Melawan

It looks pretty neat but,
is the wood in image 1 beakable??

if so, bon't make it all breakable, becouse it's mess up css gameplay seriously i think, becouse people would be able to just let other fall to death and just get up to a spot and make sure no one can follow,

but it looks good

only the textures are a bit odd , but that will probarbly improve with the map

The parts of the wood not supported by those other wooden pillars is, indeed, breakable.

Ooh well, i'm looking forward to playing a new map, the maps in css are getting a bit dull

and yours is so far looking quite nice

Nice layout, and very smooth

Force, ramps, in an HL2 driven map?

you can do better. hell, i could do better, and i know you are more gifted than i am.

Lol Orph. I might replace them by stairs ... but they look so smooth. ^^

And I'm far from a gifted mapper. Merry Christmas anyway !

So, replaced the ramps by stairs. Looks better now. I also cut the sidewalls a bit, because they also had that "rampy" look.

(This thread started with a problem, which was solved by Reno.)

Now it's the official (ehum :razz: ) thread for CSS_Melawan.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

How did you reach the conclusion that the 3D skybox doesn't support
displacement surfaces? As that conclusion is wrong :smile: I'd probably do a
combo of buildings, walls, gates with roads through them leading out
into the desert, etc...

Lep's tut said this:

First of all, create a few reference objects- such as a large building
or two. It is sometimes a good idea to select the buildings and walls
that surround your map to use as a reference too, so that anything we
build does not "overlap" with what's in the level, and so you can get
scales correct. DO NOT use displacement mapped surfaces as these cannot
be scaled down.

I don't want them to be huge :razz: Of course, I could try and make a very small set of dunes, but I'd prefer another way.

you can scale them down! in the displacemnt surface properties set the SCALE tag to 16 like the rest of your skybox!

Ooh, thanks a lot. I'm going to try that.

And some gates would be cool too, thanks Reno.

Now just ignore this thread until I can release this one :razz: (at my tempo: another twenty years. And I'm only 17. :-( )

Is it time yet, Mr. Forceflow? :biggrin:

Anyway, dismaps are quite versatile for me. You can even translate them (or however that sort of brush manipulating is called).

As for the skybox, does some sort of canyon with instant-death falling
damage to prevent players from wandering off too far fit in your map? :smile:

You should probably put walls around the map in a ROUNDED, FREEFORM SHAPE. Then to brak up the "wall repetition" make part of the wall fallen in and crumbling. make it so you can see out into the desert hills which will be your 3d-skybox-camera-box thing(just eye candy) then just make it impossible to get out there by using a clip brush. Is this making sense? Put walls and a road going past the main part of the map with a gate on either end of the road, that will break up the walls a bit on either side, then just find some interesting things to do with the rest of it.

It does make sense, Nickelplate. I took a screenshot that shows an overview on how the map edges look now.

If I have things right, this should work: I place a camera entity at my
origin, and copy this entity with the edges of my map (the walls you
see now, for example)

I place this group - scaled down to 1/16 or something in a small skybox
outside of my actual map. Then, I surround these smaller walls by
displacement surfaces and perhaps some buildings. Then I delete the
outer walls I copied into my smaller skybox, and the original camera entity.

So this should work ?

from what i gather from what you're saying, it should work perfectly. Now you just need to make your walls detailed and fun. Which i am sure you'll be able to do. I can't wait to play this one. Is this your contest submission?

Errr, its for CS:S foo :razz:

dammit! shudup. I knew that.... Shudup! you're a foo.... butt...man...

oy...

It's indeed, for CS:S, and even if it was allowed to send in CS:S maps, I wouldn't have a chance.

I might release a HL:DM version too, because in fact, I'm just making a Counterstrike Deathmatch map. (like "dlroweci_yf" - horresco referens, but
waay better than just 4 ugly blocks and a s**tload of weapons.) It
could work in HL:DM mode too, but I'll have to redo some
architecture for some good weapon placement.

Anyway, first this one to finish.

And Reno, I was indeed wrong. The 3d skybox does support displacement surfaces.

The brushwork and lighting are both really excellent judging from the screenshots. I'm glad to see a map that doesn't rely on inserting a bunch of prop_physics all over the place to impress people. The only thing that looks dodgy is perhaps the lightmap size on some of the faces with lots of shadow. Anyway, keep up the good work.

All of the recent screenies were done with VIS setting on Fast, so that could be the odd lighting problem some faces have. When the map is done, I'll do a full, but for the moment, I don't have the time to wait an hour

Shakes the dust off

Woojay ! Updates !

I've been off mapping for a while (work, ...)

and due to the snarkpit hosting problems and the slow connection to the
pit (every page needs 5-6 seconds to load ... ) I haven't been here for
a time.

Anyway, here are the new screens. You other source-mappers on the pit
will be way ahead of me concerning techniques & tricks, but hey ...
I'm just a lazy mapper. Links to full screenshots (these have been resized):

http://www.snarkpit.net/pits/forceflow/fy_source0027.jpg

http://www.snarkpit.net/pits/forceflow/fy_source0028.jpg

http://www.snarkpit.net/pits/forceflow/fy_source0029.jpg

Update time. The first shot is a new one, I'm planning on doing a
market-kind of thing for the CT spawn. (Skybox will be changed ... it's
too happy.)

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

Looks ok I think, but overall too similar in color and lighting. Adding
some middle-east tapestry(? - tapijten), perhaps old and dusted and
broken, would be good I think. If you can find an alpha-blending sand
texture for your dismaps, that would be good too. It's too similar
right now.

What's it going to be? A ruined middle-east village, or more of an old capital/palace thing?

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Some kind of ruined middle-east temple complex.

It looks a bit repetitive now, I know. I'll be adding props (not too
much) and details (like "tapijten") when the architecture is done.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

Ah, ok. First working on the layout seems to work better for me, too.

If it's a temple complex, then that car and a market seem a little out
of place to me, unless you're adding a village part to it. If not, a
digging site might be nice. :smile:

Keep it up. :smile:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Here's a new shot of the part I'm doing right now:



The lighting isn't right yet, that's because of the left building -
which should transform into a shop once I'm ready with it) is still
roofless.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

All I can say is don't be afraid to up the brush count a bit. Especially with cylinders. Unless the excuse you'd use is that you don't want to work with more edges.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

It's alright, but it really needs better lighting and a skybox.

And as Crono said, a little roundness would look nice.

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I seem to have done toilet on your floor

K, I'm adding rounded corners right now.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer