SPLA Map

go the snarkpit map!

just a question: will this map be fairly linear gameplay wise within the set size limit, or containing heaps of open and/or veritcal fighting?

Perhaps a happy medium can be reached...?

hallways are hallways, unless WC does some cool vertical crossovers (hint, hint), so combat there should be pretty flat. as for the individaul areas, we are alloting a volume for people to work with rather than an area, so each participant can make their areas as vertical or horizontal as they choose.

we should set an absolute r_speed limit. 1000 w_poly sound good?

ok, i dont mind limiting the r_speeds and such. 1000 w-polys sounds reasonable

i think moneyshot just might have stumbled apon something here... i like the hole elemental theme, but i hate to break it to ya money, lava isnt an element :razz: and if we go this route...i got dibs on fire :wink:

anyways, its 512 cubed volume right? another thing i was thinking. should the areas creator deside spawnpoints, or do you think we should wait til the thing is pieced together to start laying out spawnpoints? same thought on weaponspawns too.

Id like you to get warm and sweat by seeing my room. Can this be incorperated in our hod-podge?

That's going to be my new chat-up line from now on :heee:

lol...gollum joo whore :wink:

too much to read at the moment, and Im leaving for school, I'll get back to ya guys in programming class.

My line idea was, say ya had a bridge. On the side of the bridge would be a blue line, not big, but 64 x 64 square and length of the bridge...then the line would change with the flow of the map, still 64 x 64, the length going up stairs (along a wall), over some rocks, thru a wall, exit out the other side, then continue thru your whole map. The line wouldn't always need to be solid...it could pass thru the player's path from wall to wall (a laser connecting the two lines), but the line would always be visible or "followable" thru the map...and then continue on into the next author's map, same size, but perhaps a different color.

You wouldn't need to build your map around the line, but the line would intertwine thru the map just to keep the theme of the rest of the maps.

And it wouldn't need to be a focal point. It could go from point A to point B over the whole roof of the map, or it could be a focal point, where it would make a center-piece of the one map or go down with a waterfall..or the waterfall would go through it..it needn't be just one line. The line could break into many and even make a cage...but it would need to go back to being one solid line as it exits the map and goes onto the next author.

That would keep the theme of the map and let us all use our own talents and uniqueness to tie the maps together.

Anyways, I like the elemental theme too, but there was a contest here not long ago where people needed to make arena maps with 2 opposing themes...I think we'd be redoing that contest if we all had different elements (fire, water, etc) in our maps.

Also, I volunteer to do the weapon placement and spawns if ya want.

Just as a comment from an observer: I think the "connecting line" sounds like an excellent idea. I'd like to see this implemented.

seems you guys have plenty of help.....holler if ya need me....

Doc Brasso... :dodgy:

Weapon, item, and spawn placement definatly needs to be done by a single person. however, I think WC currently holds that position as the one who has volenteered to splice everything together. in any case, we ought to do a playtest once we get to that point anyway, so everyone will have some input.

I'm not suggesting that we do opposing themes, I simply wanted to point out that even if we did it could work out.

I'm saying everyone should have somthing flowing out of their level. it doesn't seem to me that everyone has to have a different somthing, or that we have to agree on what it will be. just pick somthing you like and go for it.

If we do the line thing, I think we should just use lasers. maybe assign each person a differnt color...

And then in the center, the lasers all meet together and form some sort of extremely bright laser into the starry night above.

Ha!

I prefer the idea of a liquid personally, but maybe thats just me, maybe even just a colour, so we can use pipes/laser/streams or whatever as long as it remains the same colour. That could be interesting.

/streches his fingures

Ok guys, here's my idea for what we'll do. Read it carefully and reply.

The map will revolve around a single element. Water. With water, Hornpipe2 can have his water wheel idea. With water, we can make steam, flooded areas in the map. Waterfalls and much other stuff.

What I must ensist however, is that you can use whatever textures you want but try and keep most of your texturing to a dark set. You can have bright textures, but not everywhere.

Dont worry about a comonality between each of your maps, I will look it over when we have something done. As well, I will make a center-piece to the map, An outdoor area similar to what I used in Dark Complex and Cliff Complex. This will add some vertical play to our map and make a neutral area between all of your sections.

When making your map, start with a limit of 512*512 horizontally and say about 128 vertically. This way it will be much easier for me to connect the sections without having 1 persons stuff in someone elses work. Once I have a basic connection, I will resend the map to 1 person at a time so he can modify his area.

You guys can use custom light emiting textures, but try not to have too many. The more different lights and lighting we have, the more strange our map will look. (my opinion anyways) As well, since I have never worked with custom lighting, someones gonna have to help me out with this.

Remember, you guys can get custom textures anywhere you want, just send me a copy of the WAD (or a download link) and tell me which textures you are using. I will make our own WAD.

Do not worry about player spawns and weapons. Once the design of the map is finished (or almost so) then we will work on that. Doc, I havent forgotten your offer on this. DocRock will help each section mapper with spawns and weapons. He will make suggestions, its for you guys to take it as you see fit.

If you guys want to get a comonality started now, you'll all have to agree on what it will be. So far, I have read 2 ideas. Lines and lasers.

As well, you guys must tell me if you want a skybox in your section because we will have to agree on a sky texture. (my eyes are set on a rocky nighting setting.)

Thats about all I can think of. Keep the R's under - I'd prefer 800, but as long as they stay bellow 1000 Im happy. E_polys shouldnt be a problem. Try and do some kind of Vis_blocking where your section is to connect to an other section. If not we might have huge R's problems. Assume your buddy hasent done Vis blocking.

Doesn't limiting the areas to 128 units vertically mean that there will be no multi-level play except in the central part? You can't fit 2 floors in 128 units :/

A mistake on my part I guess. Ok, forget that vertical limit thing, just dont make something too vertical..

Sounds good to me WC, although I'd rather stick with the volume (512)^3 so that you an make your section whatever shape you want. I know that will make things hard on you, but I think it will make the map more interesting if there a wide veriety of shapes.

yes, I have come to realise that. Ok, the only limitations are 512 by 512 horizontal. Vertical, you can go as much as you want (within reason of course) But dont make go any higher than 128 (ish ish) upwards. You can go as far down as you like. If not, my centerpiece area will look messed with some brushes appearing in the skybox.

I still think 512 x 512 is a little small. I drew it up in Hammer..this was when we had only a limit of 128 height.



If we were to allow ourselves rooms of 2048 x 2048 x 1088, we'd have plenty of room plus, in the hammer grid, we could fit 9 of these size rooms. We wouldn't have to fill each area competely...but it would allow for higher ceilings and better game flow.

Here is a larger room:



What do you guys think?

The whole point of the 512 limit is to keep the map size relativly small. remember doc, there are going to be ten of these areas. besides, if you are limited to a volume of 134 million cubic units (512^3) that really is allot of space. forget about the 128 height limit as that only allows 31 million cubic units, which really is too small. don't limit yourself to a 512 unit cube though. you could for example make an area that was 724 (512*sqrt(2)) units on a side and 256 units high. I realize that this is still on the small side, but we want to be able to compile and play this thing when we are done. plus it would be nice if it would work with fewer than 32 players. do you see what I mean?

oh, and WC, it really doesn't matter what shape our ares are, since you can reposition them however you want to make your central area work.

It still seems a tad small to me..especially with 3 exits needing to be in each map section...it would almost be like coming in a door, seeing a single centerpiece and then exit out 1 of 2 other doors.

Yeah, 512 is awfully poxy, can we have it say 1024 then? Halfway between both? Or just try and keep everything to a reasonablish size? I take it as given that we all get two goes? First one to make our own bit, second to adjust the intergration of it with the rest of the map and to position stuff. What think ye?

Alright, seeing Doc's pictures of the 512*512 area I now notice that it is really small. Sorry I didnt have VHE open at the time I said the size limit.

I guess I cant really put a limit then, but just remember that there are 8 sections + 1 centerpiece to this map. Keep your size in consideration when you map.

Ok, now we come to who's making what.

there are 8 sections. Which mean 8 mappers. And 1 centerpiece which I will be making.

Now comes picking time I need you guys to reply and tell me which section you want.

the sections are:

Upper Left
Upper Center
Upper Right
Middle Left
Middle Center (centerpiece) Wild Card
Middle Right
Lower Left
Lower Center
Lower Right

If there are more mappers interested than there are sections, ... err... we'll figure something out.

I'll do the upper right please.

Now, questions...will there be multiple levels? Are we going to use any of the Half-Life wads? Who will place the light_environment? What sounds can we use (custom or stock)?

The general theme is water/lasers with dark textures and a night setting?

When are we going to shoot for release or beta v1?

/scribles Doc for Upper Right

you can build multiple levels (perhaps a max of 3 or 4 floors). If you mean other mappers making something above or bellow the Upper Right section, for now, its no. But seeing as there are only 8 sections and probably more mappers, then we might have to make sections above or bellow.

For sure we will be using the HalfLife.WAD, we cannot forget where this game came from. But dont need to use it too much.

As for a light_environment, we'll worry about that later on.

I cant say if we can use custom sounds or not because I dont know the procedure for using them. If someone can fill me in. I guess for now, yes, but you might have to remove them. whats a stock sound?

The general theme of the map is water, using mostly dark textures and a night setting. You can have lasers, just not too many.

Once you guys have a section (confirm with me first) you can start mapping. It might be too early for a deadline, but perhaps a first BETA around February 2004. Sounds good to you guys?

Aight. Most importantly, day or night? Indoors or outdoors? This dictates the light_environment for us.

Let us use hl.wad, xeno.wad, decals.wad, liquid.wad, and spla.wad. If you need a specific custom sprite, sound, or whatever, make sure you make it available to everyone so we don't accidentally duplicate where we could reuse. I don't know about lasers, it seems we want simply water everywhere. So my question is the theme, I don't want to make (for example) a big water-powered mill on a hillside and then you walk into the next area, a military complex.

PS Give me lower left.

Dark night with water flowing everywhere? In some sort of Phantasy Star Online-style forest? or perhaps you were thinking more of... sewage treatment plant? :biggrin:

/scribles Hornpipe2 for Lower Left

its a night time map with mostly dark textures. Dont worry too much about the light_environment.

The map will revolve around water. An industrial type of setting. Sorry, no windmills and less you can fit it in somehow :razz:

Maps are mostly indoors but you can have some outdoors. The only pure outdoor area will be the centerpiece.

I must step on your statement for the textures though Horn. You use whatever .WAD you want to use. But you must send that wad to me or give me a download link so I can make our own .WAD. I will never give you our WAD because it will be in constant change everytime someone gets a new texture or a new .WAD to use.

How about just a futuristic-type base, pretty linear, with rocks and waterfalls off the rocks...something slightly akin to the snark9 map, but ours will be full of more moisture.

Snark9 is pretty linear too..some higher areas...

Custom sounds...ambient_generics..wavs....all the same thing. We'll need a commonly named folder in valve/sound to pull the wavs from. So we're all on the same page, why not name any folders we make "spla"...spla for models, sounds, sprites...each in their own respected folders.

valve/sound/spla
valve/models/spla
valve/sprites/spla
valve/maps/spla

Map needs to be uniform this way so that when it downloads, the required files will pull from distinct folders, and not just from all over the place.

I'm not that deep in the folders stuff there, but I think I know what you mean..

The folders are just as important as the wad or sky. It really needs to be done or it will be chaos at the end when the final .res file calls for many different pathnames for sounds, sprites or models. :smile:

If we don't do it the right way from the start, we will be begging for mercy at the end.

sounds like theres alot more. Care to fill me in?

Just need to have a very strong path for the map.

You're taking care of the wad, sky, final build. You'll need to have all the wavs, sprites, models, etc in folders so you can ensure the paths are correct in each entity.

If Doc places a sound in valve/sound/ambience and if Wild Card places a sound in valve/sound/spla, that would mean that with the zipped final map, there would need to be 2 seperate sound folders.

Confusing. Not only to the mapper's, but to the guy who wants to play it when it's done and doesn't understand why he has 2 sound folders..

It's tricky keeping it all sorted, but if we keep it straight from the beginning, then at the end we'll have all our soldiers in a row :smile:

My intention of the WAD Master was to keep a constantly updated SPLA.wad file (with changelog) on a webpage somewhere so it's available for everyone. Not only will that allow us all to pool our shared texture resources for the map, but reusing textures someone else is already using in their part will bring about more cohesion than everyone using a separate texture set.

I'll host the wad file, and handle all the updates, if you'd like. I could write a PHP upload script that would place everything into an INCOMING directory, ready for the next include. (I'd use WALLY).

Alright, I understand the folders now.

If thats what you meant Horn, I can do that, or you, which ever, but that would mean we would have to send you notices everytime we use a new texture and then notify the other mappers to download the new .WAD. It would get very confusing that way.

If we do it my way, its much simpler because then at the end we add all the custom textures.

Just my opinion,

Whew sleep for 8 hours and U wake up to 2 new pages of post..

LASER - could be powerd by the elements all coming together in the center.. The laser could be a force thats powering a shield that keeps us all alive like in the High Lander movie. ( So it would be dark )

(*note LAVA is to an element, its molten rock.. so its earth set on fire.. =) lol )

Textures,sprtes, and what ever used should be sent to each other mapper.. so that a commen wad can be created and updated as needed.

Ok are we about at a set of goals and objectives? if so can we get the group leader to spell it all out and hand out the marching orders?

($)

Doc is absolutly right. I had been just assumeing we were all on the same page there, but I see that it was a mistake.

if everyone just puts their custom resources in an xxx/xxx/spla folder than there will be no problems when, we are done.

WC, put me down for wherever there is still room. I don't care.

everyone just use whatever dark industrial type textures you want. then at the end, WC or horn will combine all the custom wads into a single SPLA.wad.

Middle left please. I shall begin mapping. I'll keep trakc of this so I know what to do WAD wise, lighstyles wise I'll post a sort of mini RAD with any customs that I use wherever seems most relevant.

I'll take lower centre.

ok ok ok...seems like everytime i get on here the rules/theme/# of + pages changes...lol

ok well ive already started my section... its playing of our stream idea, and im gonna have (pipes) dumping toxic waste into the water, layout is still hazy.

ok, so are we implementing lazers into our theme aswell? i kinda like the whole color lazers for each section meeting in the center for a huge brighter laser. need to start handing out colors soon though...i got dibs on red :wink:

umm, im not sure what sections are still left, so suprize me WC :wink:

ive got a problem with the folders thing...all my work is done on a slave HD which doesnt have HL installed so i dont have the valve dir to place our dirs in...lol but what ive noticed is, if we all simply place our (resources) in the respected dirs within our WC (worldcraft not wildcard :razz: ) dirs, thenwhen it comes time to stick everything together, we will all have common dir structure.

the size limit? are we sticking with 512*2 horizontal, and reasonable height. i can always go bigger, just dont tell me we've downsized now...lol

another thing, if we are all planning on having a stream(connected between sections) i suggest we choose a water texture now, might get ugly down the road for WC when it comes time to piece this shiet together.

Ok, Ill begin work tonight on my section.. Im gonna have a Huge Molten Metal Flow, droping like a water fall, into many differant containers, coming to a final channel and being sent on into a large pipe.

Stick this where ever it fits..

($)

another thing ive been thinking about, maybe we should have someone make up a "prefab" light ficture for this map, this would make it look less pieced together and more like a single map. just a thought.

I don't think that consistant lighting would be that great of a thing. this is going to be a disprate map. why not embrace the diversity?

Okay, here is how things stand as I see it.



<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>

Name: mappername.rmf eg. Tracer.rmf this way when we post up the files for Wild Card, he won?t end up with 9 files called spla.bsp







<o:p></o:p>

Theme: almost whatever you want, but based around a flowing liquid, with an industrial and or futuristic feel.







<o:p></o:p>

Commonality: Each section must incorporate a monochromatic laser, the color being unique to the area.







<o:p></o:p>

Size: 1024^3 as an absolute maximum volume.







<o:p></o:p>

Custom resources: all custom resources will be placed in a sub directory called spla. For example: Half-Lifevalvesoundspla as long as this convention is followed you can include any custom resources you want within reason.







<o:p></o:p>

Textures: use whatever you want, but make it fit the theme, eg dark industrial/futuristic. Any custom wads you use will be baked into a single spla.wad in the end.







<o:p></o:p>

Texturelights: rename any textures you use for lighting and include your spla.rad file so that they can be simply added together in the end.







<o:p></o:p>

Light_environment: do not place one. WC will do this at the end.







<o:p></o:p>

Skymap: as it stands this will be a dark night or evening. Again WC will decide.







<o:p></o:p>

R-speeds: 1000 w_poly max







<o:p></o:p>

Weapon/Item/Spwan: Initial placement by WC. To be edited upon beta testing. Only place weaponry if it is integral to a feature of your area. For example, you might have a really tricky way of obtaining a super weapon you want to implement.





<o:p></o:p>

SP texture artist: after we have a beta together. We should submit it to the texture artist around here and see if they want to come up with any goodies for us to replace our other textures.

<o:p></o:p>

Mappers: Tracer Bullet, Wild Card, Schmung, Sinner_D, Hornpipe2, MoneyShot, Gorbachev, Finger, Kapten_Ljusdal, DocRock.<o:p></o:p>

If I?ve missed anything, or there are more suggestions, let me know.<o:p></o:p>

Tracer Bullet said:
Okay, here is how things stand as I see it.



<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>

Name: mappername.bsp eg. Tracer.bsp this way when we post up the files for Wild Card, he won?t end up with 9 files called spla.bsp







<o:p></o:p>

Theme: almost whatever you want, but based around a flowing liquid, with an industrial and or futuristic feel.







<o:p></o:p>

Commonality: Each section must incorporate a monochromatic laser, the color being unique to the area.







<o:p></o:p>

Size: 1024^3 as an absolute maximum volume.







<o:p></o:p>

Custom resources: all custom resources will be placed in a sub directory called spla. For example: Half-Lifevalvesoundspla as long as this convention is fallowed you can include any custom resources you want within reason.







<o:p></o:p>

Textures: use whatever you want, but make it fit the theme, eg dark industrial/futuristic. Any custom wads you use will be baked into a single spla.wad in the end.







<o:p></o:p>

Texturelights: rename any textures you use for lighting and include your spla.rad file so that they can be simply added together in the end.







<o:p></o:p>

Light_environment: do not place one. WC will do this at the end.







<o:p></o:p>

Skymap: as it stands this will be a dark night or evening. Again WC will decide.







<o:p></o:p>

R-speeds: 1000 w_poly max







<o:p></o:p>

Weapon/Item/Spwan: Initial placement by WC. To be edited upon beta testing. Only place weaponry if it is integral to a feature of your area. For example, you might have a really tricky way of obtaining a super weapon you want to implement.





<o:p></o:p>

SP texture artist: after we have a beta together. We should submit it to the texture artist around here and see if they want to come up with any goodies for us to replace our other textures.

<o:p></o:p>

Mappers: Tracer Bullet, Wild Card, Schmung, Sinner_D, Hornpipe2, MoneyShot, Gorbachev, Finger, Kapten_Ljusdal, DocRock.<o:p></o:p>

If I?ve missed anything, or there are more suggestions, let me know.<o:p></o:p>

Don't follow the reasoning for having compiled versions seperate to send to WC. He'd need .rmf files to be able to join them.

i believe thats what he meant, mappername.rmf

also...should we hand out laser colors? or do you guys care if 2 sections have the same color laser?

"Custom resources: all custom resources will be placed in a sub directory called spla. For example: Half-Lifevalvesoundspla as long as this convention is fallowed you can include any custom resources you want within reason.







<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>

Textures: use whatever you want, but make it fit the theme, eg dark industrial/futuristic. Any custom wads you use will be baked into a single spla.wad in the end."



again this mightbecome a problem with me, as all my work is done on a slave HD cause i run win2k and for some reason my compiler doesnt like win2k's file structure. if anyone has any suggestions, or if anyone cares if i just disregaurd this rule let me know :biggrin:

also, so as an absolute max 1024x3 right? hopefully this will be implementable into my design. i swear, if we change the size one more time ima go on a rampage...lol

Yes, I meant mappername.rmf

I don't think it will be a problem if you don't have the dirctory structure right sinner. you should work it out with WC though.

1024^3 was a compromise for Doc. but yes, that is the maximum, unless there is an overwhelming majority that want's somthing different.

ok well WC...looks like your gonna have to setup my custom resources shiet...ill make it easy on ya and include a txt with my rmf with a list of ents that need changing...okey?

or i could setup a fake hl dir structure on my slave HD, that wouldnt be too much trouble. either way dont matter to me

anyways, should i be worried? my leafportals is taking forever in my compile...ive never been good with compile tech, so what is this?

this thread is just to long for my tired eyes to read thru ATM, but let me suggest a few pointers, that may or may not have been covered already, use this advice, or ignore it, doesn't matter, but do not come up later and cry, because you didn't listen :smile:

1) planning out a maps layout is all fine and dandy, but in practicality, you are only wasting your time, usually something or someone will skew it and it will go to s**t rapidly, just chose the order of who will add what, and when and you will be ok, thats about all the layout you will need in advance.

2) chose a theme, stick to the theme, do not vary from it.

3) chose a texture set, and stick to it, remember not everyone has broadband, and you will seriously handicap anyone on 56k if you add 25 megs of custom textures and sky's.

4) pick a time limit on each persons addition.. a week to no more thaN TWO is sufficient.

5) additions can be made in advance, for those wanting to add theres rapidly upon receiving of the rmf..

6) KEEP the format in RMF, because after you go thru the trouble of visgrouping, and some asswipe removes it all by sending you the .map file, you WILL BE PISSED!

7) r_speeds will not be an issue, just because it is a multi-member creation, if you adhere to visblocking and so forth, the r_speeds will be fine, in spite of its size, remember not to create oversized func_walls, because YOU WILL effect everyone elses r_speeds.

8) pick a leader, doesn't matter who, but let them decide the decisions that will arise... group decisions only work so far, then they become moot.

9)finally, try to incorporate your addition without the need for miles of interconnection, and boring hallways.. do not forget, you have an UP and a DOWN direction as well as linear layouts..

i wish you all good luck, and want you to realize, this project will be the best fun you have ever had, but, its not finished till its completed, so if you are thinking its already a done deal.... you will be disappointed..

Right. Now everythings clarified I 'spose I better get mapping then..

Alright guys, Im just gonna catch up on some reading, think a little and post, expect something in like 20 minutes :razz:

Ok, heres the mapper list so far.

• Upper Left: Tracer Bullet
• Upper Center:
• Upper Right: DocRock
• Middle Left: Schmung
• Middle Center: Wild Card
• Middle Right: Sinner_D
• Lower Left: Hornpipe2
• Lower Center: Gorbachev
• Lower Right: MoneyShot

Ok, now the map theme is water oriented. Dont worry about colored lasers. Dont worry about a comonality in the maps just yet. Make your sections water oriented.

There arent really size restrictions, just dont make anything overly big (or small).

Save your sections as such WildCard(centerpiece).RMF or mappername(section).RMF.

When you send me something, send me your section in .RMF format only. I will not accept .MAP (because I hate it) and .BSP (because It`s of no use to me).

Feel free to use custom sounds, textures, sprites, textured lighting. However, READ THIS CAREFULLY

For custom sounds, I need a copy of the .WAV (or whatever format) file.

For custom textures, I need a copy (or download link) to the .WAD. You must give me the name of the textures you are using (ei: crete3_wall01). Without this, I cannot make the custom .WAD because it will be harder for me to find all the used textures.

For custom sprites, I need a copy of the .SPR? (whatever the file is) file.

For custom textured lighting, I need the .WAD its in as well as your RGB and brightness values.

Skymaps, dont worry too much, I`ll decide, however, if its important to you, please tell me.

Do not add weapons/items/player spawns.

---

Thats about all I can think of for now. Theses are your instructions, follow them.

Once your sections are somewhat do, send them to me so I can get a "first look" at how much trouble I'll be in when I have to put everything together :razz: