Sublevels 2

I bought HL2 on Sunday and downloaded the SDK the same day. Since the
editors are essentially the same I decided to convert one of my maps to
Source. I chose Sublevels due to its simplicity.

So far it's coming along nicely -- the only bug I've found so far is
the physbox entities are pitch-black for some reason. changing
_minlight doesn't fix it.

Feedback will be much appreciated.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Uhm, well, so far that looks like a low-res textures hallway...

wouldn't it be a much better idea to start something that looks like Source? You've got a lot more power available now, so why not use it?

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

The textures are all standard HL2 textures..

As for the map itself I've only had two days to work on it.

I understand your reasoning, but ever since I got into mapping and
(which was around the time HL2 was announced) I had wanted to put one
of my HL1 maps to work under Source.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

The textures look super blurry. Do you have the scale set to .25 (the default)?

If so, perhaps you should turn up your video settings for screenshots.

Well, I doubt that texture would fit the walls if wasn't overscaled, but yup, my gripe is the same as everyone else's -- use some of that HL2 power! :smile:

On the topic of the textures -- in HL2, you'll probably need to split
walls and add more detail just so the textures look as though they are
"fitting" cause I found that HL2 has the tendency to easily blur
textures if the scale isn't below 1.00x1.00.

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Breaking the laws of mapping since 2003 and doing a damn fine job at it

Graphics settings were medium tex detail :O I'll update the profile with new shots.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

They still look blurry to me. What's the scale on the textures? 0.25?

It was .5 so that they'd fit on the walls. I'm experimenting with
different textures as these may be causing that strange lighting bug
with the physboxes.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Still look blurry yeah. And I'd still say, leave the sentiment and use some of Sources power for a map - a HL map ported directly to Source won't look impressive compared to a map made for Source.

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

If you want to port a HL1 map to HL2 I'm afraid you have to re-design the architecture pretty much from scratch, just keeping the basic layout and theme. Flat texture lights are hardly used in Source anymore, they should be prop_statics, or at least have some mounting. The sloped parts on the top and the bottom of the walls look too symmetric and big for a HL2 map. This works in HL1 but here it's too low-poly.

I'm actually going to use as much Source as I can learn in this map.
It's not so much a port as it is a Source version -- the only thing
original I'm keeping is the hallways themselves, and I've already
started expanding on them. There's a small outdoor area where I'm
experimenting with skyboxes, and some more physboxes where I'm trying
to make a boarded-up door that needs punted open by the gravity gun.
I'm also going to experiment with displacements. Note the usage of the
word "experiment" which is mainly what this whole map is.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.

Hmm, I see. Well, the thing with those corridors is that they're long, narrow and for a gameplay purpose they'll probably very boring parts, so I'd cut down on their length. Personally I prefer to keep combat to certain well-defined area's and have corridors or paths in general connect them, where I try to keep these connections as short as a few seconds running and usually a bit wider than this, to give players the chance to avoid fire. Putting in a little cover now and then isn't a bad idea either. :smile:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Captain P said:
Hmm, I see. Well, the thing with those corridors is
that they're long, narrow and for a gameplay purpose they'll probably
very boring parts, so I'd cut down on their length. Personally I prefer
to keep combat to certain well-defined area's and have corridors or
paths in general connect them, where I try to keep these connections as
short as a few seconds running and usually a bit wider than this, to
give players the chance to avoid fire. Putting in a little cover now
and then isn't a bad idea either. :smile:

I was about to say the same thing. Long corridors don't really
get people motivated to move through them, especially since getting
caught in the middle would be certain death. If I were playing a
fast paced DM map and saw a long corridor like that (and it didn't have
a really good weapon beckoning me from the other side) I'd likely say F
that and run the other way.

I've thought about the problems this map has, and the suggestions to
create a new Source-based level.. and I've decided to abandon this
project. I've started work on Bloody Ore -- a semi-parody of the game
title Bloody Roar -- set in an iron ore mine.

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I'm allergic to tequila, it makes me break out in felonies.