Author Topic: A map call Draw (Read 33769 times)

Hobo · « **on:** February 13, 2006, 01:56:03 AM »

This is what I've been working on for quite some time. Take a look see, let me know what you think please.
This map uses dsm walls to seal of the tunnels depending on how many people are playing. Highest tunnels open with 8 total and closes with 6. Lower tunnel is partly blocked with 4 or less and opens with 6 total players.
The r_speeds are kindof high in some spots but... I've been working on it to get them down some. I've had many set backs while making this map mostly because of trying to do too much. For example, I wanted to use 12 sided tunnels, but after 2 months of nothing but trouble I gave up.
Still I think it's worth looking at, here's the link and some sshots.

http://rapidshare.de/files/13158761/draw_b1.zip.html

Pimp · « **Reply #1 on:** February 13, 2006, 10:31:37 AM »

WOW! im really impressed, very eleborated, nice lighting, perhaps a little dark at some places.
in the water you can't really go out on one position, that you should fix.

otherwise there's nothing to beef about. really great job i think

Dirty_Taco · « **Reply #2 on:** February 13, 2006, 12:52:26 PM »

Post removed

Termin8oR · « **Reply #3 on:** February 13, 2006, 01:17:16 PM »

Nice, Looks great
cant wait to own some newbies on it.!

-Termin8oR

Hobo · « **Reply #4 on:** February 14, 2006, 02:24:20 AM »

Thank you for taking a look at it and for the nice comments.

Pimp you're right... I didn't test the map on actual server, using the alpha 15 built-in server options I was able to get out of the water all the time, even the bots could get out. I'm assuming you're talking about the middle area between the 2 bases. Making the angle less should take care of that.

Pimp · « **Reply #5 on:** February 14, 2006, 07:45:26 AM »

yeh that will help, i tested it on build 14, and there its absolutely hard to get out..

S8NSSON · « **Reply #6 on:** February 14, 2006, 08:56:31 AM »

Total deep water is unapealing...you should maybe make the water deep in some places, but have terrain where you can stand...maybe a way to traverse the water quickly having only to actually swim a short way if you take the right path...kinda subtle like.

jitspoe · « **Reply #7 on:** February 14, 2006, 01:03:50 PM »

I think you have to have the edge of the water at least 4 units above the water level in order to have it jump out correctly in the old versions. With build15 and up, this has been fixed.

jitspoe · « **Reply #8 on:** February 14, 2006, 10:54:13 PM »

As mentioned earlier, the lighting is too dark. From your screenshots, I can tell you've got the gamma cranked WAY up. The stars should look like white dots, not ugly splotches of lossy compression. Everything else looks pretty washed out, too. Go through the configuration and properly set your gamma, then rework your lighting brightness. It looks like you've completely disabled reflected light, actually. The colored spotlight on the flag looks a bit more like a lighting artifact than something intentional. You might want to do something else for that.

Overall, it's pretty cool, though. Lots of unique detail and whatnot, and it's nice to see a map with DSM. I think you may create more work for yourself than you need to on a lot of this stuff. It looks like a lot of textures are about 1 unit off, which probably means you've fallen victim to the "1 unit off" bug for the textures in BSP trying to manually align everything from the 3d view. It works a lot better if you align by numbers, or create a brush in a position so that the texture is aligned, lock the texture (alt-l) then move it. You should never have to sit and manually try to align lots of textures, except maybe in the case of odd angles where it's just easier to use the mouse. Even then, I typically calculate the exact rotation a texture needs and punch it in.

The middle area is pretty rough with reflective water enabled.

Hobo · « **Reply #9 on:** February 15, 2006, 12:39:36 AM »

S8N: Two reasons for the deep water in this map. First I figured if you jumped down in real life and didn't hit water you'd die for sure, I know comparing this to real life isn't realistic in itself, but that's one reason for the water depth. The other reason is that being down there probably means you jumped/fell down there or went down the chute. The water is meant as a penalty for going that way. It really doesn't take very long to get accross the water. In fact once the getting out of the water is fixed you can jump to the bridge support and most of the way accross the water. If you go down the chute from the top, you can "fly" most of the way accross the water on that side. But since you took the time to reply, I'll look at what you suggested and it may be good to do something along the stair side or such.

Jitspoe: I'll just fix the angle of the bank, so it's more like the rest of them. I was both being lazy and trying to save brush counts down by trying to keep it within the wall width. ;(
I thought I was using alpha 15 pretty much "out of the box" but obviously it is too light. When I checked the water problem with 14 and it was much darker, actually looked alot better to me. But I only was checking the water problem so I didn't look at the rest of it yet. I'll do some tweaking to my gamma.
You're right on the money about my texture alignment. I try not to map using unit size 1 but find myself using 2 alot for whatever reason. And I do most of it by visual as you said. But I do start out making the crates and such as you do. Part of the problem with this map was I accidentally highlighted the whole map and moved it without locking all the textures, then didn't realize it until it was too late. Plus copy pasting and rotating to get the 2nd side altered most of those.
Rotating the brushes wasn't really the problem on this map, the problem was that the bridge and chest lid are drawn in the down poition but start in the up position so the brushes had to be adjusted accordingly. I still need to rotate the end brushes on the chest top. And haven't stopped to look at the bridge sides lately so I'll do that also.
I don't even know how to turn off reflective light. If you would clue me in I'll look at it to see if it's off. Does the washed out look have anything to do with increasing the patch size to 64? I get a "too many patches error if I use 32". And the lightscale is set to 1. But I did grab the textures out of b15 a couple of days ago.

Also the main doors by the bridge need a distance set.

(Thought I'd post it before someone else did.)

I'll spend some time on the problems this week hopefully
.Thank you for the help.

jitspoe · « **Reply #10 on:** February 15, 2006, 01:29:00 AM »

The washed out look is just from the gamma. It looks better with a proper gamma setting, but it's too dark in many areas. You can adjust the reflected light using the -bounce parameter. In the second screenshot you posted -- the tunnel on the right -- where there's no direct light it's black, but maybe it's just because the light source is so dim. I would think that whole hallway would have SOME light in it because of how much would be reflected off of the walls. I'd probably just make a custom .bat file to scale up the brightness -- maybe 1.5 or higher, and then add some more lights in the areas that are still too dark -- some of the tunnels and the chute, for example.

Hobo · « **Reply #11 on:** February 26, 2006, 02:13:29 PM »

Alrighty, here's beta 2. Fixed the middle water fubar, aligned textures, missed one on the bottom rock wall over the door, so I know that needs to be done. But I think the rest of textures are aligned now. Added a light in the top tunnels, changed the flag spot a bit, looks a little better. Ummm.... anyway here it is, let me know what you see wrong. Thank you.

http://rapidshare.de/files/14211671/draw_b2.zip.html

jitspoe · « **Reply #12 on:** February 26, 2006, 04:57:47 PM »

The chute and the area around the metal stairs with the landing still need more light. Also, don't know if this was intentional or not, but the "slippery green slime" is brown in one section, at the end of the hallway.

Hobo · « **Reply #13 on:** March 05, 2006, 04:05:53 PM »

How much light do you need to go down a chute?

I double the lights in the chutes... but I still think you shouldn't be hanging around in there.

Added lights over the metal stairs, changed the brown at the end of the tunnels, it was meant to be a transition piece but I suppose it's better to make it the same. I previouly added a shallow side in the water, probably not what s8n was thinking of, but it's there. Since nothing else was mentioned, here's beta 3.

http://rapidshare.de/files/14791801/draw_b3.zip.html

jitspoe · « **Reply #14 on:** March 05, 2006, 05:21:20 PM »

It's hard to go up the cutes, though, when you can't see. I don't know if you intended them to be used that way, but sincethey're right in the center, it seems kind of natural. The lighting overall still seems pretty dark in a lot of areas. You should probably just scale up the brightness in your compile options.

I need to get a beta maps server set up so people can do play testing.

Hobo · « **Reply #15 on:** March 05, 2006, 10:07:18 PM »

Yes it would be nice to test this map and the others. I guess my monitor is still brighter than yours.. it is a night time map you know.

If I increase the scale I'm worried about the moonlight being too bright. I already think the moonlight is too bright, so I'll probably go through and increase all the lights manually (could decrease moonlight but I had problems getting it to work and don't want to break it.).
I haven't been able to go up the chute to the second floor for quite some time but I'm sure it's still possible. I've never made it to the 3rd floor.
Anyway that gives me something to do for the next few months. Thanks for the help.
Right now I'm using -scale 1.5 and -bounce 12 but get a 8==12 error so I'd guess -bounce tops out at 8?

jitspoe · « **Reply #16 on:** March 05, 2006, 10:52:34 PM »

Maybe. After 4 or 5 it's hard to tell much difference anyway. I'd use midnight for comparison -- it's a night map, but it seems almost twice as bright as draw. I'd up -scale to 2, and then make other adjustments necessary.

jitspoe · « **Reply #17 on:** March 05, 2006, 11:19:54 PM »

Here, I've attached some screenshots of the areas that definitely need more lighting. The map as a whole needs more light, though, too, otherwise it encourages people to crank their gamma way up which makes the whole game look like crap.

jitspoe · « **Reply #18 on:** March 05, 2006, 11:43:46 PM »

Here's another one (the tunnel entrance is too dark). Keep in mind that when people see your map, most of them aren't going to think, "Oh, it's a night map, so it's supposed to be hard to see. That's cool." They're going to think, "I can't see anything. How do I turn my brightness up?" or, "This map sucks. I can't see squat."

Compare those shots to midnight, "the original night time map", and note how it is considerably brighter, yet still maintains the night theme (though the area around the top base entrance is a bit dark, but I didn't really know any better at the time). Also, a number of the areas that are too dark in draw are indoors. Just because it's dark outside doesn't mean it has to be dark inside, too.

Hobo · « **Reply #19 on:** March 06, 2006, 12:55:33 AM »

Thank you for taking the time to look it over and post the screenshots.