows for a few instances that just plain don't make sense.)

I've also taken out the grass outline...it just didn't fit quite right. There is now a slightly raised trench with a few broken boards on the side. It only has a corner that sticks above the ground, the rest is smooth and set at good player heights.

Finally finished the layout, the map is absolutely massive. I didn't intend it to be, but it ended up that way. It takes up the entire grid in Hammer :rolleyes: I had a few problems I ran into with it being that large, but I solved them. Now I just have to add a few connecting tunnels and widen the spawn exits then I'm adding in the flags. I'm working on making this map encourage team-play so that means a fair amount of multi-person flags. This maps seems to have "epic-battle" written all over it. I've also created some very amusing and effective anti-spawn camping methods.

Finally finished the layout, the map is absolutely massive. I didn't intend it to be, but it ended up that way. It takes up the entire grid in Hammer

:o ... awwweeeessssooommeee

I'm working on making this map encourage team-play so that means a fair amount of multi-person flags. This maps seems to have "epic-battle" written all over it.

...words ... can't describe...

Seriously ... your map sounds like (and looks like) it will be better then most all of the standard dod maps, which is saying a lot, because the maps are usually what hook people.

I absolutly can't wait until you release it :smile:

Hot damn. If this thing plays as good as it looks you've got a big winner on your hands.

Gameplay was the focus, I won't be satisfied until it plays well for a large audience.

Ok it annoys me when these stupid forums don't actually post the message so I'll re-write it-

/me steals textures

Nice textures? Where'd you get them from?

This level looks brilliant in so many different ways... I can't really find anything to comment about. I just felt a "Good Job mate" was in oder here.

Good Job mate.