Firth

That looks friggin' awesome...good work on the scenery.

How deep is the water going to be? Since its the airboat, you dont really need it to be that deep and if its too deep, it slows down DM gameplay (and I hate slogging through water in rl and in vl...) but it should provide for some interesting and different gameplay than most of what the other offerings will most likely be...

Looking great so far. But aren't you a little young for the contest? hehe

What sort of layout are you looking for with this? I'd be interested to see an overhead.

It looks fantastic! I just want to explore it right now!

Keep it up, I can see this doing well in the compo

For a second there, I thought I was looking at photographs instead of screenshots!

If Valve makes a canal map, yours may be better. Those apartment buildings are part of your skybox? They're the most realistic buildings I've seen so far (better than the ones from HL2).

Does the water level change, by the way?

I think the best comment I could give is that it almost looks like it's straight out of the single player game.

Better than the apartments in the single player game? Heh. They're the same building, really. It's one of the skybox props.

DAMN thats hot... nice skybox.

Looks like u are a very good mapper......

Critique this (Orph, Adam, anyone) please. Please don't
distribute this either, since it's in an unfinished state and rather
crappy. Thanks.

There's bugs in various bits, but what I'm more interested in is
suggestions for weapon placement or whatever. Working on getting the
framerate up in various places as well. Water is truly a harsh
mistress. It's the eleventh hour before I'm going to have to mail this
in.http://sweetly-jaded.org/robert/firth/dm_firthb4.zip

EDIT: old links removed

http://snarkpit.com/pits/campaignjunkie/firth/

First off, beautiful map! great atmosphere. Feels like a real place. I can't wait to play this map.

Not sure if you wanted suggestions as to where to place weps or the placement you have now. I imagine it's probaly where to place them because its pretty sparse right now.

crossbow is in a good spot but the ramp leading out to it provides ultimate camping if you crouch on that ramp and just peek out at eye level. you have the rocketlauncher below it out on the grass, thats way to close. I would put that all the way across on that far walkway area if your looking straight out from the sniper deck. that could counter the camping pretty good. plus that would make a good triangular open fire fight with the crossbow, rocket launcher, and where you have the combine heavy machinegun (I don't know what it's called, srry) add more shotguns and ammo, and I never found the magnum...

here's a few other things I found you probably already know about...


If you run in here and catch that corner of the walkway you start bobbing up and down, i would just resize that back some.


That grate is the only way in and out, BIG deadend, unless someone in the sniper tower opens the gates for you, unless I missed a way to open it from here.


clip that fence on the left or just move it out to the edge more. I just crouched and walked right on by.... :smile: man you could have some fun out there with alot of CB ammo.


I thought this should have benn breakable...


You obviouly know about the water, from what you said in your post, but I thought I would show you what it looks like on my end, just as an FYI.... also, there was water splash sounds but once your in the water it sounds like your runnin on concrete.

I also noticed the water gates never close, that will be a big killer for connectivity, I'd put a timer on them to reset.

thats about it for a quick run through, nice ambient sounds, looks great, bet it's gonna play great for a big crowd too... it is a BIG map. Nice Job! GL in the contest.

Christ man, you need to learn to control yourself! This map is gigantic, with some huge, complex, and nice looking areas that look to be great DM fare (such as the industrial interiors and the upper area that the crossbow overlooks), but I'm afraid that due to all the hugeness of everything else you won't be able to recreate that same amount of complexity and detail throughout the map. I was reminded of Rustmill as I was running around some areas, and that was a great map so that's good. The teleporter was sweet as well.

Now, I know you don't have much time, but if I were you I'd cut a bunch of the excess areas and tighten up the map. Just like Persia it's too large. Considering that the airboat does strange stuff in DM and doesn't even fire it's gun I'd suggest ditching them and most of the connecting water canal areas and focusing on the industrial buildings, the waterway overlook in the middle, and some of the teleporter/bunker areas. I couldn't even begin to wrap my head around the weapon placement to be honest, but it didn't seem like there was enough for what is assuredly a 32 player map. I'd have to really take a close look to be sure though.

Basically you've got to remember that you're making a DM map, not a SP map, and that what works in one won't necessarily work in the other.

Bleh, should have asked for feedback earlier about the layout. I cut
out one area I didn't finish doing yet, and just threw some stairs
there or something. But I've already done too much on the rest of the
map to throw it away. Thanks for the advice though, I'll consider
tightening everything in future DM maps. :biggrin:

Weapon placement - there's really none to speak of, hehe. What I meant
was where you would consider putting some of the weapons and such.
gives Reno puppy dog eyes

About the water; WHAT THE HECK?! Hehe, I really have no idea what's
going on in that last screen. The canal locks should be opening and
closing just fine (they work on the machines I've been testing with)
and the water should all be connected and purdy. Hmmm... Perplexing.

i will be leaving out in about 1 hour.. was supposed to leave out yesterday, but damned bus gave me fits again :/

i will look at it when i return, hopefully with so many people commenting, i won't have much left to do but stroll around and gawk at the sights.

pics look wonderful so far.

be good.

I found your frame rates to be excellent, actually- good choice to use opaque water. I had a run around- there are a few small things to note such as your chargers seem a wee bit too far off the ground, and radiators don't make a ripping sound when you pull them off the wall. Loved the crossbow location, but otherwise I'd agree with the others and say that currently it's too vast- I think in particular one of the labs/teleporters is too far away from the action and detracts.

I've found weapon placement a lot harder since HL1 as there are seemingly fewer weapons to place! My suggestions would be to not place many more AR2's, and have a few shotguns here and there, a revolver in the labs perhaps. Er, and that's it, that's all the choice you have :sad:

I'll have a look as soon as I get home from work in about 4 hours :smile:

Your map looks really good. Makes me wonder why I even bothered submitting mine. :rolleyes: Definitely made for a larger group of people. Tweak it a little bit here and there. I feel like Ican just keep adding and adding to mine and never finish. How did you get that Citadel model to fit in there? Is your skybox huge?

Here's a couple of things I noticed while looking round the map :smile: Overall though, it's not far off being a top-notch map - and i'm surprised at how quick people are being able to utilise the new tools.















http://www.planethalflife.com/hawkins/crits/dm_firth0004.jpg





Hope that all helps some :smile:

I seriously don't know what's with the water. Maybe the judges will
take pity on me? Or hopefully they'll all play on DX9 machines. Some of
the stuff I fixed on my own, other parts I didn't get a chance to fix.
Note to self: Ask for feedback earlier. :smile:

Thanks to everyone who wasted their time giving me feedback :wink:

Map profile updated with a Beta 6 download link (with hopefully fixed
canal water) and some updated screenshots. Good luck to everyone who
managed to enter in the contest! :smile:

Just took a look and I'm majorly impressed CJ. Some very nice work.

Most of the problems I found have already been mentioned, like the
different shades and lighting on the water. I think the problem might
be because you've used different brushes for the same stretch of water,
and even though you've used the same texture and it lines up, your
cubemaps are calculating lighting and reflections in different areas. I
found the only way to get it to work properly is having all the water
in an area made from the same brush, using only one cubemap. It might
be hard for your map, what with the tunnels, but I'm pretty sure thats
the way to fix it. Then again I'm no expert, not even close, so I could
be wrong.

It might be an idea to scale up your water texture too, as at the
moment you can see that the ripple effect is tiled, and it looks dodgy
in the larger water areas.

I found some areas to be too dark, but then again my monitor is buggered, so its probably just my setup.

Over all a really nice map, with varying areas and gameplay in a well made setting. Top job.

[Edit] Damn, I wished I payed more attention before posting. Anyway, some of it may be usefull.

So did you manage to send it in before the deadline CJ?

I hope it'll get in. But then, one of my buddies tried to put it on his
server and it kind of crashed it. Probably too damn big. So even if it
does make it, I doubt Valve will even be able to playtest this. Hey, at
least I tried! :smile:

Damn straight!

Oh well, after the playtesting for mine it turns out some parts of the
design are pretty much crap, and I didn't get a chance to change them.
But, what can they expect from a months worth of work, particularly
when people are learning a new engine and editing tools/methods.

Wow. The map looks great! I really like it, it fits the canals theme well.

I just played through your map and I must say it was very nice.
You really were able to show me what was going on. I loved the
teleport and the little secret bases hidden near the combine outpost
type area. It all felt authentic.

I think it is a bit too big for a deathmatch though. I am pretty
sure that I could have wandered around for quite some time and not see
an enemy. I dont need to point out things like the double door,
and water, etc. I dont think you should of had the air boats,
while they are really cool I dont think the guns work right in
multi-player.

Nice map, but it crashes linux, mappers should always test their maps on linux, considering any serious game server provider uses linux to run its systems, i rent a popular public server, i added this to the rotation lastnight and it crashed, a linux fix would do this map great justice

Thanks for the bug info. I currently have no idea why it crashes Linux, but I assume it has something to do with the large size of the map. I'll make a fix reasonably soon.

Well, it's not like every mapper has ready access to a Linux server.....

In any case, that's a damn fine map there, junkie. I'll be sure to nab this one when it's 100%

Wow I tlooks awesome, I haven't played it yet, but this map crushes my dismal efforts =/

This is my new favorite HL2DM map. Reminds me of Chaocity3 (one of my favorite maps for HL1), except taken to the next level! I'm glad the massive map style hasn't died with HL2.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting mazemaster</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>This is my new favorite HL2DM map. Reminds me of Chaocity3 (one of my favorite maps for HL1), except taken to the next level! I'm glad the massive map style hasn't died with HL2. </DIV></DIV>

there were/are a lot of great maps, a lot of big maps and a lot of great big maps, but chaocity 3 is not among them. its big alright, but plays like a brick in a wall of cement.

it was one of those maps that had a following, or groupy mindset, but hardly one i would classify as champion material.

i tried once to critique it. the author was... not very receptive to my views. perhaps it colored my view of it, perhaps not.
i never figured you for a choas groupy maze :/

It takes a certain style of player to like that map. It is one of my favorite maps and yet I can completely understand why someone would hate it.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting mazemaster</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>It takes a certain style of player to like that map. It is one of my favorite maps and yet I can completely understand why someone would hate it. </DIV></DIV>

i hope you know, i meant no disrespect to you personally. i have found you to be a superior mapper in all respects. i just found it strange is all.

i know mapping. i never understood the killboxers, nor this maps fame either, but i do know they are still popular despite my confusion.
my apologies if i said anything... tactless.

I couldn't find out how to open the water gates... wierd.

I really like alote of the architecture. Very nice stuff. I think its a tad big for a DM level. But its full of eye candy, which i love.

My framerate dropped in a few spots below 25. My framerate seemed to get worse as the game went on, due to the fact that the airboats seem to be generating log errors.

Nice looking map nonetheless.

:smile:

Generally looks great but is just too big tbh. The main outside area is enormous and doesn't run particularly well and could do with optimising/simplifying/reducing in scope.

tbh though, I think you could split the map in half, improve connectivity and add more detailing, then release it as two maps.

That would be nice but i prefer huge maps!

As long as they dont lag too much!

Without question it looks fabulous, but I'm pretty sure it is just too large for the 14-16 person servers to want to run it....it won't give enough player action to be popular. My recommendation would be to cut at least 1/3 of the map which I know will make you cringe. Then you need to figure out why it won't run on servers...heh!

I would also lose the airboat...doesn't belong in a DM map, unless you have it as a fixed model being serviced. Not sure if the valve is opening the gate, or of what use that opening gate really is in a DM map.

There are a number of mounting ladder problems (at bottom of ladder), and texture mismatches. Weapons/ammo/items need to be improved (need more). Even still, it breaks new ground in mapping creativity and beauty.

Maybe I'll make it into a single player map?

By all means. I can already envision the wonderful gameplay it potentially carries.

Apologies for this thread necromancy, but I'm open-sourcing Firth. Rip
it apart, see how the teleporter or canal-locks work, whatever you
want. Have at it.

http://snarkpit.com/pits/campaignjunkie/firth/dm_firth_b6.zip

You may now let this thread sink to the abyss. Thank you.