Flatshaded (working title)

Damn, fine looking indeed.

It looks like its fake... is it 3d? or 2d? Its weird... looks cool though. :P

I love the cartoony feel. Those palm trees seem a little large... or else that's a pretty pathetic volcano. The beaches dont look like they're raised above the level of the sea, though I may be mistaken. Great start.

You could paint some nice cartoonish puffy white clouds on the sky for some more detail.

How are you going to restrict players access to the water? Some inaccessbile islands in the distance could look spiffy.

The beaches are only raised 1 unit above the water and are flat surfaces, which is definately the way they will be staying for polycount reasons as much as anything.

Perhaps the palm trees are a little TOO big, I'll shrink them down a little and see how they look. The volcano is pretty small actually but it was a quickly built thing just to give the scene more substance, its still to recieve some substantial work

I plan on working on the sky a bit more, but I'm pretty terrible at that sort of thing, I'll tinker and see what I can come up with in the way of clouds.

Players can run on the shallow (bright) water, but the dark stuff is just the skybox. I've got it that it kills the player at the moment, not sure if I'll keep it doing that or perhaps some other system. I plan on having a few out of reach bar with the gauss islands too

Great maping Reno, but do think that you should use those cool textures you use on others, just to make the full effect.

This is the texture set he's using. http://www.snarkpit.com/pits/alien_sniper/flatshaded.zip

I'm getting a 3D Mario vibe from how this map is turning out.

It has the pallette of Mario 64, but looks like the gameplay of Mario Sunshine.

In any case it looks pretty awesome. It's very interesting the way it's turning out. Something I think would be cool is if once you were done you retextured it, so there'd be two versions. Because it would feel and look like an entirly different map with a different texture set.

Keep it up

Are we allowed to use that texture set ?

Good look, Reno ... I love the island view.

Naturally, I wouldn't have put it up otherwise Its nothing special though, just a bunch of flat colours with a common prefix so they can all be viewed together easily.

Hmmm...reminds me of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for GCN...pretty damn cool!

Looks fantastic, very tempting, but i wont turn to the dark side. Your sun looks a bit wonky, and i dont think the fades look very realistic as its a sunny day. (still not much about it is realistic) I love the highlighting and also the depth youre giving to the water. Looks fantastic keep up the good work. A concern i mentioned in the competition thread is the models will look really silly running around in a flatshaded world. I may be wrong, how does it look ingame?

Pretty daft To be fair I've not placed any items yet and I've not played with anyone else, it could be ok it could be terrible. The best indication I've had is just by using "thirdperson" in the console. I guess its always gonna be a problem with this sort of cartoon map in a realistic game though. Don't know what to do about the sun really, it does look a bit woky as you say - perhaps if I build a sort of elongation into it in the image files it will cancel out the stretching in game and make it more round. The fades wen't in when the map was set at night and I just haven't got rid of them. I plan to keep them there, just reduce the intensity by a load.

Absolute pwnage. I love it!

Can you go into the light houses?

Regarding the clouds and sun....you could get away with them being made from brushes rather than just being on the skymap. With it being flatshaded they wouldn't look so out of place

But then they would move with you, which would look somewhat odd To be honest, in game the sun and clouds look pretty normal, so its not a big issue.

And no, you can't go in the lighthouses or the walls, they are much to small to have any worthwhile internal space.

Did you just update this to move the progress bar or am I missing something?

I noticed a couple of typos so I fixed them, nothing more Progress bar hasn't been touched...though come to think of it maybe I should have upped it a little.

Ah, I just assumed you updated the progress bar because I didn't notice anything else different. Carry on.

I cracked open hammer this evening, and after about half an hour of flying around I'm literally at a loss as to how to finish off this map. The little islands and whatnot at the front work really well visually in my opinion, but I reckon repeating this all the way around the volcano would be repetitive and dull, and as such I'm not sure what to put there. Even if I were to use little outcrops of sand and things all the way round, I would still want each to be somewhat unique, but I can't really think of anything to detail them with.

So I've decided to post this alpha version for people to take a look at (if they feel so inclined). Suggestions on possible options for finishing the back of the map would be very appreciated, as well as the usual bug finds / improvements. One thing I DON'T want people to post is "it would look better with textures" or other such comments, as its not gonna happen.

Anyway, you can download it from the link in my profile, or if you can't be bothered looking there, right here...

http://www.snarkpit.com/pits/reno/maps/reno_flatshaded_a.zip

Bunch of stupid ideas:

o Couple of wooden shacks.
o Cliff edge winding around the volcanoe so you could walk around it up to the top.
o Large accessible boat in ocean or run aground.
o Depending on what you want to do with the volcanoe, you could have it randomly erupting and sending big red lava balls across the map, either landing in the ocean for show or landing on good weapons.
o For variation you could have a little oasis island with grass and a few trees. I'd look into getting a model made for that tree, it might work out better. It's cool as it is though.
o Have some more debris washed up on or scattered around the beach like logs, swords etc.

I'll update the list as I think of more, sorry none of them are particularly good. :sad:

Perhaps you could have a wrecked or beached boat behind the island? You could have the hull plus some wreckage strewn about. Or you could make it a pirate ship and have a freshly dug hole nearby with a chest in the bottom. Or you could add walls and towers in a semicircle creating a harbor or docks area.

The only bug I found was that when you are in the water near the sharks there is no light hitting you at all, making your gun and presumably other players pitch black.

As for suggestions I would like to see the ability to reach the top of the walls and mess around up there. Maybe you could use the small volcanos in front as jump pads and allow players to try their hand at reaching the top of the lighthouses. I would also suggest adding more shades of color to the texture set, as only one or two shades doesn't cut it. There are too many large swatches of single colors that remove any depth to your architecture and strain eyes (well, mine at least). I dunno if that would destroy the look you're going for however, so don't do it if it compromises the theme you are striving for.

Yeah, steal my brillant boat idea you prick (not referring to your penis) :biggrin: That dock idea is great though!

Yak, one of those little galleon piratey ships would be perfect.

I'm installing halflife now just for you Blair! (And for gorby too) :smile:

Whatever. I had the idea first, but my reply crashed and I had to retype it all over.

Alien_Sniper said:
Yeah, steal my brillant boat idea you prick (not referring to your penis) :biggrin: That dock idea is great though!

Yak, one of those little galleon piratey ships would be perfect.

I'm installing halflife now just for you Blair! (And for gorby too) :smile:

Haha, thanks.

Reno, what is the exact scale of the map? I can't really suggest anything since I can't judge how much space you really have. Some parts seem really big and others extremely small.

Yak.

That f**king sound that plays when you install halflife just woke up the whole neighbourhood (2 100watt speakers). Last time I help either of you guys out.

It might be cool to make some sort of mini game out of the sharks (since you can 'ride' them ).

Maybe, create a little underwater area (which is just a normal area with a func illusinary for the surface) that allows you to 'activate' the volcano or something.

Getting up into those towers would be bad ass.

On the backside of the volcano you could have some func breakable ground (about five or six brushes worth) with a 'domination weapon' laying underneath, and on top have a couple palm trees making an 'X', or something like that.

maybe there should be a half-sinking pirate ship on one of the far edges of the back part of the map, with some picture of the overview of the map and a path to the domination weapon. Maybe put some sharks circling the ship. A mine shaft into the volcano would be cool too (in the back).

Anyway, those are some ideas of things i think would liven up the map. Maps are always better when there's some side stuff you can do to better your advancement in the ranks :smile:

[EDIT]
Great, I play the map without refreshing the thread and Yak has already mentioned all my ideas
[/EDIT]

He stole them all from my hacked internet computer! :smile:

Edit: Reno, there are a whole bunch of HOM errors around the top of the volcanoe.

Good suggestions all round guys, thanks a bunch :smile:

A_S: The winding path idea was something I considered, but on a whole the scale of the map is so suggestive as opposed to real that the volcano doesn't feel big enough to merit it. I might give it a shot - I've got about 5 versions of this map at various stages of development so I cna easily enough branch this idea off as an experimental one. The volcano eruption is a great idea, but sounds like it could entail a lot of complex entity work. Its worth looking into, but I'm not hugely convinced the effect could be pulled off well. The other island was another idea I'd thought of - I was thinking of having a mansion on it, in fact here is a screenshot of the mansion so far! I feel it looks pretty crappy, and probably wouldn't fit the theme, but make of it what you will...



Yak: You read my mind about those little volcano's - look at the blurb for the map, "volcano jumping" was referring to the plans for those :smile: I've not thought too much about how it will work (its somewhat awkward to get on them at the moment), but it will most likely happen in some form or another.

That bug will be fixed - as I'm running RAD I'll just shove in a really bright light_environment to light up everything.

Adding more shades of colour may help add a bit more depth, but its also a damn lot of work sorting out the right shades for the light direction, so I've kind of kept it to a minimum (in actual fact its easy enough for the limited architecture in the volcano map, but its hellish for the mansion). I've currently got it so that there are 8 main directions brushwork can face, and each material / building section has 3 shades assigned to it - 2 highlighted faces, 4 normal faces, and 2 shadowed faces. I could change it to be uniquely coloured for each direction I guess, wouldn't be TOO much hassle. I'll try it out and see what I think.

The boat (and yes I'm refering to you too A_S) idea could certainly work, and the dock is also a good idea. I was hoping to bring more architecture to the level but didn't want a simple repetition of the current stuff, so I guess a dock could work out.

Gorb: Have you checked the map out in game, or is it screenshots that are throwing you off for scale? I agree that scale in this map is extremely wierd, but to be honest its half the point. The map isn't huge but takes up a fair amount of space due to being so inherently open in its layout. I'm not really sure how to answer your question - all I can suggest is check it out in game if you haven't, hopefully it will be more clear then. If you already have...well its a wierd map :biggrin:

Crono: Good ideas there mate - you gave me a great idea for the actual spectator mode overview of the map too - a treasure map :smile: The sharks are going to play a small part in the form of transportation (hop on for rides to otherwise inaccessible islands with weapons etc...). I don't know how I could manage an underwater area, as the deep part of the sea is actually the skybox. A mine shaft is somewhat similar to my plans for the volcano, so we'll see how that pans out.

A_S: The volcano will eventually be hollow - the top of it is kind thrown on, and there are some overlapping brushes up there with null textures on faces which are causing the invisibility. Its not HOM stuff thankfully, just a sloppy temporary ceiling.

Oh dear, I can imagine making a convincing flatshaded pirate ship is gonna be one hell of a challenge :rolleyes:

I'll have a stab at making a pirate ship. Get it? Stab. Because pirates stab each other. Bah.

http://www.chaosgods.de/ps_tutorials/english/old_map.shtml

There's a link to a photoshop tutorial on how to make a treasure map effect. :smile:

Purrrrfect, thanks mate. Was that a serious offer btw? If so, I appreciate the offer, but I prefer to make everything in my maps myself for some reason. Thanks anyway though :smile:

Ok no problem... bitter :biggrin:

I'm trying to do the flying lava ball thing now, just to see if I can. I'll give you a look if it turns out ok. :smile:

That would be nice, good luck, I've a feeling it will be tricky to get a good looking effect going.

I'll do it tomorrow I think, i've to be up for work in 5 hours. :sad:

Oh man, the green for that grass burned my eyes, I'm in a really dark room right now and if I could onamatopae-afy the sound I'm making of a sizzle/zap/schwing of me scrolling to that picture I would. Ouch.

Quicksand?

awsome map bud.

i wanna see this one get done.

yep a pirate ship and get up on those towers.

id make the entrance inside not compex but very simple in the main gate inside.

the manison dont work. looks awsome though.

if r's won't allow for a pirate ship. at least place a flag of the jolly rogers in the sand, and perhaps a treasure chest.

course, you could continue the motif and make it a resort beach , and have children's play yard stuff.. some seesaws, or swings and a merry-go-round.. with the club house as well :smile:

lastly, you could have some palm huts and some beer cans on the sand :biggrin:

You could make little pits the players fall in and take a bit of damage, then cover them with some leaves - that might be fun.

EDIT: BREAKABLE leaves.

I can't actually have anything below the level of the sand, as the sea is the skybox and so anything below it would be visible through it :sad: Unfortunately these is no way around this unless I made the sea a world brush, and that would bump up the w_poly needlessly and ruin the seemlessness of the skybox.

Mrnatural, were you suggesting I should make people be able to get inside the towers? Unfortunately they aren't actually big enough for that - if I made them hollow the internal space would be tiny :sad:

you could however, have the 'pit', but have the skybox going around the 'pit' on the oustide. I doubt that it would be viewable.

Can't you just put the sky 'down' texture on the outside of everything that is below the water level?

I couldn't make a texture the same colour as the down face of the skybox unfortunately. I used the same colour when making them but it didn't match in game. The engine tends to draw what is sees behind a sky texture so I can't just use that as the outer faces of anything below the water level.

ReNo you're so damn good at rock-work...why not make the whole thing surrounded by a reef. Clip it off so people can't get up on it which will diss people from looking over the edge of the map.

Looks so frickin sweet tho man. Impressive. I can only suggest maybe having more plant life here and there...what kind of ambience do you have?

It's DM, right? Will it be a one-on-one map?

The beauty of this map for me is the fact you can't see over the edge of the map, it really does look like you can see all the way to the horizon, so no need to clip off anything :smile: I plan on keeping it open on the outskirts for this reason, its rare to be able to just have a full skybox surrounding the map and have it look "right", so gotta make the most!

Gameplay is almost destined to suck as its such a flat map, there is no potential for vertical gameplay to any degree. It could be a bit of fun one on one I guess, but any small amount of players will be catered for.

I'm sort of planning on making some textures in the flatshaded style, but that aren't just solid blocks of colour. Nothing major, just things like masked grass textures for putting along the bottom of walls and things. Could help add a little depth to things and make it look a bit cooler. I'm not sure how much more plant life I'll put in, probably not a great deal, but it depends on what I decide to do around the back of the volcano really. Ambience wise, I quite like it, the seagulls and beach waves sound effects fit nicely in with the theme (thank you jinx :biggrin: ). I'm considering somehow making some seagulls and having them circle around the map for another little ambience furthering feature...dunno if I could model them well though, might just scour the net for some and flatshade the skin.

You could have the map rumble every once in a while, giving the illusion of an active volcanoe. :smile:

/me pets env_shake :kitty:

I'm either gunna make my spinkee uber l337 flatshaded map with spinkee twist or my other map idea tomorrow... I'll be at home again so I'll have plenty of time :razz:

As for your map, try making an inside volcano bit, something with a bridge over lava with cartoony bubbling up lava or something and a cartoon skeleton (grim fandango style one )

hey suggestion.

i wouldnt put in a pirate ship. i like the spiked towers theme. its already cartoony.

so to make a cartoon map kewl stick to the spiked theme.

i think it would be real kewl to have flat one diminsinol objects in here.

for example ever see the game bowl ed over? get it at cartoon network.

so with the cartoon spiked theme of this map and flat brushwork it could be awsome.

so like grass in one dimision and such. maybe the seagulls. maybe even somehow put weapons in like that.

just an idea.