Persian Letters [updated x Final]

what a behemoth :P Looks great CJ. Nice textures and sky. Architecture is looking pretty nice aswell. Perhaps you could add some torches? Afterall, how does it keep light at night? Also in 2nd shot. The closest cylindrical tower, the two slit windows under the larger one. It might just be me, but they look odd, too thin or stretched or something.. Meh. Anyway looking good keep it up! :P

Yeah, that window-texture is just 1 texture that I've horribly stretched throughout the map. I'll correct it eventually... Maybe. Most of the textures are from de_bright or the Egypt pack from Blaz, with mangling/modifications by me. Weeee!

DAMN CJ, this is only 10%.. you don't set your sights very high do`ya

nice, VERY nice

oh my god. That's the best I've seen in weeks !

Lighting needs to, well, exist, in order to make this look as good as it could. Everything is far too flat looking at the moment. Perhaps a sunset type time of day could be nice, with torchlight on one side of buildings and the low sun's light on the other. Very grand scale though, nice to see somebody trying something different from the norm too.

hl singleplayer aye lol

Why not convet to svencoop when your done

Looking great so far. Can't find anything to comment about that isn't obvious.

WOW. Everything about this map screams "holy s**t". I can't wait for you to finish this.

and ... what about the r_speeds ?

Looks very impressive.

And I wonder why I don't see more NW work from you...

More seriously, looks great. Very cool style. Eager to see how it turns out.

Thanks for all the feedback... Didn't expect so many comments! 8)!

Yeah, I'll work on the lighting for sure in the future, and probably change it to an evening setting. But the problem with an open map like this is that VIS and RAD really take a long time. I'll probably end up faking the torch-light (if any), and I'll add some flags and stuff. R_speeds peak around 1000 without any optimization yet (almost no func_walls yet), and I'm hoping to bring it down to something playable.

As for Nightwatch... Don't worry. After all, I have to have SOMETHING to do during compiles, right? 8)

thats fairly good considering the scale of it so far. Also, hl sp? Wont it be kind of odd running around persian palaces with a rocket launcher and egon? :P On second thoughts, that would be awesome.

Oh my, that's rather pretty, cj! :P

That looks incredible! I love the style you put into your maps. Hope this one gets released.

It's coming along very well. Love that reflective ground. The thing that stands out most are your non spherical domes and that crappy texture on them.

Hmm, only going to use the crappy fake-spheres for scenic parts of the map. Good idea on trying to find a better texture for them.

Reflection is killing my compile time, methinks (VIS freezes, have to use -fast). Only 2-3 rooms and I already have to chop the map up... Geeze! 8)!

CJ

I have the cure to your texture issue. Took is upon myself to draw a proper one for you. The image is reduced from a 1024 X 1024 texture that I drew (got to get used to that size :P ) you can view the texture at the website link below. Look me up on AIM if you like how it looks you can have it.

http://fox1.50megs.com/images/Urban/dome2.jpg

wow, its looking really stunning CJ, i really like the depth shown in the city shots, with all the spires in the background. Keep up the great work.

Updated x Final - Page 5 bottom-ish

Updated x 3 - Page 5-ish

Updated x 2 - go to around post 49.

Been working on it a little (getting burned out by lots of Nightwatch
work, among other things </shamelesspimp>). Really a nice change
of theme and style that I'm not really used to. A good amount of the
textures are mangled from Blazeer's excellent work, and some I had to
gasp paint myself (the green drape texture, the arch texture, for
example). Will make the textures actually look decent later - focusing
on blocking in most of the style and detail. wpoly in this room peaks
at 1100 (which is quite bad - working on reducing it to at the very least, 1000), with about 850 average. Palm trees from cs_pacific. And, um... Here's the latest screens.





(note - that's a pool of water in the middle)
Was working on
getting a "warm" feeling / tone in the room, and I kind of like the
dark-rosy tint. Issue has been brought up about the blue windows - will
work in some more blue tones near the ceiling to balance it out.
Another issue brought up is the wooden support, with the wood block at
the top - is it too bulky? I hope the map isn't that much of a disgrace to Prince of Persia's beauty? :smile:

Feedback, as usual, is appreciated for what little there is.
(interestingly enough, RAD takes 2 minutes for the entire room - definately not something I'm used to!)

Apart from what you've mentioned, things seem in good shape. :smile:

I agree the lighting looks nice like that. The block at the top might look better a little smaller but it isn't really bad how it is. The windows do look kinda odd tho.. not sure if its the texture or what but hopefully adding the lights will help. The only other problem I see is the wall with the lantern has somewhat cartoonish look whereas everything else looks realistic. Overall looks very good but you need hot arabian chick models.

I didn't read the map description and was going to say 'wow, looks just like prince of persia' :biggrin: The outside looks very nice and those trees are great. One thing though, the second screenshot with the reflections, the reflection seems a bit too clear and crisp. I think you need to increase the renderamount on the floor.

I was wondering what the rspeeds were like, especially in the second pic. But this is one of those cases where a map is so nice that I can see letting them slide a bit higher in places. One of the most beautiful and original HL maps I've seen in a long time, excellent work my friend.

Jinx said:
One of the most beautiful and original HL maps I've seen in a long time, excellent work my friend.

I second that, well done :biggrin:

Very little to criticise other than what you have pointed out yourself.
I just can't wait to see it in game in order to give a proper critique
:smile:

my adding to the current puddle size of drool will serve no useful purpose.. i would like a chance to critique this one though..

goes to find a mop

Whilst orph getss the mop alow me to drool, There are no words i have to say how good this map looks, its totaly different from most of the industrial xen lab maps which makes it more significant.

BTW was prince of persia orginaly made in like the late 80's and is a platform [ i think thats right, like sonice where the screen moves along sideways] type game.

Prince Of Persia was a platformer, yes. It wasn't side-scrolling, the camera never moved. Once you reached the edge of the screen, you would appear in another area. Games like Abe's Oddysee and Flashback were heavily infulenced by this approach.

Basically, you had one hour to complete the game and save some girl (haven't played it in a while...) before she dies. I never did complete it. It also had a sequel, though I only played a demo. I really wanted to play more of it, it seemed so cool compared to the first one. There was also Prince Of persia 3D, though I remember people saying it was crap.

The original PoP was DAMN HARD, but Sands of Time was DAMN FUN.

Though it looks a little clunky right now, the originality (at least in the field of HL mapping) and concept are what impress me about this one.

Looks amazing. Really good job, I like the sort of ... yeh ... atmosphere that central tower breathes out. Good job on the shiny floors too ... did you use copy/flip architecture and change the render mode of the floor, or did you use Spirit of HL ?

Thanks for all the, um, praise. Wasn't really expecting that. :smile:

Going to be refining it a bit more in the future, but ultimately moving on at the moment. Last 2 screens are obsolete - that was the singleplayer SoHL version that I was going to make, but after a while it became clear that I wouldn't have time to make it properly. So now, I'm doing a smaller version for the 2004 Snarkpit competition.

The reflection in shot 2 was the copy-and-paste method, yes (Spirit of Half-Life can't "reflect" actual brush architecture, only models) Too bad that room is pretty much scrapped - but who knows, might use it in one form or another somewhere else.

Expect more updates in the reasonably late future. :wink:

My only real gripe is that I don't much like the textures on the tower. particularly the greenish curtains look like crap to me, but the rest does indeed look quite spectacular.

I'd like to see more screens of the outside. Looks great. :smile:

Ah flashback, that was an awesome game. A couple of times I heard about a sequel to that, but never actually found one. Is there a sequel? Is it any good?

It also had a sequel, though I only played a demo. I really wanted
to play more of it, it seemed so cool compared to the first one. There
was also Prince Of persia 3D, though I remember people saying it was
crap.

What would you do without me Jeff? :wink:

I think he was referring to a sequel to Flashback :smile:

Of which there was. It was called Fade To Black, on the PSX. It was 3D this time, with just as much emphasis on lateral puzzles as it did shooting the crap out of everything that moved. Probably the only thing I could think of that was bad about it was that it was so bloody hard. But it's one of the best games on the PSX, so if you can, pick it up! :smile:

[EDIT]: A little info on it

Oops, I must have read that as a nostalgic 'flashback'... get the trout. :smile:

I remember fade to black... it's about as bad as the plague it shares part of its name with.

was the sequel to Flashback named Alone In the Dark by any chance? I think we have a bunch of bargain-priced copies of it at Micro Center.

was the sequel to Flashback named Alone In the Dark by any chance? I think we have a bunch of bargain-priced copies of it at Micro Center.

No...it was called Fade To Black...

Is this forum half asleep or something? :razz:

ROFL :biggrin: I didn't care for Fade to Black much to be honest, it was
impressive at the time as it was one of the first PSX games I played,
but I played it again recently and it was a big let down. Not a patch
on Flashback or Another World if you ask me :smile:

I love the style of this map :smile:

Alone in the Dark.. thats Resident Evil's grandfather figure isnt it?

I remember it being in that vein, but it wasn't quite as popular as the other games which went on to ape it's style..

I played the old DOS version of Alone in the Dark a while ago. Kind of amazing how they got 3D working in environments like that. Of course it looks like crap now, but I imagine it was somewhat impressive at the time. Some sort of weird 10-triangle dog killed me, too, in the first few minutes.

I'm afraid I've never played (or heard of, for that matter, except Another World) Fade to Black, Flashback, or Another World. Sounds like they're classics though - any idea where to get them? I'm sure no retailer in their right mind would sell them...

You can definately play Flashback on a megadrive emulator like genecyst, I've got it myself (anti-lawsuit notice - I own the game). Pretty hard to come accross ROMs these days though. I don't know about the other two.

Its worth playing Another World first, though I'm not sure if it was on
the Megadrive, might only have been on the atari / amiga / PC and
therefore harder to find a ROM for. I found a Flashback ROM here if you
are interested...

http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=1351

You can probably grab the needed emulator somewhere there too.

Hmm, trying to find Another World but no luck. Maybe a company would see fit to remake it into 3d or something? :smile:

Oh, and time to briefly bring this thread back on-topic (unfortunately). Mangled a few new textures and practically ripped a scene out of Prince of Persia - yeah, I'm shameless and have no creativity. :smile:





(Trying out the new fangled glow-thingy by DeathWish. Additive cloth-things don't convert too well, as they're way too bright. Oh well, not like anyone will actually play this map anyway.)

I think you need to make it so there are some stronger shadows being cast onto that area. It seems very bright for night time, and I can't see any lights...

The new fangled glow-thingy looks nice, but perhaps could do with toning down a bit? The second screenshot, the cloths look like they are emiting light. Still great textures/ing, good idea using a masked texture for the spikes along the top of the wall too :biggrin:

google search some Aurora Borealis shots.. that would look cool in your new map CJ :smile: