CP artpass Huckle

Huckle

L3: Member
May 31, 2010
149
101
Backstory: In the middle of the night, the BLU team guarding Factory #4 have been rudely awakened. RED have infiltrated the factory and will blow it up if BLU cannot get to the bomb in time!

Theme: I have been looking into making a Noir-themed map for a couple of months now and since it doesn't fit well with the project I had, doing it for the artpass contest seemed like a nice idea. I think the Noir theme goes best with a factory theme with a lot of girders and things that can cast sharp shadows. Making it night-time is also a fairly obvious choice, allowing me to light up the outside areas with artificial lighting as well.

My palette will be extremely muted, consisting mostly of gray/white/blue.

Possible problems: Making the playable area light enough while keeping the shadow details high-contrast and crisp. I haven't done much optimization with lightmap scale before, might get issues with the size of the lightmap.

The main personal issue is finding enough time to make the map look stunning in just a couple of months. Then again I'm not really doing this to win, more to test out the black and white theme as a concept and detailing with light and shadow instead of models. I might be able to scrounge up 80+ hours of working time which some people seem to be at already.

If nothing else, it might be used as inspiration for other mappers.
 

Acumen

Annoyer
aa
Jun 11, 2009
704
628
i like some of the light-shadow playfulness, yet the fog is something you should have tricky time to pull it off, so it's not too grey and/or hard to see anything in the end.
good start, though !
 

Efhan

L2: Junior Member
Jun 13, 2009
82
19
I want to use those stairs! Even though it won't benefit me at all, I want to use those stairs.
 

Goombac

L4: Comfortable Member
Mar 27, 2010
172
84
Nice job with the backstory, having blu infiltrate the blu base. I'm guessing most of the maps will be red orientated (like mine).
 

Huckle

L3: Member
May 31, 2010
149
101
i like some of the light-shadow playfulness, yet the fog is something you should have tricky time to pull it off, so it's not too grey and/or hard to see anything in the end.
good start, though !

Yeah I'd really like to have a system that allows to have lower amounts of fog in the actual playing area while keeping it dense outside of it. Blocking off the map with any kind of particle system fog will likely cause massive amounts of stuttering.

I wish there was a third number and not just fog start / fog end but I'll have to try and work around it. I've probably tested every even 500 number between 2500 and 10 000 for fog end this far.

The first screenies are more of a concept either way, I'm not sure if I'll be keeping any of it.
 

Huckle

L3: Member
May 31, 2010
149
101
I feel that I've made some good progress while having the day off so I thought I'd post some screenshots.

Unfortunately I've had to scale back the fog because of the really long sightlines, this map just isn't made for heavy fog. I've also had to raise the ambient light from the sun a bit due to gameplay factors. It still looks ok but I've yet to really make some nice shadows on CP 1.

artpass_huckle0003.jpg


artpass_huckle0005.jpg


artpass_huckle0026.jpg
 

Swordz

L5: Dapper Member
Jun 27, 2009
224
37
a red base but with blu textures? even with the story it looks a bit strange
 

Mr. P. Kiwi

L5: Dapper Member
Nov 22, 2009
244
95
It seems really hard to figure out which way to go sense everything is Blu... You should add big obvious signs pointing the way. Other than that it's awesome.
 

Huckle

L3: Member
May 31, 2010
149
101
It seems really hard to figure out which way to go sense everything is Blu... You should add big obvious signs pointing the way. Other than that it's awesome.

That's actually a great point. Just after reading that I noticed my sign for cap A is blue while the actual point is red. But yeah, that's the reason why the A sign is in the corner under the lamp. The sign is visible if you exit out of the right side door of the BLU spawn. The capture area is also brighter and more open than the surrounding area, which I'm hoping will help.

I haven't really come to the detailing stage yet, adding stairs and changing buildings is a stage before that to me. Since I'm still switching a ton of stuff around, overlays and func_details tend to belong to faces I delete or move around.
 

Draco18s

L9: Fashionable Member
Sep 19, 2009
622
136
I want your fog settings.
I've been trying everything to get this light, but visibly dense, for for a while now, and you have it.

I suspect there's more to it than just env_fog settings, but I know it's a good chunk of it (I got it by accident on a map I was working on about a year ago, but I didn't keep those settings, as the fog was too thick for what I wanted at the time).
 

Tinker

aa
Oct 30, 2008
672
334
Make the defending buildings RED or neutral. It's nice to have a bit of backstory, but this goes against every player's intuitions and will only make for confusion. Colour coded stuff is there for a reason.
 

lana

Currently On: ?????
aa
Sep 28, 2009
3,075
2,778
I don't like how much your fog clashes with the skybox.
 

Huckle

L3: Member
May 31, 2010
149
101
Here's a quick update, I've mostly been working on the first spawn as well as the area around capture point 2. There is still a lot of big flat textured walls that need detailing but I reckon that's going to be a later stage once I'm happy with the way the map itself looks. The current screenshots are a bit darker than the latest version of the map though.

Attacker spawn area (a warehouse construction site):
artpass_huckle0009.jpg


Second stage leading to the third:
artpass_huckle0012.jpg

The left side of capture point 2 will be a loading area where trucks can drive onto trains, the entrance leading to capture point 3 will be stairs up with a tunnel down into a parking house (decoration only).

I want your fog settings.
I've been trying everything to get this light, but visibly dense, for for a while now, and you have it.

I suspect there's more to it than just env_fog settings, but I know it's a good chunk of it (I got it by accident on a map I was working on about a year ago, but I didn't keep those settings, as the fog was too thick for what I wanted at the time).

The problem is, I change fog settings a lot now since I'm trying to get skybox fog as well, here are the most recent settings for my env_fog (color is 200 200 200).

settings.png


I've only just added a material to my custom skybox that allows it to recieve fog. Since the draw distance is so huge I think I'll have to make the fog_start negative and the fog_end extremely high though as well as raise my max density. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll just have to paint it into the skybox.

Make the defending buildings RED or neutral. It's nice to have a bit of backstory, but this goes against every player's intuitions and will only make for confusion. Colour coded stuff is there for a reason.

I've come to the same conclusion but since I'm really starting to like the look of my map I'll just be switching the map up so that BLU will be the defenders and RED will be attacking. Blue signs and capture points will definitely match the theme much better and make more sense. It's not like anyone cares about the back story of a map anyway as long as it looks and plays well.

I don't like how much your fog clashes with the skybox.

I couldn't agree more. I'm currently trying to learn to write materials to recieve fog and/or edit the skybox to just have the fog itself painted in. The pattern of the skybox is likely to be the same since I'm terrible at painting but I reckon the fog could be fixed with some kind of gradient/gaussian blur setup.

As I wrote above, I've just tried to edit the materials for the skybox (just removed $nofog" "1") and will be playing with the env_fog entity to see if it's possible to get the fog to extend to the skybox. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers for the feedback so far.
 
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Draco18s

L9: Fashionable Member
Sep 19, 2009
622
136
The problem is, I change fog settings a lot now since I'm trying to get skybox fog as well, here are the most recent settings for my env_fog (color is 200 200 200).

Not a problem. I just needed a jumping off point on something that was "close enough."

I've come to the same conclusion but since I'm really starting to like the look of my map I'll just be switching the map up so that BLU will be the defenders and RED will be attacking. Blue signs and capture points will definitely match the theme much better and make more sense. It's not like anyone cares about the back story of a map anyway as long as it looks and plays well.

It will throw people when they join red expecting to be defending, but IMO red should be the attackers on A/D PL maps anyway (red blows stuff up more than blue, by the TF2 backstory--serious, they're a demolitions company). Though its implied that Red and Blue attack each other equally often.

Edit:
I've only just added a material to my custom skybox that allows it to recieve fog. Since the draw distance is so huge I think I'll have to make the fog_start negative and the fog_end extremely high though as well as raise my max density. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll just have to paint it into the skybox.

fog_start can be negative. I just found this out by peering over 2Fort and noticed that they had varying fog settings for the interior/spytech areas of each side. The fog in the sewers starts at -200.
 
Last edited:
Nov 14, 2009
1,257
378
NO NO NO NO NO

You can throw away your chance of winning if you switch red and blue. It is a predefined part of the game that red is always defending, and blue is attacking. Valve knows that changing this needlessly confuses players, and that is the reason that they have never made a blue attacking map.


Also, the BLU freight and shipping is out of place, since whenever I see it, I think Freight. Its just one of those props that should never ever be used.
 

Draco18s

L9: Fashionable Member
Sep 19, 2009
622
136
Update on the fog: those settings are exactly what I needed! Its now "visibly thick" without being "oppressively dense!" Awesome!
I left the colors alone, just change the start/end and max density.
 

Huckle

L3: Member
May 31, 2010
149
101
So due to popular demand I've done a fast reskin towards Red instead. I haven't done much of brushwork at all and I know the metal railings look out of place, I just thought I'd get some screenshots out there while I'm working on capture point 2. I'm going to need to add more support beams and stuff to really go with the red theme but pretend that they are decently detailed while looking at the screenshots. ;)

Is it any better as red? If it's not, I think I'll just go with the blue theme, I think my chances of winning are infinitesimal anyway after looking at some of the entries (like Ravage and Goobatheviking) so I'd rather just go with whatever looks better.

artpass_huckle0002.jpg


artpass_huckle0018.jpg


artpass_huckle0004.jpg


artpass_huckle0009-1.jpg
 

Draco18s

L9: Fashionable Member
Sep 19, 2009
622
136
I've got a slight issue with the route over the "shipping container" in terms of how you changed it:
artpass_huckle0002.jpg


No one would put stairs onto a roof and have it lead to a window. You've got to put something on that surface that makes the stairs believable.
 

Huckle

L3: Member
May 31, 2010
149
101
It's actually supposed to lead up to the stairs going to the roof, one of the security fences is a gate. I suppose it'll look better if I make the stairs to the roof start right next to the window though to make it more obvious. Going with a red theme I'll have to switch some of it around anyway.

Looking at it in hammer it was just a couple too many units into the ground so you can't see the lower bar and the wheel that allow the gate to be opened.