reclamation

Sounds vey intriguing. Maybe I'll finally get to see a well done xen map. Give me a shout whenever you have a beta up.

http://www.snarkpit.com/pits/yak_fighter/reclamation_beta3.zip

I'm finding that my great ideas for the theme are falling through and I'm successfully creating another s**tty generic map. I would like any comments, especially about the texturing and lighting. To me this thing looks better textured completely with the aaatrigger, so that's not good...

KNOWN ISSUES:
-I have to remake the APC prefab as the current one doesn't like being rotated at angles. That's what I get for never using the vertex manip tool back when I made prefabs. :biggrin:
-Clipping issues all over

Make the APC a func_door_rotating and trigger it at the start of the level :smile:

I think the smoke behind the APC means its out of commission. Obviously its incomplete but I like what you have so far. Texturing seems fine to me but since you seem to hate it I'd suggest changing some of the concrete walls into a cleaner/more futuristic looking material. The only thing I would change about the lighting is maybe add some under the grate in the lower level (or put something cool there) and also add some in the big hole in the ceiling across from the apc. I really liked the xen-looking part and to tell you the truth when I read your description I envisioned something more like that. I think a nice mixture of wacky xen terrain with the architecture you have here would be a good way to connect it all together.

Make the APC a func_door_rotating and trigger it at the start of the level

That's such a simple but great idea! I can't believe I never heard of it before.

yak, if anyone beats themselves up more than i do about their own maps.. it has to be you :/

i am extremely busy ATM, but i will try to look at it today/tonight.. along with TB's and Gorby's assuming gorby has a new zip

The map is ok Yak, it just lacks "pizazz" more than anything else - you
have interesting architecture, but the ideas all look a bit samey and
stale.

What I mean is when you add variation or kinks, it's always near the
top toward the roof/ceiling and usually, without sounding harsh, it's
just a slanted brush (on say a support fixture). Bring the detail down
to eye level a bit more, and give it some variation!

The lights... were boring - get some variation on their height off the
ground as well, it all feels too uniform and grey. The monotone nature
of the light colouring doesn't help either TBH. Spice is needed!

And definately, get some of the more Xen infestation around the place!
Natural Selection has good examples, despite stealing the idea from
Half-Life initially who in turn stole it from Aliens :razz: But yeah, it
looks funky!

It looks good, and the general problems have already been mentioned by Gwil (more detail at eye-level, light too monotone). I haven't downloaded the map yet, so all of this feedback might be wrong/misdirected, but...

What bugs me the most is that you don't have anything particularly "unique" or large setpieces/whatever in the map yet. The screens suggest the map is a bunch of hallways. So, all of these hallways draw the eye to the end of the hallway - but there's nothing there. I would focus more on "large rooms" as a whole: giant reactors, giant Xen spires, just anything! I'm not sure if I made sense, so um I'll check on this map again and hopefully make more sense. Anyway though, some very solid work. :smile:

(Oh, and might consider scaling down some of the wall textures in the APC screenshot - looking quite blurry even when the player is semi-far away)

I'll have a proper run through in a couple of days bud. :smile:

Well, ya'll should be happy to know that I've restarted this map from scratch, throwing out everything I've made. It looks better, but I'm not going to bother showing it right now because I have a feeling I'll be throwing this one out too. It's all hallways yet again, and I fear that trying to map for ns has screwed me up.

[EDIT] Alright, I changed my mind. Here are some pictures:







And here's a bonus shot of an unfinished area:



Game over man, game over!

yak, send me all your failed .rmf's

i wanna see if they can be salvaged/rearranged to something useful.

no one will see anything but me without your approval.. but i wanna see if you are being to harsh on yourself needlessly.

Yak_Fighter said:
Game over man, game over!

FFX-2 fan are you Yak? :smile: Ah the Lady Luck dressphere, who needs anything else!

Anyway I hate how you keep restarting your maps and taking them in extremely different directions, but both the old and the new are/were looking interesting, and I look forward to seeing the new on in action.

Orph: I'll see what I can whip up, but there's a good reason I have a lot of failed maps :biggrin: .

ReNo: The day anyone can confuse an Aliens quote with a Final Fantasy game is a dark day indeed. :wink: and yes, I don't like starting over so much, but I think its a reaction to avoid wasting time with maps that no matter how much I work on won't be good. It's never fun to dump maps that you've nearly completed because they aren't working, and believe me, there are a lot of em. I can think of like 6 TFC maps off the top of my head that were nearly finished but abandoned. Actually there was one I really liked but could never figure out the entities for... oh well my loss :biggrin:

LOL I don't actually remember that line from Aliens, but then its been a long while since I've seen it. Considering I was just getting Yuna to master the Lady Luck dressphere though, I've heard that very quote in FFX-2 about five times every half hour :smile:

They mostly come out at night... mostly...

Yak_Fighter said:
Orph: I'll see what I can whip up,

do so..... please.

This is build 4 beta 5. I think I can safely say this version won't be thrown out :biggrin: . Sorry about wasting everyone's time with the first 3 builds... I promise it won't happen again. All of these pictures are work in progress, but these areas but are mostly finished construction-wise. So far the r_speeds don't go above 750, and that's only in corners of hallways where you can see two or more areas at once. The wad used is a mix of majestic12, than_industrial, and meatpak textures that I mashed together and edited for an old (and abandoned) dm map.

EDIT: Orph, I'll try to get those old maps up for you to download. Not only did I find the wad I'm now using, but I also found a rather large dm map that I almost finished. Fun :smile:

looks interesting... makes me think of a blend between nightwatch architecture with natural selection style lighting. The textures seem kinda off to me tho. Particularly the one on the wall between the 2 staircases sticks out pretty bad. I'd say this version of the map definately has the most ambiance already. Hope your ADD doesn't kick in before you finish it.

Whats going on with your sky? Looks a bit like Aliens [vs Predator] (the film or game) style architecture, I really like the outside bits.

JFry: Yeah, that texture looks off because it's been scaled up. Too bad I don't remember how I created that texture... I'll try to find a replacement.

Myrk-: I have no idea why it looks like that. I just used the alien2 sky from HL. I really like the color of that sky, but it looks so bad at my resolution...

Here's a picture for no real reason:



It looks like a goddamned rainbow. Oh well.

well damn, all you needed was the Shaderlab textures to get this map rolling. Its looks tons better now. But i can deff see your using ur NS style in this map. Keep it up.

I had to go to the library to upload other stuff, so I decided to upload this as well.

http://yak_fighter.tripod.com/reclamation_beta7.zip

Any comments are appreciated, especially about the lighting (is it too dark?) and the connectivity (is there too much?)

Upload the .wad too, Jerk.

s**t! I can't upload a file that size from home... don't bother downloading the map.

If you send it to me I'll host it for you.

Yak_Fighter said:
s**t! I can't upload a file that size from home... don't bother downloading the map.

You could do a wad include :smile:

I could do a wadinclude, but I'd still have to upload the map again, which is too big for my connection. I would love to send it to someone, but my connection isn't stable or fast enough for it to work. I'll just have to go to the library again tomorrow and do it :razz:

but if he does that there is a good chance the .bsp will be too big to upload, unless he used few textures out of a large .wad

question:

surely this map is smaller than the pitcrew map, how did you upload it?

The library too...

Alien_Sniper said:
The library too...

ahh nods knowingly .. then i am to confer that the textures are missing after the library uploading, so whats with the not at home thing?

I am at home, its just that the home internet connection is a 24kbs max AOL connection that drops around every 15 minutes. The map will be uploaded tomorrow, and this'll give me more time to add to it. :biggrin:

Yak_Fighter said:
I am at home, its just that the home internet connection is a 24kbs max AOL connection that drops around every 15 minutes. The map will be uploaded tomorrow, and this'll give me more time to add to it. :biggrin:

that explains alot.. :sad:

still, if you need space, you can have all you need in my briefcase.. lemme know and i will send you password.

That's cool, having a server in your briefcase... I want one.

Nice lookin' map, too. Going by the main 3 screenshots, 1^st screenshot looks good, 2^nd screenshot needs something sexier in that red ceiling crevasse, and the 3rd one looks good. :smile:

Those screens are looking damn cool Yak. I want a beta :biggrin:

Ok, this better work:

http://yak_fighter.tripod.com/reclamation_beta7.zip

(copy and paste it in a new window)

You'll also need to have the tfc.wad in the /valve folder in steam. Sorry bout that.

So?



? I suppose this is something that is unfinished?



Very nice corridors. I would suggest here that you not recess the lights at the top of the arches. That way you could have a nice blue glow along with the spot light. as it is I feel that you need something to draw attention upward.



The red lights behind those fans are a perfect touch. It subtly emphasizes the detail of the area. I also like the light emanating form the cracked open door.



Do you use this texture as a blocker to imply that something will be there in the future? it is everywhere and in odd places at that.





Umm? yes darkness is a problem.



This area is great form a game play perspective, and reminds me forcibly of AVP esthetically. In general I like it allot, but I think you should decrease the environment light, and increase the artificial light intensity.

Overall it seems kind of aimless, like the corridors are winding through space for no reason. I don?t know what plans you have for it, but my suggestion at this point would be to make it into an arena featuring that biggest area (screen 6), maybe with smaller rooms as intermediates to connect the different levels.

There is also something I dislike about the lighting. I thin it may be the complete lack of regular white light, but I?m not sure. it all looks technically right though so I don?t know what to tell you.

edit/ looking back I see that you used to have a blue environmet light. I like that allot better than what you have now.

Thanks for the comments!

1. That texture is part of the tfc2.wad, and merging wads is the last step I'm going to do. Besides, that checkerboard is sharp!

2. Sounds like a plan. It would also reduce facecounts a noticeable amount.

3. Well thanks!

4. All the glass walls fill holes where there will be later construction. That way I can compile it without worrying about leaks and won't forget about connecting areas.

5. I built that around 5am this morning, and lighting is the last step.

6. I've never played AVP, so I don't know how I get these comparisons :biggrin: . The environment lighting is rather dark on my computer, and the earlier blue lighting was too bright. I'll look at it.

Misc: Well, great minds think alike! That was the plan from the start. It'll come together in a bit once I finish the second corner (at least I hope). I still might have to knock out some more walls in the outdoors area, but I'm thinking the connectivity is getting out of hand as it is. As for the lighting, I may throw in some more white lights, but I sorta like the blue/yellow combo. Thanks again!

drat where'd the dl go?

It's three posts above you :razz:

doh!

ok so where can I find the tfc wad?

er, well if you don't have it from downloading TFC over steam or on your old install of HL... I guess you can just create a wad file named tfc and just accept the fact that a few walls will have that nice checkerboard texture.

this looks really quite interesting, i'll check it out later. currently im finishing my map :razz:

just played thru and whats there is some good stuff. It flowed pretty good and the r_speeds were excellent. I liked your architecture for the most part, but I wasn't so sure about the "McDonalds arches" hallway, heh jk it was fine. However I do think some of the alien infested areas seemed kinda like filler. But some of them were very good too, particularly the bit with the bent up door (tho the honeycomb thing looked a little overscaled to me). By the way you might want to put a clip brush between those doors, I managed to get stuck there. I agree with TB about the lighting, bring back the blue!

JFry, here's a belated thank you for your comments :biggrin:





hopefully the lighting looks good, since i spent the last two days working solely upon it...

Both shots have pretty cool lighting but it all seems to be accent lighting - there seems to be no functional lighting. Overall I think its too dark in those shots, the variation of colour is good and it works with the architecture quite nicely, but the rooms just don't seem lit up enough.

yeah, it is a little dark on the inside. back to work i guess

I agree it would look better a bit brighter but just a bit. And I think that skybox fits well.

Here's a new area:



I think I ruined the lighting by making it all too bright, so I'm going to try and get a last beta up later today so people can comment on it before I make the final push to get this thing finished.

That new area needs another colour of light in there to provide contrast, and make it playable in allowing you to see things :smile: With such low w_poly, you could also consider putting in some structures or something above the roofline here.