Competition Screens and Comments

Well I've got a little bit of mapping spirit left in me, so I'm gonna have a crack at a nice terrain based cavern tonight, with a little bit of techy stuff thrown in for good measure...only because the concept art says I have to :biggrin:

Adam, I am loving your pyramid map, more so than your castle map even. I can't wait to see it ingame, tis lurvly from the screenshots.

Fraggard, I like that first screenshot, although the roof being flat looks out of place against the other nice brushwork. Rather than making your supports and whatnot simply meet up with the ceiling, try making them part of the ceiling itself. The second ceiling is kind aaverage - and that window ruins it for me, just looking out at the skybox like that just screams out "I need SOMETHING here, and don't know what!". I like your lighting though, its nice to see lots of light fixtures around the place. You could try using light_spots on those circular spotlights perhaps, they normally improve looks with their lovely circular goodness :smile:

ReNo said:
Fraggard, I like that first screenshot, although the roof being flat looks out of place against the other nice brushwork. Rather than making your supports and whatnot simply meet up with the ceiling, try making them part of the ceiling itself.

I'll try out that particular method, but I was experimenting with a "ridged" roof. Let's see what comes out of that

The second ceiling is kind aaverage - and that window ruins it for me, just looking out at the skybox like that just screams out "I need SOMETHING here, and don't know what!".

 That's quite true. And the ceiling is still being worked on. ATM, it looks odd with that chimney sticking out at random...

I like your lighting though, its nice to see lots of light fixtures around the place. You could try using light_spots on those circular spotlights perhaps, they normally improve looks with their lovely circular goodness :smile:

I am using light_spots (hehe) Methinks I need to adjust the spread and such to get a better effect.

 

I need greater engine powers, and be able to add cool music to me levels, I prefer to play guitar than map nowadays so maybe I can combine the two...

  :kitty:

Its really coming along nice Kornflakes but that thing outside the right window is dark and awkward. Nice textures btw

KoRnFlakes said:

hmm, you no changed much since i critiqued :razz:

still i love this theme.. i am really hoping to see it completed...

duncan, yer really starting to worry me m8.....you are one tof the most talented people i know in this field, and ya better get used to it..... :wink: you do things with this setup that are only dreamed on by most of us....you have the highest respect from your peers, and are widely regarded in the community....'course i dont get out much.... :heee:    so get on it.....buying you a hooker with a health card do ya any help??.. 

get on with it mate......ill do one for the competion solely if you do.....you can do a "good/bad" class on it afterwards....  :heee:

korny, thats a hella nice lookin set going there man...gj i wanna see/play it when its done....i like the embience.....lends to much game play sneakiness...

fraggard, i didnt forget ya man....im especially fond of the lighting in your shots....the use of the full vertical resesses in the one is a genius stroke....well done....

i think the lights would be enhanced by a few different textures behind them though, imho....but then again, i'd like to see more to develope a better "feel" for the map...gj sir.... :wink:

Spazz...wth is that thing gonna be??.....looks like a cool start ....to something man....woot!  :heee:

sincerely.....

Doc B..... :dodgy:

Reno's the man!

Korn stuff looks good, main critique though is the lighting, it's really dark and you have a lot of light fixtures. I'd suggest doubling up the white fixtures on the floor on the ceiling, maybe have a few turned off just for style :smile: The red and blue lights are also barely noticeable. I'd suggest losing one of the colours, probably the blue as it's blue outside and increasing the brightness of the red to create a nice contrast.

Looking good though, coming along well. Keep on trucking.

Who teh fark is Duncan? Reno?

 

Myrk- said:
Who teh fark is Duncan? Reno?

 

if you plan on partaking in our conversations mate, please try to keep up :biggrin:

duncan=reno

mike=gollum

nick=mazemaster

jon=orpheus

dave=alien_sniper

andrew=KFS

???=yak_fighter .. yes i know his real name, but i gave my word never to disclose it..

there are lots whom use their real names on occation :razz:

Ha! maybe I should give out my real name just for general entertainment :biggrin:

It's not that funny though, just unusual.

I'm sure we can find some way to laugh at it :razz:

Possibly to become my contest entery, I just started it today, but I don't know if I'll have any time to finnish. I've no idea what's wrong with that skymap

Orpheus said:

Myrk- said:
Who teh fark is Duncan? Reno?

 

if you plan on partaking in our conversations mate, please try to keep up :biggrin:

duncan=reno

mike=gollum

nick=mazemaster

jon=orpheus

dave=alien_sniper

andrew=KFS

???=yak_fighter .. yes i know his real name, but i gave my word never to disclose it..

there are lots whom use their real names on occation :razz:

gwil = gwil. oh wait, thats just the same! shakes angry fist at foolish parents for cursing me with stupid name :razz:

you know, i just noticed that the warning message lep posted for image sizes isn't included in the reply window, just the new post one :sad:

think it note worthy to put into the bugs thread gwil?

yeah put it in, more of a suggestion than a bug but definitely needs to be addressed :smile:

sorry... I did remember to compress though.

 

I run 1600x1200 0n my laptop so It's easy to forget.

[edit] Better? [edit]

thank you tb...even my broadband thanx you...

Dr Brasso... :dodgy:

Better, much better :smile: Any chance of looking at the newer compile with the new textures? the architechture looks nice, albeit a little bland - hopefully the new textures will spruce it up a bit!

perhaps more support beams, windows and a definate increase in detail on the outdoor areas - those textures for the rocks and the grass/path are UGLY.

there you go. I'm thinking of totaly redoing the path. I also need to find a good texture for the roof.

I think your problem with the sky is that the creator mislabeled all the pieces. Your skyname_lt is probably actually skyname_rt. Open all the pieces up in photoshop or something and rearrange em around until you line em up. I had to do this with a dl'd skymap once. It's slightly tedious, but a relief when it starts working properly.

I thought it must be somthing like that. I'm thinking of changeing the setting anyway. I have a good sunset map that I may use. I don't want to go through relableing everything.

Kapten Ljusdal = Meee

aww KL, what happened to the old avatar? that one was awsome

[simg] http://cjmaps.hlgaming.com/contest/newconcept1.jpg[/simg]

[simg] http://cjmaps.hlgaming.com/contest/newconcept2.jpg[/simg]

Crackerjack said:
[simg] http://cjmaps.hlgaming.com/contest/newconcept1.jpg[/simg]

[simg] http://cjmaps.hlgaming.com/contest/newconcept2.jpg[/simg]

ahhh damn, you really didn't see my critique before snarkpit v3 went down didja? :sad:

you really need to slep me the link to this..

juuuuust to make everyone just that much less nervous, a little diddy i whipped up today just to get back in the spirit.....not textured, not finished, just a slight inspiration........so lite on the s**t please guys.... :heee:

[simg]http://www.snarkpit.com/pits/dr brasso/alex_ns_build_030000.jpg[/simg]

this is the sludge collection point...

Dr Brasso... :dodgy:

everyone should feel real good about their efforts about now.... :wink:

aaaaaaaaand as soon as i figure out wtf went wrong with my pics, ill get em out there straight away... :heee:

Doc B... :beerchug:

aaaaaand, here we go.....

[simg]http://www.snarkpit.com/pits/dr brasso/alex_ns_build_030003.jpg[/simg]

one for the road....

[simg]http://www.snarkpit.com/pits/dr brasso/alex_ns_build_030004.jpg[/simg]

pretty cool m8, I like the way its very enclosed / abandoned.

Tracer bullet - get some higher-res, greater contrast textures, a darker skymap, some rocks and plants, less light bounces, and you will have a winner.

Good stuff Doc - it looks really detailed, but the R's will probably be fine since it's a corridor :smile:

Gollum said:
Good stuff Doc - it looks really detailed, but the R's will probably be fine since it's a corridor :smile:

i might add doc, you have come a very long way, and are apparently a very good pupil.. my hats off to you.. these screens look top rate..

 

/me bows deeply to sensai's mike, jon, reno, and squirrely.... :biggrin:

I NEED A NEW TEXTURE SET!!!.....KORNYYYYY!!!!  GWILLLIAM!!!!   CASS!!!!!   HEP ME HEP ME!!! 

btw, the inspiration has basicly been thrust back in due to flashbacks from the early "rolling boulder" days...

Dr Brasso... :dodgy:

Cripes, my rolling boulder seems to be infiltrating all sorts of threads.  I don't understand what you meant though Doc (probably just being dumb....it's been a long day).

continues plan to saturate The Pit with boulder-related madness

well, plain and simply, i was remenising on the days back when you were actually planning this, whilst reading another boulder related thread (could he really be plottng this??... ) and i decided to load up hammer and have a go...just see what came to mind.....lite inspiration/motivation....may be strange, but, wth.....

Doc B.... :dodgy:

Jesus Doc, every time you post something new its 5 times better than last, and considering the first one I ever saw was far better than your experience level should have allowed, I'd say you truly are one of the fastest learning mappers I've ever had the pleasure of being aquianted with :smile: Tone down the general light level of the corridor and bump up the intensity of the coloured ones more and that room will look even spinkier!

Hmmm, I think I've changed my mind. The overall lighting looks suitable, I think the orange light fixtures are just too big or something.

I started a new one last night, here are a couple of pics...





Unfortunately, while I am quite happy with the rockwork (which took a rather long time!), ingame it ended up looking rather crappy in my opinion. I've also hit max clipnodes, although that is probably because for my test compile I encased it in a big skybox. Anyways, I think I'm gonna condemn this one and start afresh on yet another new map!

its the texture that lets it down m8, but I think you can do much more creative things than that m8, GL With another map.

Strangely enough this was the texture that suited it best - I tried loads of ground/rock combinations and this was my favourite. Some of the generally nicer rock textures tended to show up the complex geometry and make it look very triangled rather than smooth like I wanted it :sad:

jesus h. christ reno.....how could you not be at least....inspired... by your work.....damn good stuff m8....

doc B.... :dodgy:

The rockwork looks really nice but I agree with KoRnFlakes about the textures :smile: Mainly the rock texture really.

Not entirely sure what you could do about it though if the other textures you tried showed the triangles too much. I like the theme in that area - can almost see myself jumping onto the rock in the middle while trying to show off, and then getting slaughtered because i'm shockingly poor at DM :biggrin:

Reno, just turn automatic Sky Clipping off in CSG if you're going to be lazy and use a giant box.

mazemaster said:
Tracer bullet - get some higher-res, greater contrast textures, a darker skymap, some rocks and plants, less light bounces, and you will have a winner.

Rocks and plants are planned, but I'm haveing trouble finding textures... I've only got one light bounce. (that's default isn't it?)

 Does anybody have some good links for outdoor textures? I've been looking around, (wadfather and such) but havn't found anything I really like.

Oh, and very nice looking stuff Dr. B

And Reno how long did all that rockwork take? :eek:

TBH I reckon you should finish that map, reminds me of bounce, one of the best MP maps ever!

ReNo said:
Strangely enough this was the texture that suited it best - I tried loads of ground/rock combinations and this was my favourite. Some of the generally nicer rock textures tended to show up the complex geometry and make it look very triangled rather than smooth like I wanted it :sad:

You could always alter the rocks color to give it more of a unique feel, would escape the abused/over used look most standard hl textures have (been used a million times)

I like the look of your map DR, reminds me of the halls in unreal2, near the generator (after the kid gets killed when he runs out of the control room)

Maybe I'll post some screens of my entry, I'll see what I have.

Ok, here ya go.   The map is currently titled "Forest Rats".   Although I could easily alter a few things and you would just be in a forest with massive trees, rather than being "rat sized".

A few things to note:

jumping on the mushrooms makes a frog noise and bounces you into the air (each have various pitch alterations for a variety of frog sounds)

There are a bunch of abient forest sounds that are compleatly random and add to the enviroment nicely

The models where custom made for the map by qUiCkSiLvEr (not the one who on occation posts here but anouther rather).

Heres a couple pics (most of you guys have already seen this map previously)







 

Unique to say the least :smile:  .

 

I have always thought of this map or style (not sure if this is the second you have done like this) as being really unique and mystical, I like it :razz:

 

Where is the concept art though?

For the concept art I scanned some of my design sketchs, I still need to work on them in photoshop.