dm_residential

Hey Addicted;

Tiered roofs are an interesting idea. I was thinking I needed to do something like this or at least have other, taller buildings closeby so I don't have to extend the skybox+environment to the horizon. :smile: I'm liking the alleyway idea though. I'll probably try that first. Hopefully it comes out looking good and I can continue on.. getting some good work done. :smile:

---

-- midkay

Yeah, tiered roofs at least would stop them from looking out forever over unplayable areas, but the more I think about it the more I realize you have your work cut out for you to enclose the map. You could do the whole HL1 trick of having a mountain or hill with a tunnel on one side, but I guess that's kinda hokey at this point, maybe.

I think it's important to the map's flow that the player be able to simply jump off the roof of the map wherever he wants as long as it's toward the gameplay area.. fencing it off so there are only a few openings or making the player deal with a fire escape sounds potentially cumbersome. I'll probably just add some alleys so the player has somewhere to jump to on all sides and be done with it. Although I might add fire escapes anyways (but that's another concept altogether).

Who said the fence has to be around all the edges of the buildings? It can be ramed/smashed in many places. And you only need to prevent the player from jumping of from few roofs and not on all of these roofs.

Here is another city map. It's more similar to your theme too.

Here are two more DM city maps. And here is a third one, the base map to the other two.

---

Elon Yariv

Addicted... gah, that's getting old. How about Morph. :smile:

Morph:

Yeah, it's not gonna be very simple.. I'll definitely have to resort to several tall/large buildings to help block some visibility.. and just fill in whatever the player can see past.. that'll take a while to get right. That'll come later anyways, after I finish the flow/layout.

Elon:

I didn't mean around all the edges of the buildings, just one of them. The player can only access the roof of one building and thus I only need some way to hinder him from jumping off it in two directions that are edges to the map more or less, or an environment where he can jump to that's not outside the map (which I'm leaning towards). To have fences, they'd either have to be all around the roof (which is a bit weird on itself, I've never really seen a building roof surrounded by fences) - this is ruled out due to gameplay reasons - or only on two sides more or less. They'd have to be busted out in many places to keep gameplay similar to how it is.

Thanks for the links, those look like some maps to certainly have a look at. :smile:

---

-- midkay

Okay, a few screens from last night's build.

1, one way to seal one edge of the map: http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/7442/residential1ti6.jpg

2, probably-temporary way to seal another edge: http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/1616/residential2hs7.jpg

3, restaurant area I haven't really shown yet: http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/4638/residential3fq7.jpg

4, new park area (lighting needs work): http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/1430/residential4pa4.jpg

5, new park area again (lighting needs work again): http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/8956/residential5jo4.jpg

---

-- midkay

Nice hotel.(the building above the park)

About the restaurant, it's very nice except that that broken wall really annoys me. When a brick wall is broken it usally breaks into bricks not like what happaned in your map. Your wall look like the paint job on the brick part. Maybe you should add between two thin layers like the one you used a brick wall, then it'll look awsome.



This is a good example for a broken brick wall.

---

Elon Yariv

Yes, exactly - when I created the broken part I was so tired I just didn't have the strength to start adding rubble/more realism to it, i just stopped after cutting it out a bit. Nice example, though - I'll get around to it soon. Sooo much to do. :smile:

Thanks for the compliment and suggestion!

---

-- midkay

I really like the restaurant, and the first example of how you're going to seal off the map works well, you just need to make the buildings next to the pile of rubble broken down so it looks like the wreckage came from the buildings nearby, and not just out of nowhere :smile: I'm sure that was on your list of things to do already.

Something I was thinking about :wink: So much to do...

Honestly, the usage of "I was going to do that, just didn't get around to it" and "Ran out of time for that, I'll do it soon" is starting to sound excuse-ish -- it's not. I'm overwhelmed!! Don't hate me. :biggrin:

Working on the brick-look now.

Thanks for the comments, Morph!

---

-- midkay

You're doing a good job man. It's nice to see new mappers who actually want and use feedback. Slow and steady wins the race - just keep working on it here and there and it will come together for you. You must also realize that most mappers go through quite a few maps before they really come to terms with the craft and can fully realize their creations. So don't get discouraged... there will come a time when you look back at this map and wonder why it was sucha challenge.

I remember when I first opened worldcraft back in 98. I wanted to create a rock canyon, so I made a big block, then took a little block and started carving into the big block with it... trying to create a staggered rock surface. Well, needless to say, it didn't work out to well.

Finger -

Wow, thank you. :smile: I'll take all the feedback I can get - I certainly did have those couple "maps before I came to terms with the craft" as you say (and accordingly "abandoned" them, thank god for that feature), and this is partially another... looking back I see plenty of things I should have done differently from the start that I'm kind of paying for now (redoing small things, etc), although when I started I clearly remember thinking "alright, I know what I'm doing now, I'm gonna do it right".. I guess I didn't know everything. :smile: I'll just have to move on to the next one when I finish and keep figuring it out. Hopefully the next one is a bit easier as far as knowing what to do and doing it right at first, though. I've learned a lot this time around and we'll see how it goes next time.

And... ouch, the carve tool? Glad I'm past that point (there was in fact such a point for me!) :biggrin:

BTW, I'm quite honored to hear this from the guy who made dm_swamplight, one of my favorite unofficial DM maps (used to play it quite a lot on a server I played on frequently for a long time). Great work on that map; nice to "meet" you, however informal or brief it was. :smile: Thanks again for your compliments and reassurance. :biggrin:

---

-- midkay

Heh.. well, I'm just a small fish in a big pool of talent here. Flattered that you know and enjoy my map, though.

:biggrin:

Alright, so just a small update.. working on a few building details now.. finished the bricks that were busted out of the wall, here is a sneak peek at that.. doing plenty of little tweaks.. and I'm just about to start on new interiors (some illustrated on Morphine's flow chart thingamabob).

[edit]

Holycrap I just sewed two displacements. Cool. I've never done that before. :biggrin:

How useful!

[/edit]

---

-- midkay

Ah, much better.

---

Elon Yariv

Agreed, thanks. :smile:

Gosh, VVIS has skyrocketed since the last compile.. why?! Took 2h45m tonight (ended up canceling it on 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...)! Was only ~40 minutes before. Gonna have to do some poking around, if anything i've really optimized since then.. hm. :sad:

[edit]
Oho, I guess I found the problem. Un-func_detail'ed some of the stuff around the park so I could use the clip tool on certain parts of it (should have just used Ignore Groups, but didn't think of that til after).. forgot to func_detail it back.

It's the slanted-hill-stuff.. vvis would indeed create a fuss about all sorts of triangulated leaves along a curved surface.

func_details and recompiles

---

-- midkay

Triangles??? This is source you don't need the triangle method to create terrain, you have displacements, much better and low poly.

---

Elon Yariv

No, I mean triangle-shaped leaves.. since I have standard blocks vertex-manipulated to be slanted and follow the slanted hill, vvis'd probably go crazy and create a lot of triangular leaves joined up with plenty of boxed ones.. I've done it before. vvis hates it. :smile:

Mapping went GREAT last night.. retextured all the buildings and worked on the new interiors. Buildings look a lot better, even added some extrusions to one, I really like it. Everything just kinda worked last night. :smile: Screens soon..

---

-- midkay

Alright, eight new screens showing off new building textures and stuff:

Screen 1 - New building textures! Extrusion detail on one of the buildings! A new interior! (albeit too bright!)!!. :smile:
Screen 2 - another look at new textures.
Screen 3 - New textures again...
Screen 4 - New textuuuuures :smile:
Screen 5 - detailed building again, another look at its interior.
Screen 6 - blah.
Screen 7 - new interior (gonna be a basement). Way too bright, was just "guessing" on the light brightness values.. way off. :smile:
Screen 8 - park area. Now somehow with detail sprites! :biggrin:

The concept behind the new interior is that there's a blown out wall allowing access to the basement/downstairs storage/maintenance room of this apartment building and there will be a cave-in with a bunch of debris which you can work your way up through the cave-in into a destroyed apartment area, snipe out a window, or either jump out somehow (another broken wall into the park area) or get through yet another broken wall into the other similarly-textured apartment building next to it.

Also you probably haven't noticed but in screen #3 I tried a lightmap scale adjustment.. here is a comparison. This way it looks a LOT better with a "4" scale - with "8" it all looks too blocky and blobby, the lighting. Instead of having all the walls in here "8" i'll simply use the clip tool to cut out sections of the wall and make them individually either "4" for a segment that's lit from a lamp or "16" for everything else that's not directly lit. This way it should even be better performance than before but much better looking. Hoorayness.

Still working at it... getting closer though. :smile:

---

-- midkay

I think you need to work on the realism of the buildings. They look fine, but some of the destroyed pieces look incredibly odd and out of place. For instance, in image 5. One thing to point out is that the destruction of the cement over the brick is a different pattern than the brick. And those jagged edges don't make sense. Maybe if it were tiled stone or something that would break like tile, but concrete for the most part breaks like Styrofoam. It's also usually very thick. Take a look at the destruction models involving concrete in HL2, you'll see what I'm talking about.

On the same building the pieces that have fallen don't look right. I mean, a piece of brick falling right at that line while there's still an entire column of it up ... does not make sense. Not to mention how pristine it looks.

It looks very good so far, though. Just keep tweaking things.

Also, just an idea, why don't you make some of the lamp posts destroyable? Like, make them a physics object on a hinge, so when x amount of damage occurs it falls down on the power lines. You can make the lines "break" and be live and cut the power in that area. It'd be cool and not very difficult to implement.

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Hey, Crono-

I think you're right, I'm not quite sure what approach I'll take towards more realistic concrete - probably displacements. What do you mean by "the pieces that have fallen don't look right" - the bricks? Right at what line?

I'll certainly have to come up with a good method for this soon, I'll have to do a lot of destruction in the next week. Any particular suggestions? Anybody?

I've considered the idea of telephone poles that can be damaged to the point of falling over and ripping down lines with them but quickly gave up. I have several reasons for not doing this with the street lights:

1) Actually toughish.. setting up constraints for each one, then timing it so the ropes break just when the lamp should be hitting them.
2) Gameplay problems? What if a lamp should fall in the middle of the street and players have to jump over it? That would slow things down a bit.
3) Some glitches - even if you set "Health Level to Override Motion" to a large number it still enables motion on that prop as soon as it's damaged in the least. No idea why.
4) Lighting in two ways: (1) This'd require dynamic lights that can be shut off.. not good. (2) The map would be quite dark sans streetlights...

Don't get me wrong, it's quite a cool idea and I've attempted it before with complete interest. :smile: It just didn't really work out and I guess it was for the best considering potential gameplay issues.

Appreciate your suggestions and compliment though. I'll see what I can do about that concrete wall..

---

-- midkay

1) I'm pretty sure you can turn lights on and off without them being dynamic.
2) You can freeze objects once they do whatever. Remember, I said it was on a hinge. It can be controlled. Also, you can make it hit another object and stay there. The point is you make the environment a little more active by making it "dynamic".

You can also make events. (Even though this is very unrealistic, it could be very cool) For example, what if the power lines came down and ignited a building? (Turn on lights that are set to flicker).

There's so many possibilities.

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Absolutely - I love dynamicness. :biggrin:

Nah, maybe a light that can be toggled isn't exactly dynamic, but at the least there are two sets of lightmaps per light that needs to be toggled, so if you have e.g. 3 lights that are togglable, you have 9 combinations of lighting, so it's 9 lightmaps that need to be built - hell for the compiler, and probably not nice performancewise etc. Flickering lights, are considered dynamic.

The powerlines idea is also cool - but again I don't think this quite fits in with the deathmatch aspect. In single player this'd be absolutely awesome - but I don't really know how to say this.. in deathmatch I personally think the map should generally start and end in quite similar states so gameplay is always quite the same. They're certainly cool ideas, but I hope you understand what I mean... it's hard for me to explain.

I certainly like smaller things like this though, e.g. like I've got breakable traffic lights. Dynamicness is really awesome and it's something I try to incorporate as much as possible but I believe the "bigger scale" events are best left to singleplayer kind of maps (HL2 had a lot of cool things like this, e.g. breakable bridges and towers, that crumbling smokestack, those Ravenholm traps).

Appreciate your input, as always. :smile:

---

-- midkay

A moving light is dynamic. A flickering light has 2 states: on and off. RAD will calculate both prior to the map being ran. Thus there are no real time calculations.

You should be worried about how the game runs, not how long the compile is. When everything is said and done, you should inconvenience yourself for the 1 time you'll spend compiling the entire map for release which will take a few hours rather than ruin the game play for everyone.

I've always thought large interactive objects makes games more interactive, regardless of the game play mode. I don't know why you wouldn't want to have a shoot out against your buddy on a collapsing bridge, for example. That'd be awesome.

They're just suggestions. If that's not the route you want to take, that's up to you.

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Right, but when RAD always takes around an hour, when you have even just a few switchable lights, you end up with an overnight compile.. considering it needs to be compiled twice for HDR, that's around 18 hours of a compile for 3 switchable lights. As long as I understand correctly. I don't mind a long compile at all - in fact the longer it is the better I feel, at least RADwise (if VVIS has trouble, I get worried). :smile: Trouble is that I just don't know if having all these sets of lightmaps in fact degrades ingame performance... I'd imagine they would, having to be loaded and switched out realtime.

Your example of a fight on a swinging/breaking bridge sounds quite fun indeed, but do you understand that it doesn't last? If it's collapsing, then it will just collapse and then that gameplay element is simply over. No more collapsing bridge; if it gets collapsed in the first minute it's not there the whole time. If it's only used towards the end the gameplay could be entirely different. If you're in single player it's cool because that might lead you on to a new area, or cut off an alternate route back, but it's like in multiplayer not everyone gets to try it or doesn't get to see it.

I dunno how to better explain my point of view on this. The ideas are cool but tricky to implement and quite probably performance-hurting. I like to keep smaller things in, though... I'll think about what I can do. Stuff like a few crumbling bricks that fall when they take damage are the kinds of things I prefer. :smile: Maybe it's because I think that many players won't be around to see it.. in singleplayer, the only player that's there always is in that area when something major happens, but in multiplayer, someone may be across the map when it does... I don't know to be honest.

Keeping this in mind nevertheless. :smile:

---

-- midkay

Your map looks like it's really coming along. Screenies are getting prettier, and asthetics seem to be shaping up all-around. It seems like you are really trying to figure this thing out, therefore, I thought I'd give you some advice that has helped me tremendously in creating maps (and more).

The big problem I'm seeing here is a lack of compelling composition. This composition - the broad strokes of your shapes is the foundation of your map. Understanding this stuff is essential to any artist, as it applies to anything that humans look at. I work with some great artists, and just recently (within the past couple of years) had a very 'AHAH!' moment while studying the beautiful pictures and environments they create. It's a very simple principle, and once you realise what's going on, you will see it everywhere. Our world is a visual rollercoaster - a never ending wave of stacked objects that kind of piramid up and down all around us. Pay attention to where your eye goes as you walk down the street... along the sidewalk, to a gutter, up to a room, to an antenna, back down to a window, down an archway, back to the street. This is the organic way in which our eyes move across the landscape be it a room, or a mountainscape - we are constanly riding along the contours of objects around us pulled from one shape to the nest. These contours, the shapes which define the objects only exist because there is contrast. So... when creating an image, you want to take advantage of this knowledge, and create shapes (using contrast) which pull the eye around the image in a satsfying and organic way. There really is a science to this stuff, and when once you start to see it, you realize that it's not that hard to use. So anyway, enough rambling. What I've done is tried to illustrate these concepts with a few quick paintovers of your images. Hopefully you see what I'm getting at with these - they are only meant to illustrate the point of composition, not specific things you should change.

• I really like the feeling of this building on the right, but it's bordering on repetitious, and this view is begging for some more interesting shapes. Use the skyline as much as possible, It's basically a big flat color waiting for you to stack interesting shapes against it. the red line is the path which you eye takes - the rollercoaster.

The second shot has a ton of potential, but also suffers from too much repitition and a fairly dull skyline...your eye needs more action.

Last shot...I really like this busted building, but think you should play it up some more. Take advantage of the theme, make it more dramatic.

Hope this helps. I know that it helps me to do these kinds of exercises with my own maps. Drawing over screenshots is a very powerful tool that all mappers should at least try. It could save you a lot of time when trying to figure things out.

Duncan

Gosh... I'm... speechless, I really don't know what to say. Let me try. :smile:

That red-line principle is a truly interesting and correct one - I don't know how to say this without sounding like someone who goes "you're right" just to seem like they get it, but.. you're right.

These concept art images you've done - wow. I can't stop looking at them... they're excellent (and nice job with the compositing - they look very cool in a rough, pastel-ish way). Let's see, I'll try to address them in order.

1) That building looks lovely - looking back on the original now is hard. :smile: Wow... some really interesting ideas to take in here. Really like the what looks to be destroyed section in the upper left, and the vertical variation all over the building. Also, that radio towerlike thing way back there is really excellent, I love the way it really towers over the neighborhood.

2) The damaged parking lot is a really nice addition. All the skybox things give it what you appropriately called "action" - a business I really hope I can capture before the map's done. The billboard is nice, I've been wanting to put one in but haven't quite found a place for it. I guess seeing it somewhere is a lot easier to appreciate than imagining it somewhere. Those .. gah, what would you call them.. black things. Metal structures (do you know the word for these? shelflike things..) look like they would add some cool gameplay as well, and a ton of realism.

3) Alright, this one looks hands-down incredible.. more like what I pictured for this area when I began it. I wish it were easier to do once I begin it (yes, seeing it has made my mind up for me). :smile: Crumbling rocks, the underlying supports... huge ripped-out chunks littering the sidewalk.. totally. Sigh.. how would one go about this. :sad:

Drawing over screenshots - excellent idea. I've done this a couple times just trying to figure out the layout of a few things but never anything like this with actual manipulation and even semirealistic integration.. I'll certainly be trying this myself very soon.

These screens are very helpful - I really, really appreciate the time you spent putting them together and explaining your thoughts on them. Thank you. :smile: saves them for all eternity

---

-- midkay

Nice improvments midk, awsome map.

The broken wall in the restaurant isn't finished yet. :wink: It looks too much simmetrical, like it was broken down on porpose. Only that part of the wall is damages, not a scretch on the walls near it or on the door. You should make it less simetrical. A screeni is worth more then ten thousand words, so here it is:



You should rip some of those lamps out of their place and leave them hanging on a cord or lying on the floor? That will be cool. The lights that hang on cord should flicker.

Edit:

Here are some Hl2 example maps that may help you:
http://twhl.co.za/mapvault.php?author=1322
http://twhl.co.za/mapvault_map.php?id=3871
http://twhl.co.za/mapvault_map.php?id=3363
http://twhl.co.za/mapvault_map.php?id=3369
http://twhl.co.za/mapvault_map.php?id=3323
http://twhl.co.za/mapvault_map.php?id=2779

---

Elon Yariv

Hey Elon:

Thanks. :smile: It's slowly but surely (nah, not "surely" - "hopefully"? :smile: ) getting there.

I might replace the cut-up brushes with displacements as well as at the "new" broken concrete wall I showed in the most recent screenshots.

Is the more irregular shape of the hole in the wall what you're trying to illustrate in the screenshot you provided? Thanks for it, it's a nice idea. I'll try and do that. Oh, the door there is from the front door of the restaurant - not from where the hole was. :smile:

Also thanks for all the map links. :smile: I'll check all of them for useful reference!

---

-- midkay

Yeah, thats what I ment by simmetric, it was squrish. You mean that there is a junction between another wall next to where the door is? No problem, just break that wall as well.

---

Elon Yariv

Nope, I mean the door is from the front of the restaurant - the front door. :smile: (Broken off its hinges and laid up against the wall)

But yeah, alright.. I'll de-square this hole in the wall. :smile:

---

-- midkay

The retexturing and extrusions were a huge step in the right direction :smile: I think your map looks much better now (finally those windows have been thinned out :smile: )

I noticed in screen 3 that the hole in corner of the building would have shattered the window right next to it. You could cut out a window-sized hole in the texture that's overlapping the exploded section.

I'm not a huge fan of the gray concrete texture serving as the base of the yellow-white extruded building. How would it look with red brick or another less monotone texture?

Lookin' forward to you filling the basement up with some junk, some props etc. Wouldn't hurt to make the room less of a square by adding a big block into one of the corners (in essence making the room 6 sided instead of 4). I'll draw you a picture if my words fail to express what I mean.

Finger, that critique was awesome. I learned a lot just reading it as well. Why not write up a tutorial about drawovers? I'm sure a lot of us would love to know what program you use, if you use a tablet, where you start, and how you think about improving a scene.

Also, I agree with Elon Yariv about the hole in the wall. Additionally, what I noticed was that the broken plaster bits don't look as realistic as the brick. The plaster bits don't look like they should be breaking into such sharp triangles, or so many triangles. Why not just smooth things out a little bit, like bigger flatter chunks of plaster chipped out of the wall. Something like this:



Not exact, but you get the idea.

One last general comment. It's nice to see so many people helping out. I can't remember the last thread I read (anywhere, not just here at SnarkPit) with so much consistent in depth constructive criticism. I don't mean this as a way to toot my own horn, but rather to compliment everyone else who has posted in the thread.

Looking forward to more, as always :smile:

Morphine!

Thanks.. slowly it's improving. :smile: Yeah, chose all textures that would only have one window per tile instead of two like before. Looks much better this way IMO.

So, yeah. For the window I'll certainly take care of that soon, I might end up redoing this entire blown-out bit (four displacements; one per each side). Whether or not I do, I will have to do some cutting-up of the brushes that this building consists of in order to correct the distorted window you can see there. :smile:

Hm, interesting @ the bricks idea. I'll certainly change these at some point (same texture for all three buildings, mostly placeholder) - I wonder how brick would look there, so the exploded hole in the wall would be seamless with the rest of the wall.

Nice idea with the block... no need for a drawing, I know exactly what you mean. In fact, that just gave me another idea, some supporting pillars scattered around the basement might look cool.

Yeah, Finger - a tutorial would be very cool. :smile: It's very cool that you explained it here but for other people who aren't reading this thread, etc.. going into detail on a seperate tutorial would be a good idea.

And yeah - that plaster wall.. sigh. I just don't really know what to do with it yet, go with displacements I probably will. (Talking like a jedi, I am!) Nice concept art that is (alright, that's enough of that). :smile: It seems like it'd be quite a pain to accomplish with the clip tool though... (or the vertex editor for that matter). So I might give it a try, but probably end up going with displacements.

And yeah.. I really don't have the least idea where I'd be today had I not posted this map so early and recieved so many comments from everyone here. I truly wonder what the map'd look like. :smile: I'm very glad to be the one on the receiving end of this excellent stream of comments, [constructive!] criticism, suggestions...

Thanks to everyone who's helping me out with this. :biggrin:

[edit]
Oh yeah.. forgot to mention.. right now I'm working on that basement. I'll try the retexturing/pillars/boxes ideas. :smile: Working on the to-be apartment interior...

---

-- midkay

Alright, so I just kind of came up with a different way to redo any "broken walls" found in the levels (a more realistic concrete-type crumbling). It's much easier than either displacements or the way I did it where the concrete looked really jagged like glass... and it looks better than both to boot. I'll be redoing all the busted walls in the map this way, I think. cheers happily :smile:

Here's a screen - from within Hammer, I just got done with it: http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/4660/bustedwallzj8.jpg

Got to add decals now to spice it up a little bit, as well as some debris on the ground and inside.. and I will be working on the basement some more.

If there are any comments or suggestions - maybe I can get one or two before I head to bed between one and two hours from now (knowing me, though, could be four hours). :smile:

back to work

---

-- midkay

Looks better, thats what I was trying to convey with my MS-Paint outline. :smile:

Cool. :smile:

Yeah, I'm still up. Told you I'd probably last another four hours. :smile:

I really am confident about the way the basement area and apartment will turn out. I really like this new method of creating chunks of rock/blasted walls/floors... almost to the point where it's fun. :O

I've.. well.. just wait for it. :smile: Pillars, supporting concrete, crumbling concrete.. this area's starting to get a mood I really like. Screens will be up tomorrow whilst I compile overnig-- er... overmorning (7:20am ATM, probably will sleep ~ 8am). :smile:

---

-- midkay

Man you're a crazy nightowl. It's only 11:33 PM here. Lookin' forward to the new screens though.

Haha. 8:36 now.. :o It's lovely though. I'd wake up at like 7PM and go to bed at 10AM if I had my way.. :smile:

Anyways, yeah.. compiling+going to bed now. Did a cordon compile of the area, lighting is really cool. Did some tweaking to it.

So, see you all in 8 hours.. unless I don't ever wake up, that'd suck... You guys would never get to play the map! :wink: poof

---

-- midkay

Alright, eight new screens of what's done so far of my one newly revamped little room :wink:

Screen 1 - looking at the room from a corner.
Screen 2 - another angle from the same place. (Still to-do: redo that crumbling concrete)
Screen 3 - ceiling, which I'm fond of (the shadows/lighting on it, feels quite industrial).
Screen 4 - from the opposite corner of the room.
Screen 5 - looking up into the to-be destroyed apartment/hotel room.
Screen 6 - looking out a hole in the wall (the one I showed yesterday in Hammer).
Screen 7 - looking down on the basement through the big hole.
Screen 8 - out the destroyed window of the apartment. This will be fun to snipe out of, I hope.. I think I'll put a crossbow here and remove one over in the alleyway. That'll total up to two in the map, one in this room and one across the map in the top hole of the destroyed building (which is DIRECTLY across from this window, you can see it in the picture). That could make for some fun gameplay, two sniping holes opposite each other. :smile:

So I'm really enjoying destroying things now with this crumbling concrete technique. I just realized I've been talking about a "new technique" but haven't really detailed it.. basically I take a long brush, cut it up with straight lines horizontally, and then clip them off vertically. I think I might make a tutorial on this, since it's such a quick, fun method and the easiest way I've found yet. Just after I check if there are any tutorials here on something similar.. :smile:

So yeah, as far as the basement, I still have some things to do; I want more pipes and some vents snaking around the walls/ceiling to make this feel like a more cramped, dirty, rarely-visited basement. More decals, drains on the floor, more debris from that collapse in the ceiling from the apartment..

Also one of Finger's concept art images gave me an idea I think could look really cool. In the first image he seemed to destroy the upper left corner of this building (from the POV of the first concept drawing, it's the upper left, I mean). What that got me thinking about was having a huge headcrab canister just absolutely plowed straight into the building from that corner, smoking, rubble all around, just destroying the upper left corner this way.

Also a few thoughts on map performance. I'm going to have to worry about this soon, I can't get too detailed with anything here, which is unfortunate. FPS is around 35 from the top of the corner building roof where you can see basically everything, which isn't that bad considering the size of the map, but I'll have to get even more aggressive with optimization. I always do things the most efficient way possible (e.g. nodrawing all over every face that can't be seen) and I'll keep doing that but I'll also have to start using more hintbrushes to split up the leaves (notably the ones that hit the top of the skybox thus can see into basically any leaf in the map). Compile time has been going up quickly as well, though I'm not exactly worried about this. Vvis took 2 hours 15 minutes or so last night, and Vrad was an hour (x2, since LDR and HDR lightmaps are compiled seperately so Vrad runs twice).

Enough rambling for now. :smile: Gonna start working on the apartment interior.. then smash down a couple walls to lead it over to another apartment.. :smile:

---

-- midkay

I like what you've down with the basement. Be careful about adding grates to the floor though, as right now the texture makes it look almost like gravel, and not concrete.

Also, I think it would look cooler if you somehow made the ramp up to the second floor part of the concrete ceiling supports, not just pieces of wood.

The supports in the lower room looks from some reason too thin, I'm not sure they can hold the building in real life.

---

Elon Yariv

Morphine-

Ah, you're right - better switch out that texture :smile: Should be more concrete-ish.

Also that sounds cool, having the collapsed support lead up to the apartment. I'll give it a try.

Elon-

Yes, I felt they were rather thin too... I don't know exactly what I'll do yet. Probably make them larger (maybe twice as large) and have them - near the top - shrink down to the size they are now (so they recieve all their pressure from the beams). That or maybe make a "block" of concrete that goes around the concrete beams, where they intersect, and have a bigger pole run up into that.

Dunno how clear any of that is, but I see it clearly in my mind. :biggrin:

Also, I started a tutorial on the concrete-chopping... I might finish it off tonight. I love writing. :smile:

---

-- midkay

This map is really taking shape. I love the lighting now. There was a time when sunset lighting was a bit overused but after all the pale and colorless maps you see it's almost like a breath of fresh air. I love the way the orange light comes in in this very flat angle. The white-ish street-lights next to the orange-lit facades create an interesting contrast, I love it. It's near-perfect lighting-wise (which is one of my favourite aspects of map aesthetics).

I still think the map could benefit from a "less is more" approach. It's looking pretty vast at places (although I can only judge from the screenshots). I'm sure some of the streets or stairs/ramps could be stripped to make the layout a little tighter, circular and get a better gameflow.

One more thing I noticed: You can still see the shape of a window in the texture at the hole in the wall in the second screenshot. Looks very illogical once you notice.

Hey, reaper47.

Thanks a lot for your comments, I also felt like I wanted to do something different from the typical bright-lit sunnyday lighting, and I like the atmosphere of this. :smile: Still some tweaking to do, but the basics are there. :smile:

As far as cutting it down a bit - that may be a good idea. here is an extremely rough paint over of what I was thinking when you mentioned this; cutting off a couple unnecessary buildings, mostly. I removed the crossbow in the upper right corner, leaving one in each campspot across the map from each other; thus that alleyway is unnecessary altogether and can be removed. I'll add a ladder up to the other crossbow in the campspot from behind soon; gives campers something to worry about and increases flow. Still trying to lay some things out until I do the fine-tuning but I think this is the way to go.

And I just realized what you meant with your last statement. Yeah, this is to be fixed. Maybe today. I need to redo the destruction around that hole in the building and in the process tweak the texturing and get rid of that window.

Thanks for the comments and heads up! :biggrin:

---

-- midkay

First thing that's noticeable is the open nature of this map. It's fresh, I like it. It does feel a bit empty because of that, so you may want to spread some props around, 'tactically placed' of course. :smile:

In the first shot I noticed those supporting bricks. At the hole in the wall, one of them is rotated... which is structurally incorrect, as those bricks are probably set deep into the underlying wall, and they wouldn't behave like that on impact. Just a small detail, but it shows somehow.
Besides that, the damage is too local and 'managed'. A building that takes such holes has taken moer than just that. Fire behind windows, broken glass, more damage spread across the building... and if it's recent damage, dust should fill the air and debris should be widespread 'available'.

Later shots show a very cubic nature. There's a few road curves, but that's mostly it. Add some curves, like in the train station plaza in HL, some buildings had nice little towers sticking out. I'm not sure what else you can do to break up the cubic buildings, some reference shots could help here. Also, one of the roads is blocked by debris - with an obvious linear edge between road and debris. Such things could be some more natural. I know it's a hard thing to do, but it'll pay off.

Besides those things, it's looking good. I wonder how it'll play, as it looks quite open and large. Buggy, anyone? :smile:

---

Create-ivity - a game development blog

Hey, Captain P;

Sure, I'll try to clutter it up a bit-- er... tactfully.. place some... very carefully-chosen... props... in very specific.. selected.. locations... :biggrin:

About the bricks.. thanks for your thoughts. If I keep them I'll probably redo them or at least readjust them so they're more aligned, considering that. I'd also like to do more destruction, but I need to keep a careful eye on performance as well, and finishing the layout.. this suffices for now but I'll try to get it more convincing. Thanks for the pointers. :smile:

I don't feel very likely to touch the road anymore but I'll certainly keep working on the buildings; I personally wouldn't consider any of them done (though maybe the hotel "nearly"). The debris will be more varied soon also when I add the new behind-corner-building alleyway. :smile:

And yeah, I think maybe like a week before I think I'll release it I'd really like to get some people from Snarkpit as well as friends + friends-of-friends together for a large playtest (hopefully like >8 people) to see how this map plays with a lot of people.. :biggrin:

BTW @everybody, I just redid part of the exploded building; here's a Hammer shot.

---

-- midkay

You need to add more level changes in the rubble, use displacements, just like ordenery terrain.

---

Elon Yariv

Hey Elon-

Which rubble do you mean? The "ground" inside the destroyed building? It's already displacements, and I can make it more uneven.. that sounds a bit nicer, I'll try it later. :smile: Thanks.

---

-- midkay

Alright, so a quick update with particularly rough screenshots of entirely unfinished work. What's new? :smile:

Started working on the "alleyway" idea, behind the corner building that wraps around, so the player has somewhere to jump. I also redid all the holes in the damaged building with the new technique.

Screen 1 - a glance down the alleyway, and the size/location in comparison with an area you all should be familiar with.
Screen 2 - in the corner at the other end of the alleyway, looking down towards the street on the right and towards the parking lot on the left.
Screen 3 - a view of the alleyway from the parking lot.
Screen 4 - the alleyway from the roof of the corner building.
Screen 5 - new destroyed concrete (don't worry - more details/decals/texture work coming soon, just rough outlines).
Screen 6 - same as above.
Screen 7 - New ladder up the back of the building and way in to the sniper area, giving the sniper more to worry about and more places to go.
Screen 8 of the other sniper spot which I've done some work on, now it's a small room (e.g. hotel/apartment). Slightly brightened in Photoshop to show the wall texture.

Not really looking for crits on the alleyway yet, I just started it last night, maybe spent 20 minutes on laying it out before running off to bed. I've got some thoughts already on changes, but I like how it's started out. I've got some things planned; I'll have a weapon back there, or at least ammo; as well as a ladder to the roof (a second ladder, that is, considering the one by the parking lot) for an alternate route up. I'll as well have a route in/out of the building's interior (that damaged hallway with all the rocks - out; hole in the building - in). :smile: Should add a lot of fun variation/alternate-route gameplay.

Just a sneak peek, expect more polished screens in a few days...

---

-- midkay

This is just kind of a rant post (though there's a nice little link halfway in if you want to see what I've been working on). Onwards;

Gosh, I'm getting really.. hmm.. frustrated/nervous/angry/worried/upset over the past few hours and just generally sickened/weary as far as the map. No specific reason, but some contributing factors:

• Hammer update, although very cool, seems to make it run much slower. It's noticeably choppier when navigating in a 3D view and this has only made me more worried about performance.
• PERFORMANCE. I already feel like the FPS is quite low in some areas and I still have a lot more I want to add. I know I should probably worry about it a bit later after I've got stuff laid out but it's this really awful, nagging feeling whenever I make something new, be it prop or brush, that "this isn't helping!" and it's really just frustrating, I can't get much anything done.
• Introducing more buildings... thus more details.. architecture is frustrating sometimes.
• Sealing off passages. Fences won't work for three seperate alleyways in one area, will they? Sigh. SIGH. SIGH.

The playing area is probably too big and discouraging as it is. Right? Here is how I've got it right now. I need to cut off some stuff. What/how?! And how will I deal with sealing off the huge expanse of hill? :\

I feel like listing a to-do so I can see just how much I've got ahead of me.

• Hole inside the corner building leading outside. Realistically. Maybe two of them. Back-of-head-performance-nagging-voice is shouting.
• Damage to the parking lot, I've wanted to do this since I saw Finger's illustrations. Performance voice nagging a lot more...
• Populate the environment with more buildings. They also need to have realistic layout, e.g. along streets. I can't just throw them all around the place like they seem to be in most maps. Do I even need to say that this is performance-worrying?
• More flow, basically a few more connected rooms between some things I already have. Guess what, performance-worrying.
• Texturing on the destroyed building, of course windows have to be blasted out rather than just sitting there. That sounds fun. It also sounds rather performance hurtful.

I can't even bother going on.. sigh.

I'll try to straighten out my thoughts on everything, decide what I'll have to do next, and just do it.. start cutting things down, trimming here and there...

---

-- midkay

midk, this phase comes with every map. Just move through it. Or make a pause but at the same time think of when to start working on it again. I'd hate to see this map abandoned.