CP artpass_stevethepocket

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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"...UNLESS IT'S A FARM!"

So I finally have something semi-presentable. I spent the first half-month making whatever changes I could think of, ignoring whether I could compile it or not. Then I started over with a fresh base and either ported stuff other or recreated it, piece by piece. I'm on my fourth "build" right now, which should be the fifth but I forgot to save a new copy.

I'm going with a farm theme because it seemed to be the most underrepresented in official maps now. With some sort of processing plant (gotta get those preservatives in there somehow!) as RED's base.

And yeah, I know I don't need to include a changelog, but this is my first map here and I figured I'd do it right.
 
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Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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Complete, overdetailed changelog:
Build 1: Added barn and garage. Put in freight elevator. Started texturing on buildings nearest BLU spawn. Converted sniper shacks by A and overlooking B. Combined route to sniper deck with porch steps.

Build 2: Converted buildings nearest BLU spawn to a barn and a two-story shack, added assorted detailing in and around. Added temporary styling to BLU spawn. Added silos. Added detailing around A. Added inaccessible steps behind sniper deck. Replaced 2fort fence with homemade wooden fence.

Build 3: Converted C's side room and the stairwell behind it. Added toxic waste room with train and tunnel behind RED spawn. Deepened death pit, replaced fall damage with toxic waste. Started detailing RED spawn and C. Textured and added roofing to farmhouse. Textured RED lobby. Assorted detailing changes.

Build 4: Textured all remaining areas inside RED base, converted most lighting. Began texturing exterior. Copied over experimental changes to C. Added skyway above A and office tower. Added detailing to lobby including cafeteria (to be committed pending authorization of custom props) and blocked ramp to skyway. Continued detailing farmhouse including chimney.

Build 4a: Assorted tweaks, including moving train tunnel doors in RED spawn to lower level. Heightened sniper shack by A, added inaccessible deck above and door to skyway. Added back room to farmhouse with spytech stuff. Added railing and other detailing to shack.

Build 5: Lots of detailing on RED base, including point C, hallways, and entrance area. Created blendtexture for ramps. Began adding sound. Finished populating barn shelves, added some props and more windows, and tweaked lighting in same. Added windows below shack. Added second RED office tower and ladder to first. Assorted minor detailing.

Build 6: Converted "cliff" building, RED base outbuildings, and shack near B barn. Tweaked displacements, and added a small cliff behind B barn and tracks by BLU base. Continued building RED base exterior, focusing on side by B. Added shutters to farmhouse, retextured outside walls to wood experimentally. Added water heater to large shack. Assorted minor detailing. Finally fixed areaportals. Also, compiled with -staticproplighting for the first time!

Build 7: Added displacement pipe, second vat, and metal tank to radioactive waste room. Shifted entire train track to line up with the catwalks. Overhauled RED spawn room. Completely converted BLU spawn, although it kinda sucks. Added 3D skybox, although it also sucks. Retouched kitchen but still didn't really detail it per se. Assorted signage. Added shelves to metal sniper shack near B. Packed custom content, allegedly.


And now, a repost of the screencaps because I figure I'll replace them soon.

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View from BLU spawn, including the farmhouse and RED's mysterious plant. I really want the farmhouse to have siding or something, but I went with brick for now. Also I need to get a shingle texture for the roofs.

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The barn so far. I struggled to get this light enough inside and now I think I've overdone it a bit. That hayloft and shelves (which I'll finish populating later) are half of what used to be the huge wall.

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The other side of the barn, and the shack. The other half of the giant wall is going to be some generic inaccessible buildings, I guess. For now they're a placeholder metal wall. Still not sure what to do for supports on those stairs.

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Point A in all its majesty. It's a loading dock! Notice the skyway and the out-of-service freight elevator. If you sticky jump or noclip you can see the freight elevator's interior stop through the skyway windows, and if you look down into the shaft you can see the car itself. The sniper shack there is temporary; I literally just built the upper deck this evening.

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The side room, with a view of the nuclear facility. (Thanks, Void!) That ramp leads up to a train track, which also passes behind RED's spawn. The actual cave has very little detail right now; TF2 has a surprising dearth of props that would work here, and also it's been ages since I've seen a fictitious toxic waste factory. Any suggestions for stuff to watch would be appreciated.
 
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Void

Local Man Unable To Map, Sources Say
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Sep 14, 2008
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Must be one helluva crop at that farm if there's nuclear waste involved!
 

Draco18s

L9: Fashionable Member
Sep 19, 2009
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136

Stairs need more support to then, they're too "hanging" right now.

I'd also ditch the truncated corner; no one would actually build like that. It's a barn.

Must be one helluva crop at that farm if there's nuclear waste involved!


The farm is a facade for the illegal waste dumping, I'm sure. ;)
Remember the TF2 backstory: the visible portion of the location is merely a front for the illegal stuff going on behind it. Look at 2Fort, why does it have a NASA-like computer desk setup under a farm?
 

Groovy Pants

L1: Registered
Jul 24, 2009
20
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I have to say... It looks infinitely better than mine. I wish I thought of turning that blasted wall into a building. The lights under little bit of scaffolding near there shouldn't be pure white, save that for inside. I suggest making them slightly yellow.

I wish you the best of luck in the contest.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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Update: Build 5, and I had an epiphany for how to deal with the pillars at point C. Taking a cue from a couple buildings from my college campus (built in the same period as TF2), I am employing indoor bricks!

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The room just next to C, for which I've decided to just ditch the raised platform in favor of some funky stairs:

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That leak is both my first use of particles and my first working sound entity. Witness the overexcitement of a first-time mapper!

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Yes, there's still dev textures in there. I'm really pushing my limits here, but I vow to finish on time.
 
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Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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I think you really nailed the farm-to-spytech transition. Great job.

Really? Because that's the one thing I still hate about this. I've got a brick building with office styling mere feet from two different barns, for petesake. Not to mention the slant-roofed buildings attached to said building, which I still have no idea what to do with. But maybe I'm just worrying about nothing. Granary has the same kind of buildings after all, and it's ... sort of a farm. Ish.
 

Jetti

L5: Dapper Member
May 2, 2010
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I don't think it matters. The office building was probably built first. Then it was discovered the land is "fertile" and they decided to build farms and barns. Besides, in a town I visted on holiday, there is a power plant directly besides a farm.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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I've pretty much given up hope of finishing on time now, seeing as exactly zero of the things I set out to do today actually happened because the other stuff took forever. Still, screenshots ahoy!

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Finally turned the "cliff" into something presentable! Suggestions welcome, as I seem to have reached my creative limit even after looking over Dustbowl and 2fort extensively. Also, my first corner-edited overlays!

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Rear view of same.

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The shack near B and some of the "outbuildings," which I decided to make metal to give the impression that they belong to the factory. Note the red glowing brush face, which I have no idea what is up with. It casts light on the blades of grass, too! Also there was supposed to be a working light inside; I'll have to see what happened with that.

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Still not quite sure what to do with this, but plugged away at it anyway!

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Some of the new stuff near A, and the retextured farmhouse. Brick was never right for it.

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The closet with the sink and water heater. Not bad for just brushwork and pipe models. Wish there was a "CAUTION: HOT" sign I could stick on there though.

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Not really new, but I thought you might want to see the lobby and cafeteria.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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So as some of you already know, I missed the deadline by the forty minutes it took to actually upload the map. The compile literally finished at 7:00 exactly. That, and the "finished" product really isn't. It's probably just as well that Valve will never see this. I really missed the deadline by at least a week, since it would probably have taken that long to refine the stuff I ended up rushing into something worth showing them.

But all in all, I think everything turned out well. This was a learning experience for me. I forced myself to learn and/or do a lot of things I'd never done before and might never have been arsed to if I weren't motivated to get a finished map out of the deal: Sound. A 3D skybox. Staticproplighting. "Prop dropping". Off-grid structures. Hint brushes (my portal file looks like Vince took a Slap Chop to it, but I seem to be getting a decent framerate). Large, pretty but inaccessible areas. And of course, detailing an entire functional map.

So let me wrap up this train wreck with an apology to the people I let down (Void, who provided the radioactive waste; and Supersandvich, who created the best skybox this layout could have possibly asked for) and a few screenshots of the stuff I've completed since build 6:

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My dubious BLU spawn, the main reason for missing the deadline. I kept putting it off because I couldn't think of any good ideas for it.

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Those windows lead to the train tunnel.

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The radioactivity room in its all its pretty-much-finished glory. That's the same train track. It's ideas like this that make me really regret falling behind in schedule and failing.

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And finally, if anyone has some time and is curious to see the parts I didn't show because they're messed up in some way or another, phase 7 is available for download at my Dropbox. I'll probably also upload the source file soon, because I promised myself I would do that.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
Ecch, no. With all I had left to do, that would have been blatant abuse of the grace period.