CP artpass grazr

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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Granary theme... early morning. Open sky and dissipating ground fog.

Please stop suggesting i add clouds. It is on purpose that there are none, not an over sight. Clouds are not a necessity and the lack of them conforms to the formation of morning fog; which is exactly the environment concept i desire.
 
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grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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Thanks, the density of detail isn't as much as other contest maps but i'm trying to be practical as well as fancy (plus obviously it's still WIP), especially since the map layout does not do much for optimisation.
 

Seba

DR. BIG FUCKER, PHD
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Jun 9, 2009
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Rotate some of those haybales, your haypile in the first pic appears to be floating, and it'll look great. <3 Granary theme
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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That's just the shadow making the hay pile look like it's "hovering", Seba.

Also most of the haybales are rotated slightly to prevent a repetitive appearence, but the spirals look the same per 90 degree rotation, so it's hard to make them not look copy/pasted.

Currently working on the lighting inside the buildings and BLU spawn, before moving onto the spytech base. There are also several light map bleeds, but after sorting out some details around B, BLU spawn and the odd lighting glitches i can move onto the spytech base!
 
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Draco18s

L9: Fashionable Member
Sep 19, 2009
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Just FYI on the hay rolls. Living around farms that grow hay, you never stack the rolls. They're too heavy (and tend to roll).
 

Draco18s

L9: Fashionable Member
Sep 19, 2009
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When they bother moving them around at all, yeah. The guy near my house just kind of leaves them out in the field where ever.

But yeah, not on top of each other (for reference, each one weight like 800 pounds).
 
Nov 14, 2009
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No offense grazr, but I just cant get excited about granary theme. Its just so boring imo. Needs some pizzaz.
 
Jan 20, 2010
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Hey, not cool, let the man work. How do you know he won't spruce up and revitalise granary and make it feel fresh again? He's already got custom content going in so don't pan it too early on. :p

Just giving him some critical opinion from what I've seen. I've never been a fan of the Granary theme and, I, personally cannot think of anything to make it more interesting.

But he can absolutely prove me wrong. Consider it a CHALLENGE. :p

I mean no disrespect at all. :D
 

Jetti

L5: Dapper Member
May 2, 2010
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Alright Grazr, as you have helped me with my yammering on steam, I'll try to help you.

Picture #1: The ground looks quite bland. Perhaps add some grass sprites or some more rocks, or add some different alpha blending to break up the mass of monotone dirt in the centre. I like the style of the building on the left. It kinda reminds me of dustbowl for some reason. The ladder and Tire are nice touches.

Picture #2: Ironically, the roof here is quite bland too. Perhaps you should refer to your roofing tutorial? XD Again, the floor is quite bland, and you appear to have added a door just to break the monotone of the wall. Unfortunately, you have not included any sort of detail room to show the purpose of the door; unless the door leads to the exterior wall? I kinda expected to see some conduits or something from the floodlights from outside to connect to and was dissapointed when there was not.

Picture #3: You said to me in PM that the concrete block was used as either: A road divider, or a thign of defence. In this picture, the concrete block seems to be doing neither of these, as it is not placed by a road and can not easily be used to fire from behind (unless there is a not visible structure). The visible building in the foreground has a nice use of overlays, however the conveyor seems to dissapear to thin air (unless you plan to implement this in the skybox). The skybox itself is nice; it won't take away player attention because it is subtle. I like how you changed the room with the window near A into an extension of the adjacent building.

Picture #4: The wall here is quite tiled. I understand that you wouldn't want a relateively insignificant wall to capture player attention, but it just looks an eye-sore. Perhaps make it similar to the curvy silo building in picture #5? There isn't much more to critisize here other than the tiled floorboards.

Picture #5. I don't get what the strange 'oil rig' structure in this picture is. The boxy one. It's also pretty strange: 2 thin cables holding up a giant metal conveyor. that structure doesn't look like it would withstand the forces of gravity. Its almost as bad as thinking oil can form under rivers in mountains. B is looking nice, as is the fence you mentioned in you blog.

Thats all from me folks.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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Just FYI on the hay rolls. Living around farms that grow hay, you never stack the rolls. They're too heavy (and tend to roll).

So so... true but also not true.

4743-hay-bales.jpg

hay_bales.jpg


No offense grazr, but I just cant get excited about granary theme. Its just so boring imo. Needs some pizzaz.

My reason for choosing the Granary theme is that every level designer and his dog that are entering this competition will be using the Alpine theme. There will be others that realise this as well and will fall back on the classic desert theme. This way my map sticks out as unique in more ways than one.

It may be folly, but it's a challenge to use an under rated theme.



@Jetti: I appreciate the comments Jetti but some of the concerns about the legitimacy of details are unjustified. You're over thinking many of my aesthetics.

1: The ground looks bland because the screen shot crops most of the local detail. The texture i used does not have grass for a reason (detail sprites clipping through brush work) but i am in the process of adding foliage in the form of props so this "problem" is being addressed.

2: The roof will be less bland when i add lights. Low ceilings don't generally harbour detail as it gets in the way or is overlooked as players concentrate on areas of threat.

3: Tell that to Valve who have also used this prop in granary.

4: You need to understand that tiling is a subtle thing to most players, although some textures are more obvious than others. This wall does not attract much attention as the lack of details promotes this, it is not supposed to be a significant wall because i do not wish to confuse the players priorities with visual noise. I may add to this wall as the map is always open to change, but good design is knowing when to stop adding details as much as it is knowing how to add them.

5: My "oil rig" structure is a shoot that deposits hay into train carts in a similar way to the old coal shoots that resupplied locomotives as they passed stations. I have A levels in advanced physics so i understand how tension and forces work. How do you think suspension bridges work? The same principle here.


But thanks for the feedback, i'll be baring all these comments in mind as i develop the map.

important question: What do people think of the use of pumpkins. It's a farm that is obviously producing hay and corn and it would not be unreasonable for one to grow pumpkins. But my concern is that people will go "OMG HALLOWEEN THEME".
 
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Harribo

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Nov 1, 2009
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I think it could work Grazr but I'd say it would be very easy to do badly. Subtleness is probably key with the pumpkins, people will go 'OMG' if they're in their line of sight regularly like the blocks scattered on the floor in cp_egypt, keeping them to side routes and/or out of bounds areas like the sectioned off interiors filled with piles of gold and tools in pl_goldrush where people have to be paying attention will see them would be what I would suggest.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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I had kind of a stupid idea for the sakes of being silly but thought it might actually work on a serious level too... figured maybe RED could be working on GM food. Last point is a giant pumpkin that explodes when won by BLU...

I'm kinda stuck with what the base actually does behind the farmland facade. Maybe communication gear... but then that's so generic and predictable...
 

Draco18s

L9: Fashionable Member
Sep 19, 2009
622
136
important question: What do people think of the use of pumpkins. It's a farm that is obviously producing hay and corn and it would not be unreasonable for one to grow pumpkins. But my concern is that people will go "OMG HALLOWEEN THEME".

If you do things right people won't think you did anything at all.
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