ARENA Palanquin Ship

Deity Link

L1: Registered
Jun 8, 2010
36
4
vsh_palanquin_ship_novpk

UPDATE (01/06/2013)
Updated the Download Link, the map now consists of a single BSP file, instead of a VPK file. so servers can have players download the map from them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHMbDkMBgBY

UPDATE (31/05/2013)
The map is finally finished!!! And oh boy I never thought that it would take me this much time between the beta and the final release. Making all the small remaining models for the map turned out to be surprisingly tedious, so I lost my motivation several times. Then it got interesting again toward the end when I made the logic for the easter eggs (the joy of seeing an event that you coded work as intented).

Since VSH doesn't make it viable to have a secret room as players could hide in it and delay the round indefinitely, I've instead put easter eggs near places that the player will frequently pass by, but that they won't notice unless they pay attention.

During, the final test, the players and boss even stopped fighting at some point to try and crack the password of one of the easter eggs (ugh, took me a whole night to have that password work as intended. It gets surprisingly harder when the same numbers are being pushed multiple times.)

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Tadaaa, my new VSH map has reached beta and I am proud to present you "the Palanquin Ship"!

I know that most of you aren't fond of maps that don't follow the strict guidelines of the TF2 style/non official game modes, but I also know that most of you value effort, and who knows how many nights I spent these last 6 weeks polishing this ship with two objectives in mind: Make it look good, and Make it fun to play on. And yesterday's beta test convinced me that I succeeded on both of these criteria (I recorded everything, I'll soon put some of the footage on Youtube) that said, there are still a few props I want to model, a few textures I want to polish, and a few framerate issues that I want gone. So I'm planning to lower the amount of particles on the map (note that the number of particles raises drastically if the map is rainy, which has 30% chance to happen, though you can disable weather effects).

To those who want to see the map in-game, VSH is a variant of Arena, so you'll have to spawn a bot if you want to play a class. The RED players spawn scattered on the ship, while the BLU player will appear from one of the corners of the map and fly toward the ship. Thanks to this "wind", it is pointless for RED players to attempt to eject the boss from the ship.

Also, to see the map in all his different versions (random every round), you can use these commands:

ent_fire relay_skylight_noon trigger
ent_fire relay_skylight_twilight trigger
ent_fire relay_skylight_night trigger

ent_fire relay_weather_clear trigger (70% chance)
ent_fire relay_weather_rain trigger (20% chance)
ent_fire relay_weather_storm trigger (10% chance)

Note: in "Stormy" weather, lightning strikes will hit random locations of the ship, so players are encouraged to stay inside the ship.

Lastly, here's some footage of the alpha test (no textures/models) so you get an idea of the mod's gameplay.
 
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Bermuda Cake

L9: Fashionable Member
Feb 20, 2009
679
480
Damn nice looking map you've got there! My one concern is that Saxton Hale could just keep jumping off the edge, swooping in from above, and then diving off again. Any preventative measures like some sort of damage penalty for falling off might be easily exploited by the red team. That said, there's the inside areas that would combat the sky dropping tactic, although you don't want to encourage everyone to just camp in there. Caught between the horns of a dilemma, really.

Is one of those pictures a render, or is it all in TF2?

EDIT: Also the roofs look a little too flat. Maybe make them displacements and have them be a bit bumpy? Also some gutters wouldn't hurt. It's also a little dark in the cap point area but the shadows do look nice.

Also in pic2 the woodgrain on that light coloured wood above the door should probably be rotated 90 degrees. The side that is facing the camera.

The spiral staircases also look a bit strange - compared to the rest of the map they don't look like they'd actually support any weight. Some railings and pillars maybe? Spiral staircases are a faff to climb anyway, so consider a different way of ascending. I wouldn't recommend an elevator, though.
 
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Ælement

Comfortably mediocre
aa
Dec 21, 2010
1,481
1,616
Put this in the 3D skybox or something and i will love you forever

2-1.jpg


It's just too perfect for a gorillaz reference
 

Penguin

Clinically Diagnosed with Small Mapper's Syndrome
aa
May 21, 2009
2,039
1,484
my brain is uncertain of how to parse this

looks hella neat tho
 

Deity Link

L1: Registered
Jun 8, 2010
36
4
My one concern is that Saxton Hale could just keep jumping off the edge, swooping in from above, and then diving off again.

Don't worry, I don't have pictures to show right now but when Hale is off the ship, he's surrounded by a UFO about twice his size, which makes him easy to track. And Hale has the power to perform high jumps for the start. if used correctly though, this allows him to quickly move relatively quickly between the front and the back of the ship and surprise some red players.


Any preventative measures like some sort of damage penalty for falling off might be easily exploited by the red team. That said, there's the inside areas that would combat the sky dropping tactic, although you don't want to encourage everyone to just camp in there. Caught between the horns of a dilemma, really.

Might be worth precising that if Hale spends more than 30 seconds off the ship, he'll fall to his death. Mainly to prevent the perspective of an AFK hale.
Also, even though there is a pretty good engineer nest inside the ship (on the platform just above the control point), players usually tend to separate into different groups, which allows Hale to take them out separately. If all players tried to hide in that nest, Hale would be even more dangerous as his "rage" could take out all the reds at once.

Is one of those pictures a render, or is it all in TF2?

I got asked this several times. And this is all in TF2. None of this is rendered.
And I am pretty proud of the result.

EDIT: Also the roofs look a little too flat. Maybe make them displacements and have them be a bit bumpy? Also some gutters wouldn't hurt. It's also a little dark in the cap point area but the shadows do look nice.

It looks dark but it is still easily navigable. Displacements on the roofs might be an option. Also the first screenshot was from before I compiled the cubemaps, so you don't see the reflections which add a pretty good illusion of heights.

Also in pic2 the woodgrain on that light coloured wood above the door should probably be rotated 90 degrees. The side that is facing the camera.

hm, yeah, I guess

The spiral staircases also look a bit strange - compared to the rest of the map they don't look like they'd actually support any weight. Some railings and pillars maybe? Spiral staircases are a faff to climb anyway, so consider a different way of ascending. I wouldn't recommend an elevator, though.

Ah, I'm glad you pointed that out, these stairs originated as a private jokes from some of my friends telling me that I suck at animating people climbing stairs in SFM, so I gave them hard stairs to climb in return.
Then during the beta test, some Hale players were actually having trouble climbing them, triggering general hilarity and "I warned you about the stairs, bro" references. And as a consequence, I had some of the testers ask me to NOT change these stairs. So I might make them look more realistic (the way they hold to that pillar) but definitely not replace them by an elevator.
 

Bermuda Cake

L9: Fashionable Member
Feb 20, 2009
679
480
Ah, I didn't realise Hale was high jumping back onto the ship. I thought he was falling off and being teleported to the top of the map. About those stairs, it's not worth keeping them just for the sake of a running joke if you ever want to share the map with people who weren't in on it. For example, this entire website.

Sadly I don't think custom gamemodes like VSH get tested during gamedays, but I'm sure there's plenty of people willing to give you art advice.
 

Deity Link

L1: Registered
Jun 8, 2010
36
4
It's just too perfect for a gorillaz reference

Added to the list of potential easter eggs for the final version.

Also regarding the origin of the map, the Palanquin Ship is a location from the video game "Touhou Project 12: Undefined Fantastic Object". Though as for most locations from Touhou games, there is no canonic representations of them, so I was inspired by this artwork from Deviant Art artist Kurko Boltsi:

th__the_palanquin_ship_by_kurkoboltsi-d309o1w.jpg


I contacted him, and as he is a TF2 player himself got very enthusiastic with my idea, and he drew me some sketches to get the proportions right.
 

Deity Link

L1: Registered
Jun 8, 2010
36
4
Ah, I didn't realise Hale was high jumping back onto the ship. I thought he was falling off and being teleported to the top of the map.

Actually it's a trigger push that sends him back up, with several other triggers to send him toward the ship. So it's basically as if he's being pushed by the wind.

About those stairs, it's not worth keeping them just for the sake of a running joke if you ever want to share the map with people who weren't in on it. For example, this entire website.

I probably wouldn't want to play on this map with all the people on TF2maps (some people in particular are kinda hard to get along with for me). Nothing is definitive, so I don't know myself yet what I'll do for these stairs, but I have time to think about it.

Sadly I don't think custom gamemodes like VSH get tested during gamedays, but I'm sure there's plenty of people willing to give you art advice.

Art advices are fine too.
 

Deity Link

L1: Registered
Jun 8, 2010
36
4
Fantastic looking concept art too.

Out of curiosity, did you manage to clip the spiral staircases properly?

I actually tried T_T
But I would get invalid structure errors, so I gave up. All the other stairs on the ship are clipped.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
I actually tried T_T
But I would get invalid structure errors, so I gave up. All the other stairs on the ship are clipped.

The trick is to slice them into triangles (from the top down view) before you do the vertex editing. Or you can make the top face into two triangles without slicing the whole brush by clicking two opposite corners and hitting Ctrl+F, but you have to be careful that you select the right two corners or you'll end up with a concave brush.
 

Deity Link

L1: Registered
Jun 8, 2010
36
4
The trick is to slice them into triangles (from the top down view) before you do the vertex editing. Or you can make the top face into two triangles without slicing the whole brush by clicking two opposite corners and hitting Ctrl+F, but you have to be careful that you select the right two corners or you'll end up with a concave brush.

Thanks for the tip. I wonder though if clipping the stairs of a spiral staircase will make it be as effective as it is when you clip straight stairs.
 

GPuzzle

L9: Fashionable Member
Feb 27, 2012
638
414
Even thought I really dislike those kind of maps (non-standart TF2 gametypes maps - unless it's csf, pl_waste, invade ctf, push ctf or htf), I have to say. This is beautiful.

Anyway, the first thing I thought when I saw it was of Super Mario Galaxy.