Schism A28

• The main portal underneath the capture point will invert its travel direction every time the point is captured in either world, though bear in mind there is currently no feedback to indicate this change to anyone without a direct view of the main portal at the time
• Portals now show a static but angle-accurate preview "window" of their destination via strategic use of special cubemaps; preliminary version with rough visuals
  • Known issue: the portal windows currently flicker depending on where you're standing—this appears to be due to Z-fighting between the window entity and vortex particle system, pending a vortex redesign to alleviate this
• The portal platforms have been redesigned with fancy metal trim, higher ramps, and glass baseboard surfaces with lighting depending on their travel direction; basic black and white for now, but will gain fancier visuals in the future
  • A similar trim and lighting surface has been added to the underside of the capture point platform; this along with the main portal's base will switch its light on and off according to the main portal's direction
• Significant spawn room progress:
  • Textures changed from dev textures to proper spawn room textures
  • Better lighting in spawns
  • Added side hallways with an additional forward exit leading out under the lobby catwalk ramps in order to alleviate spawncamp issues
  • Minor dimensional and locker placement tweaks
• The catwalks in the team lobbies have been given guard rails, both to help prevent falling as well as to make it harder to peek-fire down at the main spawn door, with minor geometry changes to the cover panel and the door trigger shrunk to allow hiding right up against the panel without holding the door open
• Several one-way windows have been added throughout the map to provide more information to players spawning and heading towards the point versus those attacking enemy territory:
  • From the new spawnroom side corridor into each team's lobby
  • Added to the cover panel on the lobby catwalk to let spawning players see anyone hiding up there
  • From the lobby catwalk into the upper side wings
  • From the upper side wings toward the point
• Both the lower and upper side wings have been slightly elongated, with the upper wings additionally made wider with an additional route under the catwalk ramp in the light world; this new widened section is additionally a blind spot to the window directly above it
  • The side wing doorways and obstacles on the rear of the mezzanine have been pushed back to coincide with this
  • Some of the portal positions have also been altered slightly as a result
  • The size of the grate in the upper side wing floors has been slightly altered in the light world, and similarly the cut-out in the dark world has had its shape modified slightly
• Ghost geometry has been made significantly more visible with a more blatant hologram flicker to indicate their non-solid nature
  • The only visible ghost geometry right now are thin objects like catwalks and rails; ghosts of large blocks have been disabled for the time being and will return pending visual refinements into something other than basic cubes
• The "ghost hologram" above the point indicating its ownership in the other world has been made similarly more visible, and should no longer vanish when standing directly below it
• Signage added around the map: spawn room entrance/exit signs, control point guide arrows, and "battlements" signs for the upper side wings
• Added cubemaps near all reflective surfaces: windows, signs, and portal platform glass
• Large amounts of brushwork have been shifted around behind the scenes (with the whole map in general moved to be better centered along the height axis), with tweaked textures and a significant amount of brushes moved to func_detail to clean up visleaves
• While the rate of damage remains the same (1HP/1.5s) The way the dark world atmosphere deals damage to players has been altered to be more consistent per-player, though for the time being players will now simply ragdoll instead of disintegrate if killed by the atmosphere; this will be changed back in a future update

Been a long time since I touched this. Figured I'd spin up this newfangled Hammer++ and give it a whirl.

• A ghost hologram is now visible above the control point alongside the normal hologram, reflecting its ownership in the other world
• Similarly, ghosts of geometry in the other world can now be faintly seen (preliminary effect)
• The point icons on the HUD have been redone
• The dark world will slowly drain players' health over time, very gently (1HP every 1.5 seconds) on this first iteration just to test the concept out; dying to this effect results in your character disintegrating
• Rails have been added to the sides of the mezzanine in the dark world
• The curve of the central mezzanine has been smoothed out
• The steps leading up to the spawn room's side door have been made easier to step onto from the side

• Removed the small pits behind the central dark portal
• Redesigned the center pit to have a bridge across it rather than a wall on one side; should make it easier to get around on the first floor in the dark world (the packs near the pit are now on said bridge)
• Deathpits now have subtle illumination of a different hue to the rest of the dark world to help players see them better
• Turned the ramps in the spawn areas to face the spawns so that players will be inclined to use them more
• Removed the shutter doors in the main entrances to the lobbies
• Enlarged the doors on the side entrances to the lobbies and made the side area of the lobby less cramped overall
• Thinned out all the metal walkways on the map
• Enlarged the second-floor doorways somewhat
• Added minor detailing in areas that I'm feeling confident I won't be changing; primarily this is trim on certain metal walkways, changing floor ramps in the spawn areas to stairs, and adding thresholds in doorways between areas with different floors

• Portals now make noise when used; a whooshing noise at the entrance and a crackle at the exit (both for the user)
• The dark world is now littered with deadly pits around key areas
• Health and ammo packs have been shuffled around somewhat; packs in the dark world have been made more scarce and are generally near hazards
• The spawn area has been slightly rejiggered to encourage players to use the side routes more
• The grates between the lobby floors in the light world no longer allow explosion damage through them
• The shutter doors heading into the lobby are now windowed for the spawning team to help them push out

• Separated the lower and upper levels of the team lobbies in the light world, preventing the opposing team from shooting down into the spawn doors; the ramp still exists in the dark world, meaning you can use the portals to get to the upper level
• Added more cover to the lower lobby levels
• Moved the spawn areas upward to give spawning players more of an advantage against intruders
• Exit portals now have a slight repulsion effect

• Portals will now pull in close players to help prevent "whiffing" a portal you're trying to enter
• Going through a portal will now grant 1.5 seconds of Über to let players safely get their bearings and drive off campers
• Preliminary texturing throughout the map to help differentiate areas; light world uses clean, intact materials whereas dark world has a worn-down, broken look
• Improved lighting in both worlds; light world is much brighter while dark world is marginally brighter, but both should look much more distinct from each other
• Made upper route out of the spawn areas more obvious
• Updated beginning-of-round instructions to let players know the gimmick of the map

Last playtest was rather promising; this should solve what problems are left with the dual-world mechanic and if the actual layout itself stands up to scrutiny without any other distractions, the map could be entering beta next revision.

Enlarged the map and modified the layout somewhat after the previous revision was considered too cramped. Was planning to add a brief Über-on-teleport effect, but couldn't figure it out in time for testing; that'll have to wait for the next revision.

Thanks to FissionMetroid for providing the particles from Spookeyridge for the portals. I also did a lighting pass to go with it and fixed a collision bug when using the center dark portal.

Last layout of the map was said to be unsalvageable and that I should probably just start over again. So I decided to go for a smaller indoor map this time. Hopefully this should play nicer with the dual-world formula.

For some reason the original A15 isn't registering in Vbot.