Maps request

Leshey

L1: Registered
Oct 10, 2009
10
1
I'm not quite sure that I started this topic in the right place, but anyway..
First of all, I'm not a mapper at all. So my request might look silly to most of the users of this site, but I do really need help.
I need someone who could help me out with mapping. Nothing serious but I can't manage to do it myself. So the main goal is to change lighting on some default valve maps (e.g. badlands, granary, freight ect.) without any other changes.
I've tried to do it myself but the result was always the opposite of what i need.
Here's what I got in the end (don't mind the graphics. It's just DirectX 8):
Screen1
Screen2
Screen3
Screen4
Screen5

When I need to get rid of the "sunlight". Make it look some how similar to Sawmill with its gloomy style.
I guess that's it's not as hard as it's time consuming (compiling maps isn't as fast as i wish it would be). So I can pay my savior some money for the work (via webmoney) if he wants it.

And if everyone is lazy to help me, I would appreciate if anyone could just explain me how to modify the lighting and how to correctly compile the map.

Cheers,
Leshey
 
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Leshey

L1: Registered
Oct 10, 2009
10
1
The thing is that I need to be able to play *.dem files with these maps. You see? It's not for "playing" purposes. And thus this plugin won't help me. But thanks for the link. I've never seen it before.
 
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LeSwordfish

semi-trained quasi-professional
aa
Aug 8, 2010
4,102
6,597
First promise you dont plan to release CP_Badlands_rainy. PROMISE. Then, we tell you.

There are two options here: Change the skybox, in "map properties". Use the VDC to find the reccomended settings for your map's new skybox, and edit the entities called env_sun, Light_environment, and env_shadow_controller to what the VDC suggests HERE.

OR, copy the entities for sawmill from the excellent "Environment Pack" found on this site. You'll still need to manually change the skybox, and delete the old entities.

Be aware that you may need to do something or other to the rest of the lights on the map, to avoid it looking too dark. As for the rain, thats a particle effect, and a different matter which i am too lazy to detail here.

Compiling is sort of hard to do wrong. Make sure it's set to "Normal" for everything. Click "Compile". Then leave the house. Walk to a bookshop. Buy a book; I reccomend "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Read the book. When you're finished, it may well have compiled. Compiling a finalised map takes a long time.
 

Seba

DR. BIG FUCKER, PHD
aa
Jun 9, 2009
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I'm surprised nobody has said this before me.

This forum is NOT for mapping help/discussion. It is for model/texture/soundscape/other non-map requests. The forum you're looking for is here.

Oh, and you're not very likely to receive many serious comments/help about this subject, as mentioned here by Snark.
 

red_flame586

L420: High Member
Apr 19, 2009
437
122
I'm just guessing you want the maps changed to make a video or a movie or something, not to make it an actual map release. Valve map re-releases with changed lighting or changed themes aren't looked upon very well around here. Though if you are going to use it for something else that may actually be creative, try what people above have said... Finally, maybe you should get this moved from here to the mapping discussion thread because I doubt anyone here will want to be know as an editor of a valve map release (even if it isn't for them and isn't a release).
 

Leshey

L1: Registered
Oct 10, 2009
10
1
2LeSwordfish
Actually I will use rain particles on those maps. But I've figured this out already and I don't need to modify maps in order to get them working.
Thanks for your help, but I still have some questions (probably because I only begin to work in Hammer :) )
I've tried to copy/paste sawmills env_sun to badlands and the result you can see in the screens in the first post. Following your advise I wanted to copy/paste the Light_environment and shadow_controller but I couldn't find them on sawmill. Plus is it necessary to change the skybox? Because as I've said earlier I need to be able to play demo files on these maps. And I'm afraid that if I modify the map too much I'll get the "Your cp_badlands is different from cp_badlands" error. I am going to use a custom skybox, but so as not to get this error I'll do it just by renaming the skybox vtfs & vmts.
Talking about Environment pack... How do you copy the entities from there? It's just that don't even a slightest idea of how to do it.

2Seba-079
As I've said in the very beginning of my first post, I wasn't sure if I've placed this topic correctly. So I would appreciate if somebody moved this topic to where it belongs.

2red_flame586
You're absolutely correct. I'm planing to make a movie and I need to make everything look good. Because if you have rain all over the map and a cloudy skybox, the sunny lighting just ruins the whole picture.
 

LeSwordfish

semi-trained quasi-professional
aa
Aug 8, 2010
4,102
6,597
You will need to change the skybox. Just rename the map. (Although i appreciate it might not be that simple. If renaming the map is possible, its by far your best bet. If not, we may have problem).

As for the environment pack, find the sawmill one, select everything. Ctrl-C, open your badlands, Ctrl-V, like in anything.

To find entities, go to "Entity report" under "Map" and scroll to them (It's Alphabetical order), then select them, and choose "Go To"
 

Leshey

L1: Registered
Oct 10, 2009
10
1
Compiling is sort of hard to do wrong. Make sure it's set to "Normal" for everything. Click "Compile". Then leave the house. Walk to a bookshop. Buy a book; I reccomend "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Read the book. When you're finished, it may well have compiled. Compiling a finalised map takes a long time.

When you said "long time" did you mean more than 20 hours? It's just that ~21 hour has passed since i started the compiling and it's still on VVIS stage O_O Is it normal?
 

Seba

DR. BIG FUCKER, PHD
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Jun 9, 2009
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21 hours seems a bit excessive, although I've never compiled anything further than a beta and I don't know how fast your comp is. I say use VBCT, at least that'll show you some progress.
 

tyler

aa
Sep 11, 2013
5,102
4,621
It's not normal, vvis probably crashed. End all the processes and try again. If it takes more than an hour on the outside, something is wrong with your map.
 

Leshey

L1: Registered
Oct 10, 2009
10
1
2Seba-079
Inte Core 2 Quad Q9300 2.5 Ghz, 4Gb RAM, ATI Radeon HD2900XT. Can't say that it's the lates hardware, but it's more then enough for me.
I do use VBCT and the fact that it show the process doesn't really help :) I've checked the task manager and the vvis.exe uses approximately 95% of CPU and 350-400mb of RAM. Damn it wasn't finished even after 43 (!OMG!) hours of compiling.

2yyler
But how can there be anything wrong when all I did is just took a decompiled cp_badlands.vmf from this thead and just modified some of the entities and changed the skybox?
If anybody wants to have a look at the vmf here's a dl link.

And talking about VBCT. Does it require some specific compiling settings? I ticked VBSP, VVIS, VRAD in the Module column, nothing in VMPI column, LDR and HDR in Lighting column. Anything I should add/remove?
 
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tyler

aa
Sep 11, 2013
5,102
4,621
Sometimes vrad or vvis just crashes. When I compile my own maps that are devoid of any issues that'd crop up in compiling, I'd say one or the other crashes maybe 10% of the time.
 

lana

Currently On: ?????
aa
Sep 28, 2009
3,075
2,778
But how can there be anything wrong when all I did is just took a decompiled cp_badlands.vmf from this thead and just modified some of the entities and changed the skybox?
If anybody wants to have a look at the vmf here's a dl link.

And talking about VBCT. Does it require some specific compiling settings? I ticked VBSP, VVIS, VRAD in the Module column, nothing in VMPI column, LDR and HDR in Lighting column. Anything I should add/remove?

Decompiled maps don't like to be recompiled.
 
Apr 13, 2009
728
309
I just did a VVIS on sdk_cp_badlands and it took me a little over 7 minutes. Thats the kind of time it should take to compile a fairly large, detailed, but well-optimized map. It's heavily CPU-dependant though, so your mileage may vary, but 20 hours is definitely not normal.
Can't tell how long it could take to make the final HDR VRAD pass, but certainly significantly longer.
 

Leshey

L1: Registered
Oct 10, 2009
10
1
Decompiled maps don't like to be recompiled.

I guess that it was the main problem. I've just tried to compile sdk_cp_badlands and took less then 30min to compile. But I still can't achieve the needed effect. Using entities from sawmill/environment gallery doesn't help :( Everything is still quite bright and sunny. The only change that I noticed was that the shadows look somehow different.
 

Leshey

L1: Registered
Oct 10, 2009
10
1
FINALLY! After some more time with the map I've managed to achieve the "sawmill gloomy" effect. So here's how it looks now:
Screenshot1
Screenshot2

But there's one more problem, that i need to fix. There are black spots all over the map. As far as I can tell, they appear only under env_cube entities. Some examples of what I'm talking about:
Screenshot3
Screenshot4

Any way to fix this?