DM_Coast

This is my COAST map for the VALVe Mapping Contest. IT features some kickss stuff like a landbridge, those neat swaying powerlines and a few other tricks that will remain a secret until It's released. I would appreciate your input on this map and any constructive criticism.

Your little leaf decals look weird on the last pic, and it's bright. Otherwise, looks fairly nice.

I like lighting, especially in maps.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Gorbachev</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>I like lighting, especially in maps.
</DIV></DIV>
It's in fullbright, sillies. And the leaf decals will get better when the grass alpha texture is rendered in game. These are BIGTIME beta shots. I did the quickest compile possible.

Go easy on the smooth tool as that rock archway looks extremely artificial. If it is natural then God was having one hell of an inspired day! :wink:

like the terrain work, looks good. The roof on the house looks to small, need more height to it. Like a cape cod style or somethin. Also dont know if brick stairs fit the theme of a house on top of a rock cropping, maybe rickety old wood stairs or stone like the house foundation.

I'm pretty sure thats just a straight subdivide without and geometry
painting work done on it Adam, but I agree it does look extremely
unlikely. You might even just try adding noise to the faces, to add
even a subtle hint of variety to the rocks.

Lighting is a must, I don't really like commenting without it as it can
change even something that looks awful and primitive in fullbright into
something quite nice looking.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Nickelplate</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
It's in fullbright, sillies.

</DIV></DIV>
Well, it takes about two minutes to compile a test map with full lighting.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Cassius</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Nickelplate</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
It's in fullbright, sillies.

</DIV></DIV>
Well, it takes about two minutes to compile a test map with full lighting.

</DIV></DIV>
Surely NOT! I tried to compile with VIS and RAD and it ends up taking over an HOUR. So naturally I just compiled it the really quick way. I fully plan on adding the noise to the arch, I already HAVE added alpha textures, but they don't show up inthe game. I'm thinking aobut asking aobut this in the HL2 ed forum.

I guess you didn't catch the subtle message of my post.

youll need to run VIS and RAD to get alpa painting to show.

the texture of the stairs dont fit in with the rest.

did you have a deadline or something why u had to post the map as soon a possible, and you couldnt wait 2 hours for the lighting to compile ? as i think it will make everything look better

I don't see how lighting would take that long to compile, the longest
I've had so far was 2 minutes on a map that was about 200,000 feet?

dm_fairytale took well over 15 hours on an AMD64 FX53 with 2 gigs of ram. I think you can wait an hour.

Umm. Yeah. Lighting and a bit more detail on the house. This looks very promising.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Tracer Bullet</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>This looks very promising. </DIV></DIV>
I'm going to be honest: it doesn't. Don't showcase your map with no lighting, that's ridiculous. What are we supposed to say? Nice push of the subdivide button?

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Cassius</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Tracer Bullet</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>This looks very promising. </DIV></DIV>
I'm going to be honest: it doesn't. Don't showcase your map with no lighting, that's ridiculous. What are we supposed to say? Nice push of the subdivide button?

</DIV></DIV>
Is it that easy to make terrain like that now? I haven't done any fooling with it so I don't know.

looks damn good but do you think the rock arch too smooth?

Tracer, displacements are so quick and easy and look nice to boot. I made a displacement ramp that serves as rubble and a stairway that took about 30 minutes and works without errors or snags and didn't require me to constantly reselect little triangles. It didn't even require testing beyond the first time.

As for this map, that oval in the cliff has got to go. The tutorial on displacement caves on this site is really stupid and makes crappy looking tunnels, so don't follow it. If you didn't, well just FYI don't use it later on.

Wow. curse lack of free time for mapping

And I was sooo proud of my triangle manipulating skills for HL1. Good terrain used to be one of the hardest things in the book!

Should I ever map for the engine, I won't be using the displacement tool, just like I didn't use triangles in HL1. Real men use complex brushes.

Wow. curse lack of free time for mapping

And I was sooo proud of my triangle manipulating skills for HL1.

so was i.......

The rocks are too round, maybe a little noise and some geometrical editing would make it look a bit more realistic.

I was making a coast map myself, not near finished tho. I was about to name it as dm_coast. Seems i need to change the name :wink:

OKAY! I was already gonna put noise in the arch! Any, I compiled with lighting( FINALLY) and it took close to 12 hours! And then after all that i didn't have the lights set right. Anyway,

I'm going to be honest: it doesn't. Don't showcase your map with no lighting, that's ridiculous. What are we supposed to say? Nice push of the subdivide button?

And that's not very nice. that arch was f**king complex BEFORE i hit the subdivide button. I will post new screenshots soon. About 24 hours from now when the damn thing compiles.

The tutorial on displacement caves on this site is really stupid
and makes crappy looking tunnels, so don't follow it. If you didn't,
well just FYI don't use it later on.

What is with you being such a bastard these days Yak? Seriously man,
the tutorial might not be perfect but its far from stupid or crap.
Obviously you will be able to get better results through painting all
of the geometry yourself, but the tutorial is giving an overview of all
the other tools available with displacement surfaces and it does that
plenty well enough. If you think if is so poor, then why havent you
given suggestions for improvements, or even written your own? With you
its less "constructive criticism" and more "make the person feel like
an idiot" it seems :rolleyes:

It occurs to me that the compile might be taking so long because the rocks appear to have roughly one hundred thousand billion triangles per square inch. What value did you select when you created the displacements?

I get really really quick compile times for Source engine games,
something must really be awry here unless your standard HL maps took
days to compile or you're doing other stuff while it's trying to
compile.

Likewise Gorb. I've seen a load of people on various forums having
their maps take hours upon hours to compile, but I've yet to see any of
my source maps take over a couple of minutes. I haven't done anything
particularly open, so I guess it could just be that, but my guess is
that people aren't making effective use of func_detail brushes or are
using low lightmap values for unsuitable surfaces.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting ReNo</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quote:</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>The tutorial on displacement caves on this site is really stupid and makes crappy looking tunnels, so don't follow it. If you didn't, well just FYI don't use it later on.</DIV></DIV>

What is with you being such a bastard these days Yak? Seriously man, the tutorial might not be perfect but its far from stupid or crap. Obviously you will be able to get better results through painting all of the geometry yourself, but the tutorial is giving an overview of all the other tools available with displacement surfaces and it does that plenty well enough. If you think if is so poor, then why havent you given suggestions for improvements, or even written your own? With you its less "constructive criticism" and more "make the person feel like an idiot" it seems :rolleyes:
</DIV></DIV>

:sad: I get the point
also, I dont write tutorials because I suck as a 'theoretical' or teaching mapper and can barely figure stuff out on my own, let alone write tutorials about it. I do know however that sewing four displacements together in a round fashion to make caves creates dumb unnatural terrain that has no place in a good level. It would be better to not sew them at all and do each wall individually, but since the tutorial doesn't say that it can and will mislead newbies into thinking it is acceptable to do it the aforementioned way. In fact I would go as far as to say that sewing together any displacements that are supposed to be at right angles with each other (EX cliff face and ground) should be avoided at all costs and almost never done.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Cassius</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>It occurs to me that the compile might be taking so long because the rocks appear to have roughly one hundred thousand billion triangles per square inch. What value did you select when you created the displacements?</DIV></DIV>
Selected power of 3 on some and power of 1 or 2 on most. :biggrin:

Turn them all to 1 and see if it goes any faster.

I followed that tut and it went well it looks good so ssshhhh yak and i didnt bind them all together i am smart enough to know that and now i can edit them seprately :razz:

I find my Myrk- map takes about 20 minutes, mainly on vis, but thats probably because my walls are all displacements and I've just boxed in the level for now. When I do all the outside I'll make sure it's all niceley skyboxed in properly.