dm_cliff

I like the way you made it look like the wires are holding that platform thingy on the first pic, but whats with the black props on the second pic?

I have two sections as it stands. The one you see in the screen
shot is the entrance to a large indoor storage area, and the second
picture is from the visitor cafeteria.

I'm thinking about having a small foot bridge or maybe train tracks
that span the gap. I want to focus the fighting on the out side
areas to increse the risk of falling :wink: .

I'll have some more content soon.

i highly recommend you dload this map
not to tell you how to map, but to suggest scale and what works and what doesn't
its one of my favorite maps so far, if only it had been optimized a bit, i suffer some frame loss playing it.
still, with your compulsion to BIG MAPS, i feel its prudent i point you to a smaller map of the same general theme.
feel free to say "screw you" just any time.

Its going to be quite small, as real brush geometry goes. I'm
going to makes most of the cliff and rock part of the sky box.
I'm going to keep fps very high, it may look vast but its just a
handfulll of displacement maps.

It's nice to see a different layout for a DM map once in a while. I like the idea, and I think it'll be an excellent map when it's done.

Its comming along very nice, I just added the kitchen and it has a nice
little trap. There is a freezer door that is opened by turning a
switch, in side the freezer is an AR2, plasma balls, and alot of
health. But the longer the player stays in the freezer the more
damage he takes, and the door shuts after a few seconds.

Its comming along very nice, I just added the kitchen and it has a nice
little trap. There is a freezer door that is opened by turning a
switch, in side the freezer is an AR2, plasma balls, and alot of
health. But the longer the player stays in the freezer the more
damage he takes, and the door shuts after a few seconds.

Gotta love the doubling damage type :smile:

I hope you figure out the compile problem soon, I want to playtets both
our maps! My favorite screen so far is the canyon shot. I
can't really tell whats going on in the other two. What types of
weapons have you included?

DrGlass said:
Its comming along very nice, I just added the kitchen and it has a nice little trap. There is a freezer door that is opened by turning a switch, in side the freezer is an AR2, plasma balls, and alot of health. But the longer the player stays in the freezer the more damage he takes, and the door shuts after a few seconds.

Open door + grav pull all of it = trap subverted.

Everything looks good, except for the cliff wall texture, sure its fine
to use, but vary the way eveything looks. Maybe place some other
displacements with different rock textures on them to draw away from
the dull brown rock face.

just using the screens as a reference: you are falling into the trap of giving more attention in detail to one area, and ignoring another.

the outside shows much more detail than the inside portion. give equal time to each.

did you look at the example map i posted? its all or mostly all outside, but the attention to detail extended from top of cliff to bottom. equal details were displayed throughout the map.

just using the screens as a reference: you are falling into the
trap of giving more attention in detail to one area, and ignoring
another.
the outside shows much more detail than the inside portion. give equal time to each.

did you look at the example map i posted? its all or mostly all
outside, but the attention to detail extended from top of cliff to
bottom. equal details were displayed throughout the map.

I'm having a huge problem compiling my map, once I do I'll post some
screens of the inside area, those screens are quite old.

I think the inside detail will be good, though right now I havn't gone through and added the finishing touch just yet.

[Edit] oh, yeah the cliff texture... I'll see what I can do, but there
is just not many choices and I dont know if I can make a good texture,
I'll try once I'm done with the rest of the map.

New media. I think I have found my problem, if that is fixed all
I will need to do is re-place the wepons and fix some lighting.

CRY.. SOB.. CRY.. I SUCK.. BOOHOO HOOHOO HOO..

Man why doesnt my stuff ever look that good.

Lose the floor texture (the one with the dots on it), or down scale it. it clashes with the area as is. otherwise, i dearly love the screens, you did very well.

The first new screen is great. I really like it. More comments later.

Thank you.

money: thats about 5-6 years of mapping right there, I've been doing
this for quite some time and only recently have I gotten any good at it.

orph: ok, I'll see if I can find a better floor. Thanks

morph: thanks

Seems to be a nice map - keep on working!

DrGlass said:
money: thats about 5-6 years of mapping right there, I've been doing this for quite some time and only recently have I gotten any good at it.

it shows. it's looking better than your city map.

great work

DrGlass said:
money:
thats about 5-6 years of mapping right there, I've been doing this for
quite some time and only recently have I gotten any good at it.

it shows. it's looking better than your city map.

great work

thank you.

DrGlass said:
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quote:</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting DrGlass</DIV>
<div class="quotetext">money: thats about 5-6 years of mapping right there, I've been doing this for quite some time and only recently have I gotten any good at it.

it shows. it's looking better than your city map.

great work

</DIV></DIV>

thank you.
</div></div>

except, the city map wasn't 5-6 years ago..

/runs very fast

</div>

DrGlass said:

DrGlass said:
money: thats about 5-6 years of mapping right
there, I've been doing this for quite some time and only recently have
I gotten any good at it.

it shows. it's looking better than your city map.

great work

thank you.

except, the city map wasn't 5-6 years ago..

/runs very fast

hey! I thought the city map looked pretty good, sure it didn't run well
and the wepon placment was crappy and the skybox sucked... and other
stuff but in my defence that was like 5 days worth of mapping for an
engin I didn't understand yet :wink:

/throws rotten fruit

DrGlass said:
hey! I thought the city map looked pretty good, sure it didn't run well and the wepon placment was crappy and the skybox sucked... and other stuff but in my defence that was like 5 days worth of mapping for an engin I didn't understand yet :wink:

/throws rotten fruit

5 whole days huh

No_Patience took me in excess of 6 weeks workin on it steady to perfect it, and it still was released with a couple bugs.

at the time, I had ... 3+ years worth of WorldCraft experience.

5 days.. /me giggles

DrGlass said:
hey! I thought the city map looked pretty good, sure it
didn't run well and the wepon placment was crappy and the skybox
sucked... and other stuff but in my defence that was like 5 days worth
of mapping for an engin I didn't understand yet :wink:

/throws rotten fruit

5 whole days huh

No_Patience took me in excess of 6 weeks workin on it steady to perfect it, and it still was released with a couple bugs.

at the time, I had ... 3+ years worth of WorldCraft experience.

5 days.. /me giggles

I have high hopes for this map, if I can work out the kinks...

New screens:

Nice pictures!

Oh who am I kidding they are the BEST! I AM GONNA CRY EVERYTIME I LOOK AT MY MAPS!!!

Anyway can you help me master!
I noticed the light rays and I need to know what folder they are in and if they can be resized etc because the ones I use don't fit my map!

Nice pictures!
Oh who am I kidding they are the BEST! I AM GONNA CRY EVERYTIME I LOOK AT MY MAPS!!!

Anyway can you help me master!
I noticed the light rays and I
need to know what folder they are in and if they can be resized etc
because the ones I use don't fit my map!

Effects folder. Turn off shadows and collision. they self animate.

Ok, Download is now up and Beta is out. There are still a few
problems, but I want to test out gameplay before I stress over any more
details.

I'd love to get this on the server for testing. Maybe get some people together monday or sunday.

the issues.

-cubemap/lighting issue in about 4 places

-lighting mistake in lift room

-fade distance problems all over the map

-some sound issues

-smoke goes through the floor in one area

I did a quick run-through. I'm going to be fairly blunt:

• There are light-colors other than red! Use them!
• Framerate is terrible. 20-30 FPS averages in main fighting areas!
  It'll get even worse when there are actually other players. This is
  probably the biggest problem right now, and was a big problem with
  dm_park. (note that I have a fairly high-spec system, and average about
  80 FPS on Overwatch)
  
  </li>
• Lack of landmarks in the hallways. No idea where I was in the
  context of the rest of the map. The rooms are all similar - pipes,
  machine soundscape, red lighting. Dedicate more resources to big
  details that are memorable... In the big picture, all of those little
  brush details don't really matter. (especially when framerate is
  suffering so much!)\</li>
• Less
  hallways! They aren't very interesting to fight in. There's two ends
  and a long stretch of floor in between; not very special.
  
  </li>
• Cliff texture was missing.
  </li>

I did a quick run-through. I'm going to be fairly blunt:

• There are light-colors other than red! Use them!
• Framerate is terrible. 20-30 FPS averages in main fighting areas!
  It'll get even worse when there are actually other players. This is
  probably the biggest problem right now, and was a big problem with
  dm_park. (note that I have a fairly high-spec system, and average about
  80 FPS on Overwatch)
  
  </li>
• Lack of landmarks in the hallways. No idea where I was in the
  context of the rest of the map. The rooms are all similar - pipes,
  machine soundscape, red lighting. Dedicate more resources to big
  details that are memorable... In the big picture, all of those little
  brush details don't really matter. (especially when framerate is
  suffering so much!)\</li>
• Less
  hallways! They aren't very interesting to fight in. There's two ends
  and a long stretch of floor in between; not very special.
  
  </li>
• Cliff texture was missing.
  </li>

I can only think of two places with red lights. I used more dark yellow/env_light than anything.

bah! I'll see what I can do with the fps, I may just cut out the far part of the map.

I cant say I agree with the lack of land marks, other than the red
hallway I felt that it was pretty obviouse where you were though I made
the map so its hard for me to tell. I think I will try and open
up some more of the level so there are less hallways (that was
something I was worried about).

So the Cliff shows up as checker board? I thought I used a HL2 texture! I'll add that to the download right now.

Texture is updated, sorry about that.

eeh, i still get the missing cliff texture checkboard thing, are you using a texture from hl2 or hl2dm?

eeh, i still get the missing cliff texture checkboard thing, are you using a texture from hl2 or hl2dm?

try it again.

Well Doc I had a run round in the beta today and have some commentary that I hope will be helpful.

First it up it looks big but the map is really small, and to be honest,
has a really bad layout. That giant container room, unless I'm missing
something (which I probably am since it was really dark), is simply a
giant dead end, with only one way in, a crossbow, a tonne of ammo, and
numerous dark cracks to camp in. Not to mention the only route across
the gorge is the teleporter, which seriously restricts gameplay. I'd
have to say that I'd focus instead on the main area and get rid of the
crate room. In fact if your worrying about framerate (the fact objects
disappear shortly after throwing them indicates this) I'd not worry
about extending the level to the other side, simply expand the main
area and make the otherside look like the level continues when it
doesn't, meaning you don't see as much detailed geometry at one time.

I think I've mentioned the lighting, it was extremely dark in most
places for me, particularly inside the complex. Brighten it up with
some more natural lighting and some varied artificial lighting.

The general look is pretty good,and you pretty much have the style
down, though I'd recommend placing detail in at least semi-realistic
areas, as some items stood out like sore thumbs where they were. Also
make that big glass area into something, give it some function. If its
just an observation deck then just add some more stuff to give that
impression.

Summing up the biggest stumbling block at this point is definately
the fact that the layout is quite frankly s**t, and should be the focus
rather than the look until its fixed. Obviously its still an early beta
and
has a lot more work to go, but I think most of this stuff could be
easily implemented and will improve your map. Hope it helps.

indeed it does. This my friends is why you should plan your
layout before you start work. Honestly as I made this I
thought... crap this isn't going to work out at all.

Sorry about the brightness, I have a LCD and everything seems great to me.

I think I'm going to take a break for this map, it has been far far too
much trouble and again I think its beyond repair at this point. I
got too caught up in making it that I didn't think about the game play
all that much.

Hey Doc,

I did a run through and took a bunch of shots to give you comments
before I saw that you were going to drop this map. Bottom line is
I really really like the aesthetics of the map. The architecture,
the texturing, the scope of the map in general... these are all things
I liked a lot. Unfortunately like other people have said it's
very very dark. But that can be easily remedied. The connectivity
is poor. But this can be fixed by adding more teleporters (you
already have one in there). The performance was poor on my
computer as well. I'm not sure how you can fix that... as I'm not
very familiar with techniques to increase FPS.

Anyway -- I wanted to show you the shot by shot breakdown just in case you decide to come back to the map.



The first time I spawned it was in the elevator. I walked right
through the grate on the elevator without it opening. Then I
noticed the TV screen and went "ooh, ahh" a moving camera! I
really like this camera effect you had on all your moniters.



The smoke looked funny here as it just sort of... went through the
ceiling. If you added a grate for a vent system or something it
would look better.



Skybox awkwardness.



I wouldn't crouch-walk all the way down there just for the two energy
balls, 1 health thing, and 2 batteries (especially since the batteries
can be picked up in the hallway through the grill). It looks
really nice, but I would make it easier to get in and out of that area.



It's a nitpick but you might want to fix that.



I'm not sure how you would fix the texturing, but it looks weird the way it is.



I really like this area. A lot. It's simple, but curves are sexy.



I can't see a thing. Which is unfortunate because I love the architecture in this area.



This area is really dark, and I wish it was brighter because I liked
the cable hanging from the ceiling as well as the curved architecture
on the ceiling, even though I'm not sure what it was. I think you
captured the cafe feel well though.



I really liked this area as well. It was curved and the shadows
cast by the beams were great. I also like the combine camera
thing flying around. Really great idea. I wish you could
blow it up, even if that meant another one would spawn again somewhere
else.



I really liked the bumpmapped rocks here (at least I think they're
bumpmapped) and it's too bad I couldn't see them without my
flashlight. I like how you integrated the base into the cliff.



I liked the teleporters. Although I think it would help if there
was a unique entrance and exit for each. That would probably
eliminate accidental telefragging. Perhaps you could make the
teleporter entrance on this side all the way inside the crate room
(which is otherwise
a dead end). Also, I think it would be cool if you added a
teleport effect by making the entrance teleport you to a black tunnel
with a high func_push that sent you from end to end with animated
sprites and glowing
stuff that once you reach the end teleports you to the exit to make it
seem like you're actually teleporting and not just popping from one
place to the other. the dm_Air_Hockey m[size=13]ap
that was recently posted here utilizes this to good effect I
think. It's here if you want to check it out:
http://www.snarkpit.net/maps.php?map=1980 [/size]



I LOVED this effect for some reason. I kind of wish it had killed
me the second I touched the beam, instead of the 4 seconds or so that
it took for me to stand there.



I really liked the kitchen. It had a fully developed atmosphere
and was bright. Unfortunately it's nothing more than a glorified
hallway because there are only two entrances. I really like this
room though.



Ok. As you can see, this room desperately needs lights.



Hopefully you can see the smoke from the generator coming through the
floor here. If you add that vent/duct it would eliminate this.



I really liked this hallway because of the rocks behind the grate and
the pipes. I wish there were more lights.. perhaps some hanging ones
linked by cables?



Nitpick. Sorry.



I liked this lightfixture (especially in the red room with the
skylight) but I wish you had made it a func_detail or whatever so I
wouldn't get caught on while running.



I loved this pillar/architecture for some reason.



I loved this area. I wish I could get up there.



I'm beating a dead horse... but maybe you can use these shots to see what needs light, and how much.



I liked the models and props, but I wish the wall was a different color so the pipes would stand out.



I love the fact that you included details like this. The fact
that the monitor is showing your map makes this room much cooler too.



Don't know why that Cafe Baltic sign was hanging there.



I liked this area and the view. I wish there was more light coming in... and I wish it was coming in at an angle.



I had to post this because I like this window area a lot. The breaking glass makes its very interesting.



The prop fadeout got so bad that these pipes were disappearing on me, bit by bit as I got closer and further away.



That rock appears/disappears strangely.



This was another area I loved, and I wish it were brighter.



How am I supposed to get the magnum and the ammo without prop jumping up there?



Dark.



You need a clip brush over the fence, so I can't prop jump over and get my stupid ass stuck on the other side :smile:

[url=http://img64.echo.cx/my.php?image=dmcliff00388lh.jpg][simg]

Thank you, no review is really too negative. I need to hear about
the bad s**t in my maps becuase when you guy so caught up in the
project you cant really see all the flaws. Though I did know
about alot of the prop problems, I didn't relize the lighting was SO
bad.

I dont think I'm going to stress over the map, I like the look of it
and I like the overall feel so I may try and use some parts of the map
later on.

Love the map except I cant see the rock textures outside??? (untextured, and only the rock texture!)

Is my HL corrupted?

Don't be afraid to lower lightmap scales.

Don't be afraid to lower lightmap scales.

I did, I hand most wall and floor light maps at 4 and I think that
caused quite a bit of performance lag. So I bumped most of them
up to 8 or back to 16.

am I wrong to think that lightmaps affect in game fps?

Don't just leave it! This map is cool! Sure the lighting could be improved etc. But that isn't too big a change is it?

In the Freightbox room could you lift the clip up so I could snipe from the tops of the boxes? And add a window maybe....

A very cool map.

Don't just leave it! This map is cool! Sure the lighting could be improved etc. But that isn't too big a change is it?

In the Freightbox room could you lift the clip up so I could snipe from the tops of the boxes? And add a window maybe....

A very cool map.

Thanks for the intrest =) I think I'll come back to this map later, but right now other projects are more important.

Sorry to post after 14 days of inactivity, but I must still insist
you change the cliff texture to something less "bland", or just
add a bunch of prop_wasteland rocks to the wall. You know add some
depth to the cliff faces.

Other wise the interiors look great (maybe a little too dark in a few place) but still good!

---

Posting And You