Surf_Swej

Post

I have to say it looks quite different from all the CS:S maps out
there. It's also very good looking, and the architecture is
surrealistic.

I like your creativity and thinking outside the box.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

this bloke blatantly has a tendancy to put a swan on his head & call himself salvador. Very weird indeed.

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My Pit

#4.

Would have been 5 but, I reserve those for truly horrific maps.

I think we should come up with a whole bunch of names for these type maps.

So far we have:
1) Killbox's
2) Killcircles
3) Now we have this map, a "Killskybox"

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There is no history until something happens, then there is.

Horrible texture choices in my opinion, but there is some pretty
creative architecture in there. Or at least I think there is - thats a
crappy screenshot style you've got going :razz:

I've never played a surf map before, don't even know how it works
really, but I guess by their very nature its hard to do one that is
really good looking. I don't quite know how you hit upon the word
"beautiful" to describe this to be honest - it may well be creatively
designed and quite distinct, but it's no oil painting.

I'd go with non-directional textures that aren't so obnoxious when used
over such large surfaces if I were you. I'd also suggest adding some
trims around the edges - if it's quite distinctly different to the
"bulk" texture you use then it will help bring out the shapes and
define their shape better too.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

This map was designed to give people more chances to surf when they fall off the map. It spawns you in a room where there is a trigger hurt, you walk to a button and open up two glass doors. The hurt is there to kill off the people who have already been hurt a few times. SO, if you suck at surfing then you have more opportunity to learn. PLUS, there is an AIM map at the bottom of the level.

It looks like it's swapped together in a few days. Surrealistic, yes,
but even then it could be made more visually stunning. Right now it's
just some combine-metal textured surf brushes and a few more weird objects.

For surf maps, wouldn't it be much better to give it an actual 'surf'
theme? Some sort of transparant wave-textured brushes, with beach and
wood platform parts in between? At least something different than the
standard metal theme...

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

To be more informative on my part:

There is a map sort of like this one and if I can find it again, I will post a link. The only complaint that I had about it was its gargantuan download size. There was absolutely no way to run it online in a server because it was just not realistic. I am not saying this one will follow suit, but it is a consideration when creating this style of map.

I do not usually play these styles of map because I truly hate maps where falling off of things is an ever present situation. However, if done well, it can entice.

As to this map, the texture choices are currently its most obvious shortfall. One can have maps of this nature and never use the same texture more than once. I always found it difficult to understand how people can envision maps so well, but cannot texture them worth a damn.

I will go look for that other map. I may not be able to get a link, but if I can find the name, then you can look for it and possibly find it and then you will have a model of what this kind of map should look like when you complete it.

Surfing may be a different playing style than the map I am referring to, but architecturally, its similar.

BRB

[edit]

Look here

This is what a great platform map should look like. As I said, its only shortfall was its 40 meg, unzipped file size. It was just to unrealistic to place on any server. Even zipped its a fair sized file.

Use it as a model for your results.

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There is no history until something happens, then there is.

I played a surf map once before, but i didnt really get it, its a big
killbox with slopes so you can fall and die...i dont know whats the
point of that map, but maybe im just not getting it..about this map, i
like the architicture and designs..

Rated: Good

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.::Dark|Masta::. - One name. One legend.

Rated: Fair

It still needs a lot of chiselling, especially when it comes to
texturing. It's pretty intersting to look at, though it gives me a
nasty sensation of randomness, the kind of feeling you have looking at
someone's first attempts at mapping.

Every time I see a poll of this nature I cannot help thinking that one must throw out the high and low scores.

firstly because, a map like this could never be considered excellent by anyone unless they are biased in some way.

secondly, on the opposite extreme, it could not be considered terrible for the same reasons. It compiled, and it appears to be error free in spite of its ugliness.

One has to wonder the reasons for the votes though. They must have had interesting experiences to encourage the options.

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There is no history until something happens, then there is.

I'm considering posting the beta so people can actually open it and see the work i've done in a more blown up porportion. This map certainly is no kill box, I designed it so KDRs are postive! I know how to texture well, I made a map of my school where I made 60 different custom textures and used every last one. There is a scheme to the textures I used, plus with an env_cubemap.. the textures look quite hott. I'll definitely make this map downloadable in a few minutes.

START THE DOWNLOAD! I appreciate anyone who takes this map for a spin, hopefuly the big picture inclines anyone in a more postive direction. And I did optmize this map, i've played it on a atleast 6 other computers, I beta tested this map on my server and other users have no problem running it. See for yourself, thanks!

TRIPOD = GAY, i'm trying to host somewhere else

Voted: <span style="color: orange;">Fair

I like some of the complex geometry.
Your texturing however is repetitive. Here's a rule of thumb,
rarely should the floors, walls, or ceilings of any room be textured
the same.

Otherwise, you seem to be learning well, keep up the work.

</span>

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Dark_Kilauea
DVS Administration
http://www.dvstudio-production.com/

It's not the learning I have a problem with, I should show you my other maps. I textured the walls and the ceilings the same because i wanted the textures to be "coherent", I did not want there to be so many different textures everywhere. Mainly anything you stand on is blue, and mostly things you surf on are white. There are some exceptions such as the boxes in the AIM map part, I wanted an alternating theme. I guess my theme failed. If you are worried that I don't know how to texture correctly just IM me on AOL and i'll show you some of my other work. This map took me 3 weeks to build, it is optimized and teams are very fair.

I find surf maps quite entertaining for a while...
Your map at first stunned me not cause of the metal but the mountain textures look good...Are they HL2 default? Anyway your displacements are good and the metal blends well...

My only negative is your name made of brushes...Looks weird.

Ok, I'm just going to say this because of 2 reasons. 1) I'm friends
with Swej, and 2) Because I dont think you guys are getting the concept
of the map.

A surf map is a map that has slope for you to... slide on. If you hold
the opposite direction then you can stay on it and slide, and if anyone
one here has played a surf map then youd get the picture.

http://www.csbanana.com/?section=viewlist.maps.maps.main.56

There is a whole genre of maps like this (im saying this because most
of you play HL2DM). It is either hated, or loved by people. Not a lot
of people a in the middle about it, some people like habboi think they
are good fun for a bit.

Now, compared to other surf maps, this map is very well done. Stop
complaining about the texturing, your not supposed to texture surf maps
correctly/good. And it seems he took the time to do it anyway.

Rated: Good

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http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/8521/windows981dk.jpg

Nickelplate is my dad

Why shouldn't such fun maps look good too? It'd definitely be a
winner... it might actually attract more people to fun-maps, rather
than sticking to bad-looking ones for the sake of it and never breaking
through that mind-setting.

Some people like to see something nice while having fun, you know... :smile:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Alright, i really downloaded the map, its quite surprising that this map, encouraged me to like surf maps O.o !!

I liked it, it was really fun, i love it lol..

But hey, there are some places that are hard to reach, for example, in
the first slope, when you go down, you should go right, there are like
3 triangles for you to jump on, i had some hard time reaching the last,
and the one that goes up to the ring, its really hard to go up with no
HIGH speed..

Fix these and this map will be fun and superb :biggrin:

Overall, nice map, im looking to download the map when you're 100% done :biggrin:

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.::Dark|Masta::. - One name. One legend.

Underdog said:
To be more informative on my part:

There is a map sort of like this one and if I can find it again, I will post a link. The only complaint that I had about it was its gargantuan download size. There was absolutely no way to run it online in a server because it was just not realistic. I am not saying this one will follow suit, but it is a consideration when creating this style of map.

I do not usually play these styles of map because I truly hate maps where falling off of things is an ever present situation. However, if done well, it can entice.

As to this map, the texture choices are currently its most obvious shortfall. One can have maps of this nature and never use the same texture more than once. I always found it difficult to understand how people can envision maps so well, but cannot texture them worth a damn.

I will go look for that other map. I may not be able to get a link, but if I can find the name, then you can look for it and possibly find it and then you will have a model of what this kind of map should look like when you complete it.

Surfing may be a different playing style than the map I am referring to, but architecturally, its similar.

BRB

[edit]

Look here

This is what a great platform map should look like. As I said, its only shortfall was its 40 meg, unzipped file size. It was just to unrealistic to place on any server. Even zipped its a fair sized file.

Use it as a model for your results.

Well i checked out that map, it's for a different mod! It is not a surf map, I see what you mean by how it looks like mine. But the only similarity are the blue and white combine textures.. obiously since our texutres are similar, they look the same.. but that isn't a surf map.. surf maps have to have jagged edges and triangles. If you ever built a surf map you would see why they look like that, the brushes in agora look displaced and i do not believe surf maps should have that kind of displacement in it. But if there will ever be a "surf_swej_2" then I will try displacement in my ramps.

i voted terrible, just to try and balance out the fact that you called it beautiful. it didn't work though. :sad:

i've always hated those 'random block' type textures, so having one covering so so much of a map looks, to me, very very bad. [no matter what the gameplay]

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i eat paint

I talked to my son and he confirms the "Great fun" aspect of Surf maps. He said that this one is a bit ugly but "LOOKS" like its supposed to architecturally.

I trust his judgment on maps "fun" so...

Fix the ugly portions.

Personally, I reflect Cap P's comment. Why do fun maps have to be so ugly? Why cannot people break the mold and make a fun map, look good?

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There is no history until something happens, then there is.

Well I cannot disagree with your opinion on its ugliness, it would be much more open minded to give the textures a make over but I like how it looks.. i'm a fan of the combine texture. Anyway, I was just wondering, underdog, how the map ran performancewise on your PC when you played it. I optimized the map as much as i could, anyway.. talk to you soon. The map is already on its final compile and it will be permanently submitted on sunday morning. Talk to you later!

ohh.. and I really appreciate your opinion underdog, no matter if it's postive or negative.

Dude i downloaded the map, and already told you what i think, this map
is awesome, release the final version, and ill tell my friend, who owns
a server in my country, to add it to his server :biggrin: , if you like
ofcourse./..

Waiting for tommorow dude :smile:

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.::Dark|Masta::. - One name. One legend.

I was actually looking online for surf map servers to see if any could host my map. That would awesome!