Barrels: The New Crate!

:redface:

In my nightmares, I already envision maps with prefab barrels all over. Barrel factories if you will. Barrel storage facilities. With all manner of barrel-kind, of course: Small barrels. Big barrels. Rolling barrels. Exploding barrels. Grey barrels. Purple barrels. Maybe even- goodness forbid- boy and girl barrels.

Yes, they have more polies than crates. But they are still unimaginative cop-outs when it comes to cover and detail. And, contrary to what Half-Life 2 may want us to believe, they are not all over the f**king place. I don't even remember the last time I actually saw a barrel in real-life that wasn't an orange construction barrel. And I certainly haven't noticed explosive barrels just laying around the street all over the place.

Let's nip this one in the bud, folks:

[b][i]Just say 'no' to barrels.[/i][/b]

:biggrin:

Friends don't let friends do barrels.

Barrels killed my father and raped my mother.

Barrels caused 30,000 mapping related deaths last year, but you can help to put a stop to it. Call 1-800-anti-barrel for more information.

Turn on the lights!! Turn up the heat!!

/me proposes for a new barrel smiley!

Never really thought about barrels until now. there sure are a lot of explosive barrels lying around the streets arent there? Maybe the Combine is very careless? yes?

G.Ballblue said:
/me proposes for a new barrel smiley!

Sir, that is a crate.

I think they actually took the crate level of HL1 cut in half and split it with the barrels.

Someone seriously needs to use the new engine to make a kicking Crate Factory.

very good idea!

Barrels and pipes - the best ways of adding detail to your map :razz: .

BTW, anyone remember "Worlds Collide" from OPFOR (hate that chapter! hate it hate it hate it hate it!)? Crate heaven.

THE KING IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE KING.

i see barrels every day, course i travel a lot.

but i imagine barrels are regional, as in.. industrial areas.

Houston for example, has millions of them, Chicago has quite a few as well. rural areas use them to burn refuse and as storage for feed. suburban areas would prolly not see many as the mindset is "barrels=poor" so you would never see them just there for no reason. garages always have them to store used oil. and lets not forget the orange roadway barrel.. literally hundreds of millions of those puppies :biggrin:

i do however see the same image, killboxes the size of Kansas with barrels and that silly hurling gun as the primary weapon those silly map makers would prefer. :rolleyes:

someone once said that their fear was a killbox with a drivable car.. think about it, making a car is far and away above the level of smarts someone would be to release a killbox in the first place, so any maps with a drivable care prolly won't be killboxes.. unless its released by a savant :heee:

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Jinx</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Small barrels. Big barrels. Rolling barrels. Exploding barrels. Grey barrels. Purple barrels. Maybe even- goodness forbid- boy and girl barrels.</DIV></DIV>

YOU FORGOT RUSTY BARRELS :rocketwhore:

Yeah, barrels have been slowly taking over for some time now. I've just been playing HL (trying to finally beat it on difficult) and theres tons of barrels, most notably in We've Got Hostiles and the start of Surface Tension. There are also some explosive barrels throughout Power Up, and a bunch of rusties near the end of Apprehension (before the first assassin battle).
Crates, however, are far more common. Theres your standard , but theres the 32, 48, and 64 sizes, the greentop (in 64 and 48), the two-stack greentop (more likely to have an item than other types, and breaks easier), the wet crate (all sizes), the explosive crate, blue and yellow machine crates, and lets not forget the 256x192x192 "big crate". Theres more, but I'm sure youve already been scared enough by my immense knowledge of generic visblocking objects :biggrin:

thanks for sharing you crate knowledge wiht us but you forgot one vital
crate, the machine crate, comes in all sorts of sizes and is
indistructeble, a vital cover crate.

barrels:

are pretty cool actualy, just not in the wrong places, make barrels in
storage rooms, fuel dumps etc, but not.... citys , castles or deserts
or something , just put 'em in the right places and they'll look nice,
and no more that 3 barrels a room exept if it's a fuel storage where
it's obvious that there are barrles in great numbers,

crates:

same goes here , but they can be put in more places and so, they get
used more becouse lot's of mappers are to lazy to make their own litle
blocks and stuff like that,

prefab crates:

evil, make your own crates with you own litle twist to them, this way you won't find exactly the same crates everywhere.

make crates that are supposed to be huge; smal etc. then you have more
original crates. , make opened crates, broken crates crates that are on
their side if the texture allows that.

prefab barrles.

inportant, mose home made barrels look weird becouse thay always are
just to big or to small , and realy there are not alot of huge or small
oil drum around i think.

just put exiting new textures on them.

this is what it think about crates and barrles.

I don't see what the fuss is about. What is your amazing new 'cover' idea? I mean, they have all kinds of furniture, crates, and barrels. What other similar sized objects even exist?

When barrels are on a bagel you can have barrels anytime.

what about barrels with beer inside?
Or better yet kegs?

beer kegs are different looking, if you use the correct texture it
would look good, if ou use a normal texture, it's "just another
barrel"

Other forms of cover:

bushes

hills

walls*

vehicles% (inside, forklift, truck trailers etc. outside cars, trucks, vans)

roof support beams*

computers%

shelves*

the ones with * can all be used in any crate enviroment

the ones with % inside

the others outside

i think that if you uses these objects the number of "hey theres that crate from black mesa" ideas will drop rapidly

note:

shelves and walls and computers can be made customly, the prefabs are overused i think.

Walls and hills and support beams aren't 'map furniture', they are just part of the map. Cars count, but they can't be used other than in larger outdoors areas.

Barrels are 'map furniture'. They are something that you put in having made a satisfactory map in order to provide more detail. And they have already used cars, so nobody has yet come up with an alternative to barrels than valve didnt already use.

scary_jeff said:
Walls and hills and support beams aren't 'map furniture', they are just part of the map. Cars count, but they can't be used other than in larger outdoors areas.

Barrels are 'map furniture'. They are something that you put in having made a satisfactory map in order to provide more detail. And they have already used cars, so nobody has yet come up with an alternative to barrels than valve didnt already use.

You mean you don't have a car sitting in your living room?

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Crono</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
You mean you don't have a car sitting in your living room? </DIV></DIV>

i do, they are about circa 1800-1900. they are cast steel and about 6 inches long. they are antique toys i think, but am unsure.
but yes, i have two cars in my front room :biggrin:

Well, in that case, i have an entire hangar in my room (10cm long aircraft replicas; about 20, anything from SU27s and F-18s to Fokker DV fighters and Sopwith Triplanes). :biggrin:

sorry some are a bit fuzzy/blurry, but it was hard holding my camera still at just a few inches.

Nioce :smile:

Superb! What else do you collect? I have a vast collection of coins and munitions (my pride and joy, a 12.7mm unknown type shell).

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Andrei</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Superb! What else do you collect? I have a vast collection of coins and munitions (my pride and joy, a 12.7mm unknown type shell). </DIV></DIV>
i have one of these in my hand right now :biggrin:

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Orpheus</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Andrei</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Superb! What else do you collect? I have a vast collection of coins and munitions (my pride and joy, a 12.7mm unknown type shell). </DIV></DIV>
i have one of these in my hand right now :biggrin:

</DIV></DIV>
whistles!

i bought this in either 1980 or 81.. its almost all steal. nothing like the plastic crap now.

(i have reason to believe my shell is armed, yet the blasting cap seems used).

http://www.freewebs.com/acrisan/Untitled-1.jpg

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Andrei</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>(i have reason to believe my shell is armed, yet the blasting cap seems used). </DIV></DIV>

tis called " a dud"

you might consider donating it to someone who can destroy it safely.

un-spent rounds are deadly, even after decades.

considering that the country over there has seen its share of wars, i doubt you have anything valuable enough to chance your safety.
I'd ditch it ASAP.

[edit] ahh, thats just a bullet?

no harm.. kepp it, i thought you were talking about something HE

I would have done so earlier, but there is something weird about it - the shell seemes fired because the cap (or whatever it's called) is punctured indicating that the round was fired. Someone could have just attached the bullet to the shell to keep it as a memory. On the other hand, when you gently shake it, you can hear something moving inside like dust. As far as i know, the charge in a shell should be fixed. It could be rust...but it could be gunpowder. Is the pic working? Perhaps you know the type of shell (im guessing its from an AA machinegun, since it a 12.7).

[edit]

Me struggles to understand why the pic link isn't working VIA snarkpit.

i did a bit of searching, you seem to have a common 50 caliber machine gun round.. something like this

i used to have a few around here, but over time i gave them all away..

all were live, as i shot the rest on the range :biggrin:

makes a nice trophy..

Hehe, indeed. I also have 2 AK-47 shells with bullets (both intact and shattered), a few 9mm pistol shells, a 7,62 blank (also pistol; weird calibre for such a weapon, though), a smoke grenade (the launcher type), aprox 25mm, and a few other 5,56mm shells. I also collect coins but if i start talking about those, i might never finish until next morning .

( accidental double-post )

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Andrei</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>(accidental double-post)

</DIV></DIV>
how in the f**k can you have a double post 2 minutes apart

There is something very weird going on with my connection. I press "post" for the first reply, and i wait. I wait. I wait. I wait and after 1 1/2 minutes...nothing. I click "stop" and resubmit. That explains the delay.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Andrei</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>There is something very weird going on with my connection. I press "post" for the first reply, and i wait. I wait. I wait. I wait and after 1 1/2 minutes...nothing. I click "stop" and resubmit. That explains the delay. </DIV></DIV>

its not just there, its here too, and i am on DSL.

so that means the pit is acting up again, prolly on the server end again.

I'm on DSL too. Good to know the problem isn't over here :biggrin: !

BARRELS TAUGHT ME HOW TO LOVE

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Cassius</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>BARRELS TAUGHT ME HOW TO LOVE </DIV></DIV>
so, you like big women do ya cass?

Oh God...

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Orpheus</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Crono</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
You mean you don't have a car sitting in your living room? </DIV></DIV>

i do, they are about circa 1800-1900. they are cast steel and about 6 inches long. they are antique toys i think, but am unsure.
but yes, i have two cars in my front room :biggrin:

</DIV></DIV>
That thing got a Hemi?

Two of my favorite forms of cover are:

pillars

alcoves

Though if you look at my HL maps you will see many variations of crate and barrel kind too :wink:

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Orpheus</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Cassius</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>BARRELS TAUGHT ME HOW TO LOVE </DIV></DIV>
so, you like big women do ya cass

</DIV></DIV>

You guys have collections like mine. I have lots of stuff from WWI and before especially the Crimean War. Also British colonial wars relics are great. Orpheus: U need a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash Camera? I am seeling my camera collection and have one left! :rolleyes: