Welcome Jonatan

I'm happy you register in the end.

Will try it out ASAP

As I already said, it look awesome

Nice work I have to try this friday:( My computer is not here.

Oh and welcome:)

Thanks for the feedback, the first bug you noted is already fixed, about the foliage, it's probably because some of these meshes are abit overscaled, else I will just enhance the textures in Photoshop. And about the vehicles, I'm thinking of removing the scorpions however these are very good on taking out the manta and I would probably have to compensate. I do however want the hellbender to stay.

I would like some suggestions about the vehicles though, as I'm not sure what to do with them.

Beta 2 will probably be ready for release sometime next week, and will include stuff like Sound effects, Minimap (already made it and got it working fine), item placement changes (I want to have the sniper where the avril are now, im not sure where to place avril though as I want it to be easy to pickup so that vehicles arent that overpowered, so if you have a suggestion please tell me :). I have also started changing some things in the middle of the map to make it easier for vehicles to pass, but it should still have some safe spots from sniper/vehicles. I'm also gonna redo the hellbender room.

I wanted to try B1 this w-e but since there is already some fixed stuff & others that will be include in the next beta, I'll wait for B2 to provide feedback.

Therefore, I'll play with B1 this w-e & except a majur bug I'll just take note of the issues & joing them to B2.

I like this map :)
The bots put up a varied attack and defense and they will use the vehicles.
There does seem to be an issue with the large puddle just before the pic above. Some times the water slows you down and other times it doesn't ? It doesn't seem to slow the vehicles down at all.
All in all though its an excellent map. I've even found bots camping at defense points :)
Looks gorgeous on my kit.

I finally give it a try.

It's not extensive since I could play only 5 mins so I'll point out things that are rather obvious for me.

First thing, about the layout ; I really like all the building access. There is plenty of paths players can use & since the ways inside the building aren't to long, when the flag carrier is outside he's found very quickly so you don't have to play the mouse / cat game to find the flag carrier.  The 2 rooms outside (where you have the weapon locker) is fine to. While I never like weapon in double, in VCTF, it's another story so that's fine. I don't really like weapon lockers since it concentrate to much fire power in 1 spot but anyway, that's me. The middle part is simple but also nice.

About the gameplay. TBH, the layout is to small for a vehicle map. This baby would be more adequate for CTF. The use of vehicle is rather useless & frankly, I won't use a vehicle for a 2 sec ride, it's simply make no sense & even worst, the enemy with the avril can shoot me down from the other side of the map, quite ridiculous & not fun at all. Personnaly, I wouldn't make any change about the layout but I would make a CTF version with this map.

About items placement, well since I don't see this map adequate for VCTF, there are things I would change to accommodate the items for CTF. If your willing to do the changes let me know & I'll suggest things.

About music, well it's a nice track but TBH, I wouldn't use it for a cave map. It sound to "space". For this kind of map, you need lower frequencies sounds, something more "grounded". Your theme is a nice atmospheric one, so you must chosse something not to fast.

About mesh work. It's very well done. The meshing fit's well together & is very convincing. Nothing to say about that.

About Atmosphere, it's awesome !

About visuals. Lighting is very nice. I didn't see a lot of shadows. In fact almost none ? Don't know if it's already planed for the next beta ? The coloring is great, it's only about shadows that I may be blind but I didn't saw them ? Anyway, I saw some things that I pointed out with yellow arrows (sorry for the big pics, it's blitz fault :p) :



- The lantern you use all over the map is nice loocking but is overscale. I could be reduce at least by 50%. I know the lighting will be looking less realistic (lantern size versus lighted surface) but it doesn't look right. The player look like a "smurf" beside it.



- The rock culling is to aggressive.
- The neon isn't well centered.



- My main complaint is those flares. They do look very nice when your static but as soon as you move, it's like disco balls that just pop in your face. It's frankly annoying. No offense here because it does look nice when static, it's just annoying while your moving. The crystals are really great, it's just the flares that while they do look good static, they're annoying while playing.



- Some stairs aren't well scaled, they're to large so they're entering the wall. You can see the side of the stair on your right, not on the left.



You see the skydome merge with the ground. Going back & forth it does a very odd effect, it's like it's getting very bright one of a sudden ? I thing by adding another heightfog would do the trick.



- The bumpofset of this material is to much & doesn't look good at all. It look more deformed than anything else.
- The grass is overscaled & can be reduce at least to half the size. The actual size is to much distracting & to close to the flag base imo.



- It's not you mate but I must say that those bricks are the most ugly I never saw included with a game. Even Half-Life 1 as better looking bricks. There is plenty of other material that look 100 times nicer than those. I really don't understand why mappers use them in the first place ??? Again, the bumpofset is way to much.

- Others small things :

- The Bezerk is floating.
- You can set collision off on some actors like roots on the walls & others small things.
- The foliage don't need to be retouched in another third party app. The stock one are looking very bad (I know because I start to use them in Aly) but you can add some normal maps to make them look much nicer without to much trouble.

So in all, you have a very nice map & with the addition of sounds & such, it will be even better.

The VCTF is a let down for me. I would personally love a CTF variant for this map.

VCTF players will be please because it's a fine map & my suggestions are cosmetic at this point.

THX for the explanations.

Well first, the size of the map isn't to big for a CTF version. In fact, it's a small one if you ask. If you look at my top pic on Epic, this map would be in the smallest one if you decide to make it CTF. Like I said, using translocator, even the biggest map make the traveling very fast. Even Face or others stock maps are bigger than this one.

I agreed that weaponlocker are a VCTF standard. As I say, It's only me. But it's more fun to travel with the overboard than using the vehicle so that's why I found them useless. It's cool for some fooling around match but not seriously. But it's only me mate ;)

For lighting, are you using lightmaps or vertex ? You will obtain great shadows with lightmaps most of the time. BTW, it's not because the mesh is lightmaps enable that it is automatically well supported. You have things to know. This is why, while, I'm building the map, I choose my assets that support lightmaps correctly so I get awesome shadows.

The only materials that doesn't look good imho, is the bricks one. I check them in the editor & the bumpofset is to much. I don't like them at all but it's a personal thing so if you like them, it's fine, anyway, it's your map after all dude ;)

A little trick for floating pickups. I notice that when you work with a grid of 16-32-etc & rebuild, the engine adjust the pickups to the grid. Still, before a build, I set the grid to "1" instead of leaving it to 16-32 so even if the pickup get align you won't notice the move, clever trick he he :D

For FPS. I'm using VSYNC so that is why there constant. My rig is powerfull enough to andle the map so I never drop under 60. BTW, you forget to specify the playercounts ? I load the map with 8 players (4 vs 4).

For stock maps, I don't remember TBH, last time it was around 80-150 I think depending on maps ?

Better shadows aren't supposed to hurt FPS since it's baken into the file anyway. The bad side is that your file size will increase. Still, vertex lighting can consume more at a certain point & will look worst. The thing is, using lightmaps value of 16-32 will give you better shadows than vertex & will consume less space. Personally, I'm using a value of 32 on everything that support it & 64-128 only on certain mesh when shadows are important & my uncooked file size is still at 40 mb after a month of adding stuff ;)

Well, for optimization, I see you already use the black surface, I didn't check if it was the "remove***" of the "blackunlitmaterial" but I saw that some BSP where completely black.

Do you use culling ? Like all mesh inside the building ? This is the minimum to do if it's not already done. It took me more than 2 months for Nano since I must set the values on each mesh but in your case, a volume would be sufficent for inside the building I guess.

Some emiters can also be cull when your getting far for them.

stevelois wrote:

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Better shadows aren't supposed to hurt FPS since it's baken into the file anyway. The bad side is that your file size will increase. Still, vertex lighting can consume more at a certain point & will look worst. The thing is, using lightmaps value of 16-32 will give you better shadows than vertex & will consume less space. Personally, I'm using a value of 32 on everything that support it & 64-128 only on certain mesh when shadows are important & my uncooked file size is still at 40 mb after a month of adding stuff ;)

Well, for optimization, I see you already use the black surface, I didn't check if it was the "remove***" of the "blackunlitmaterial" but I saw that some BSP where completely black.

Do you use culling ? Like all mesh inside the building ? This is the minimum to do if it's not already done. It took me more than 2 months for Nano since I must set the values on each mesh but in your case, a volume would be sufficent for inside the building I guess.

Some emiters can also be cull when your getting far for them.

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I'm using the remove whatever its called black material with all accept lighting ticked off and the worst lightmap, for all bsp that is not visible while playing ingame.

I'm also using Culldistance volumes to cull the inside bases but I'm sure I can make them more aggressive.

I will see what I can do about the lightmapping, however I'm going away for the weekend so it will have to wait.

Also, I know what should be done with the material used on the bsp under the flag and other places, it should be fixed for beta2. However there's a good chance that I will forget to implement some changes but there will be another beta after beta2 so it's nothing to worry about :P

-- Edited by Thrallala on Friday 6th of November 2009 04:12:07 AM

Take your time Jonatan, TBH, I would prefer you polish the actual version more instead of releasing various betas with incremental changes.

Anyway, it's not like you must add / change / enhance a plethore of things from B1.

Diesalot wrote:

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From looking at posts mate Steve is right polish it up and release beta 02, then its just a small step to final.

PS. dont make my mistake and start a variation of the map before you finish. I mean converting to CTF, because you will fix one and then have to fix the other...LOL Hard Lesson.

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If I make this into CTF, there will not be a vCTF version. And as it looks right now, this map will be considered as CTF once Beta2 is released. Due to this, there's a good chance that it will be another week before I can release Beta2.

 

stevelois wrote:

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But hey dude, I just wanted to say that you don't need to make a ctf version just for few folks.

Do what your comfortable with, I don't want to force or put some pressure on you in any way mate ;)

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That's not the only reason why I'm doing it. Since I first started this map I wanted it as vCTF, however since I'm quite inexperienced with this gametype it went more and more towards a CTF layout.

However I could use your input in 1 of the weapon placement ideas, the layout of this map kind of resembles the layout used in CTF-FacingWorlds. And if I where to go with that, I would definitely place Sniper Rifles on the balcony of the bases. However I'm not sure if it would cause an imbalance, cause it's a pretty long path to walk between the bases for a flag carrier. And from the balcony you can pretty much shoot anything that isn't inside any of the bases. What do you think?

I'm also thinking about placing a redeemer pickup in the middle of the map where the manta currently is.

-- Edited by Thrallala on Saturday 7th of November 2009 02:30:44 AM

+1.

You can always put a sniper in the middle too and let people fight back fairly.

Ok, I've made alot of progress on the map. So far this is what I have done:

Neon Light fixed rotation.
Rotating waterfans near flag.
Stairs properly aligned against the wall.
Converted to CTF.
Floating Berserk pickup fixed.
Lanterns scale fixed.
Made some changes to the background, skyline etc. Currently you can hardly get a look at it though, this will be fixed.
Bumpy materials fixed.
Item placements, avril removed, weapon lockers removed, sniper correctly placed on the balcony, manta replaced with shield belt, scorpions replaced with stinger and shock rifle.
Terrain has been fixed to give some shadows and stuff.
Hellbender room has been redone.
Spawn rooms have been changed moderately.
Sound effects are being added.


*Hellbender Room*




*Skyline*


Stuff left to do:

The middle part is going to be changed abit.
I want the new skyline to be visible from some places.
Some sound effects is still missing.
Blocking volumes for all rock walls, I hate this part so it's gonna have to wait until last :P
Music should be changed.

Great progress Jo

Checking the list of things done, I was hoping to see that realized for the CTF version in the first place. I like everything you mention so far & I was expecting others change you list even if I didn't comments. Next release will be better by far for sure

The visuals are very nice (that include the nice shadows on terrain, the light fixture are scaled properly, etc)

-- Edited by stevelois on Tuesday 10th of November 2009 09:30:17 PM

on 2nd one the light effect coming from that hole is just superb*!

*..........even if i HATE visually thoses flat vegetals; they always look like if an elephant have sleep on them :p

....and first pict looks really good too ; good job and good performance to have succed to keep some time for you through the looping greengiant betatesting sessions...hahahaha ;)

-- Edited by Bl!tz on Friday 13th of November 2009 02:51:01 PM

Great progress mate, really :D

Indeed the foliage texture is ugly, at least, I manage to make it look better in Aly so since you mode advanced than me, you can make it look much better to ;)

BTW i mean the texture not your map.
I am DL to see the CTF version.

"You do not have permission to edit this post." :(

Hello Thrallala,

I was updating a readme file and remembered that you converted the original music from DM-Antalus for me for my DM-Tomac map.

Anyways, while I am not a CTF player, when you are 99.9% done with the map, I will do a beta test on the map, for what it's worth.

It's looking nice based on that last screen shot. 

Diesalot wrote:

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Emm thats your opinion elder uncle, we didnt think so.
Its no offence its always ugly.

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Well mate, no offense but you will need a pair of glass... there is a big diff between mine & the stock one even if there not "spectacular" as you may want to. That applies to the vine to which are also damn ugly.

If you have a better way to make them prettier, share please.

Alright stop with the Ugly **** anyway lol I check beta 2 out for ya Thrallala.

Hey mate, I'll try to

For the music, personally, since it's based in a cave, I wouldn't put something to fast or with a tempo, you know, something more like DM-Worm, or like I do in Aly by looping few sounds but nothing really "musical", more ambient.

You've done a lot of changes, it will take me some time to test the map & since I'm slow & busy with others things, well, you must be patient.

I'll check it out asap mate, I promise !

Don't worry Steve, I fully understand. You have your own map that is nearing completion and you should focus on that. Plus I got my other map to work on in case I have to wait for feedback, not yet though :)

PS, I will see what I can do about the music track. Gonna check out DM-Worm, haven't played that one in a while so I can't remember what music he uses there.

@ Odedge, thanks for the input. I think I'm gonna stay away from the titanpack then, would hate it if people who don't have titanpack couldn't run the map because of a few meshes, might be able to import them into my own package though.

-- Edited by Thrallala on Tuesday 17th of November 2009 04:13:19 AM