CO_Aerie Preview

In contrast to my usual inactivity, I've recently been hunkering down a tiny bit, working on my last serious map, trying to touch it up. This map was originally created in two weeks in February to rush it in on time for playtesting for some version or another. I couldn't build it as fast as I had hoped and dropped out rather than release a map missing a hive area. Anyway, so I've never gotten around to completing the map, but now I hear about this new gameplay mode and I wanna try. As of now, I'm mostly trying to add a marine spawn and rework a few routes to make up for the chunks of the map I cut out. Hopefully, I can get this map to Flayra soon for use as a CO_ beta map. Onto the screenshots:













Obviously ignore the CC, I just haven't bothered taking it out yet. So, thoughts?

Looks like it's an office building in some of the screens.

Far more awesome than my Ready Room.  Lookin' pretty nice.

PS - might lighten up the screens a bit.  Are you using an env_gamma in your map yet?

Looks a bit flat & boring colour wise, from your lighting and seemingly low-res textures :sad:

I like the way you've made the walls 3D in the first pic, with strips running all the way along and integrated lights.

It does seem a bit blocky, which feels especially wrong for the hive room.  Also it's hard to make out the map in some of the shots, since they are quite dark.

The NS textures are sweet, maybe you could find some better ones in the WAD (?)

I'm feeling you should up the contrast in your lights a good amount while keeping brightness up too, to help it match with the existing maps.

Some certainly interesting rooms and architecture, but I agree with Cassius somewhat; doesn't really look or feel like NS.

Heh, the two constant thoughts on both these forums and the ns ones is that it looks dark and the hive room looks like crap. Duly noted, and I've been working on it some. For example, the area in the fifth shot now has much better lighting.

As for low res textures... almost all of them are 256x256. I'm working off the ns ones, a custom ns set (mostly just recolorings) and a custom set from wadfather. I'm trying not to use the standard ns wall textures because I don't want my map to look like just another ns map - a unique feel is, imo, required when I make a map. Unfortunately, I can't make textures myself, which kinda puts a s**tter on the whole process. I will try working on some recolorings for variety, I can see one texture that could be improved already.

In many ways I was trying for more of an office feel, but still try and be spacey. I'm trying not to use pipes much in this map since so many ns maps use em by the bucketload. Adding a slew of monitors probably wouldn't go completely amiss though.

The monitor I find myself on is decidely s**tty - I'm at full brightness and contrast, and I haven't been able to make out a single screenshot in all the latest posts. Oh well, I'll comment when I can see the thing :smile:

I like it quite a lot actually. I can see  a lot of z-axis movement in 3,4 and 5. I like some of the detailing, but I feel more detail is necessary in some places. Probably some use of those masked wires textures to add to the feel.

It would benefit from some more dirt and grime. And in some places, like in picture 1, the ceiling textures seem to contrast too much from the rest of the room. THey just seem too clean .

I think it's a pretty good map all round, though it would be premature to comment on the gameplay.

I wonder if the gamma ramp comes across in screenshots?  If not, you could simulate the in-game appearance with Photoshop and a gamma filter.  These scenes may actually appear darker here than they really are in game.

There's a thing you can do in Photoshop to add the gamma back in, I did that to the screens but then the jpging made them darker again and really killed some of the texture definition in the darker areas (top of screen 4 for example). Anyway, this project is no longer co_, it's back to idleness as ns_aerie. What they were looking for in size is way smaller than what they stated they wanted in size (Flayra said CS size). Oh well, I can't blame em for not being too CS familiar. Anyway, here's what screenshot 5 looks like now:



And another section:

This map is really quite pretty.  Please finish it, or work on it, or delete a bunch o' rooms and make it CO or whatever.