Dm_Alcatraz

/me is astounded. which pics are map and which are real?

Hi all im getting concept art and ideas together for my ultimate map project.

ive had a good look at some images of Alcatraz, u know the prison island, and well i reckon its perfect for a dm level or even a cs level, its gonna be a big one tho, probly best suited for a full server of players.

Its gonna have everything alcatraz has pretty much and plenty of inside and outside areas to navigate, its gonna have that errie looking watchtower overlooking the island, strangely looks a lot like the one from DM_island17.

Any help with this bad boy would be welcome, and any comment on what you guys wanna see etc. Ps, id love to know how the watchtower from island17 was made cos im gonna have summat similiar, mebbe not as high tho.

Well im gonna get crackin, wish me luck.

UncleSte.

Lol I thougt the pictures were actualy in game shots at first :S
The island17 map vmf is out in the interent so you can see how it was done.

Definitely an ambitious project. If you're going to go through
with this you'll have to make sure you do a bang-up job because people
will immediately compare your map to lockdown. I hope you focus
more on what makes alcatraz, alcatraz ( the lighthouse, the outside
areas, the island setting... ) and not just the prison areas
inside. In other words, instead of trying to beat lockdown at
what it does so well (creating ambience, capturing the prison setting
perfectly) I say try to offer a gameply experience different from
lockdown. If this means focusing on the outside more, then go for
it.

Anyway good luck with this!

Yes make a lighthouse similar to Valves one perhaps and the outside will be a huge task to perform so goodluck!

Man, I hate it when a maps comments are moved to the forums.. They never seem to make it.

Now, answer my original question. Which of the screens are map, and which are real?

Hehe unfortunately none of the screeners are game footage there all pics of the real alcatraz, the good thing for me is the valve set of textures and props should cover this perfectly, it does look like hl2 textureset a bit dont it. yeah im gonna focus on the outside area as much as inside i think, im not gonna have the whole prison complex inside, maybe a couple of big open hallways with cells, and a few others then do the outside.

Im goping through hell with hammer atm, im trying to start the displacement for the island to get my setting and scale right, trouble is ive tryed clipping out my shape then tryed to displace and hammer goes mwha at me :sad:

Back to the drawing board uncleste, but i shall succeed mwuahhaha :biggrin:

UncleSte.

iom going on a tour for band to san francisco for the jr. high band in granite bay (olympus) we will either be touring alcatraz or going around it with a ferry, i try and talk pics and e-mail em' to u.

my email is crapinabottle@hotmail.com

good luck on your map

CrapinaBottle said:
we will either be touring alcatraz or going around it with a ferry, i try and talk pics and e-mail em' to u.

my email is crapinabottle@hotmail.com

good luck on your map

any pics you get of the island need to go here please

CrapinaBottle said:
iom going on a tour for band to san francisco for the jr. high band in granite bay (olympus) we will either be touring alcatraz or going around it with a ferry, i try and talk pics and e-mail em' to u.

my email is crapinabottle@hotmail.com

good luck on your map

i meant to say was: i'll try and take pics and e-mail em' to u.

sure
i'll be going there next friday

Wish those were screens.

The trick to building a lighthouse or any other semi-complicated building is to build it in a separate .vmf file and tweak it until its the way you like it, and only then copy it back into your map.

Basically I made an 8 sided arch with a wall-width of 8 for the outside of the lighthouse, and then moved all the verticies onto grid lines. Then I used the arch tool again to make a spiral staircase, and cut holes in the walls with the clip tool to make the windows. Be sure to only cut holes in the walls that are not angled, or else you are in for a world of hurt trying to get everything aligned in Hammre. The .vmf is here, you can take a look:
http://www3.hmc.edu/~nalger/dm_island17_vmf.zip

Everything to do with the lighthouse is in the "lighthouse" vis group, so I suggest you hide everything except the lighthouse and terrain vis groups so that the map doesn't lag your computer.

I noticed you mentioned building the island first, then the buildings.
I'd actually recommend doing it the other way around, as the
displacement work is going to be rather complex.

Unlike UT2003-4 which allows you to cut holes through terrain to allow
passages and things, HL2 doesn't let you do that. The only way to get
around it is by using smaller displacements and joining them up,
leaving blank spaces where buildings and tunnels and things need to go.
That being said, creating the entire island first before the buildings
will be a tremendous waste of time, because chances are you will have
to re-do most, if not all your displacements to fit the man made
structures.

I'd recommend actually assembling the layout of the island, that is the
outline of the island, key buildings and things, to scale using simple
blocks as representations till every thing is in the right place. Then
build your buildings and other man made structures. Once they are done,
then create the displacement maps around the buildings.

Trust me, it will save you huge amounts of time and will also result in
less errors in the future, a lesson I learnt the hard way in dm_Hydro.

wow wish that was real game.At first i thought it was a real map

Here's a floorplan I found online...

http://www.notfrisco2.com/alcatraz/maps/celhaus.html

Ohh thats nice.. that should help him a lot.