Fort Frolic

ARENA Fort Frolic Alpha 3

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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Oh dear sweet Beezus what have I done.

I was playing Bioshock a while back and noticed that Fort Frolic's atrium sort of reminded me of Offblast's center for some reason. And it got me to thinking... could it be worked into a decent Arena map?

Well, after a couple days of non-stop building, several months of doing nothing, and a couple days of on-and-off tweaking, I think I have something that might work. Mainly at this point I'm looking to see how the layout can best be added on to. I'm not holding out much hope that it could ever be properly detailed since, well, that's essentially a total conversion mod. Note also that I have never played the Fort Frolic multiplayer map in Bioshock 2, which probably could have helped me somewhat.
 
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Da_Man

L4: Comfortable Member
Aug 23, 2009
173
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oh god the memories they're coming back. oh man oh god oh man oh god.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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This could be interesting... Great work on the stairs by the way :O

Those stairs are literally off the grid, by the way. I couldn't figure out a better way to make sure they were the right dimensions. And that's without the proper textures.

Speaking of off-grid, you know what happens to Hammer's 3D view when the texture you use for 90% of the floor space in the map has a 45-degree rotation in its material file?

ohgodwhat.jpg


Your dev textures decide to jump in and join them.

This is going to be such a fun layout to work on.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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Ooh!

I wonder if this will actually play well in TF2. What detailing will you do for it? Classic Bioshock or a mix of TF2/Bioshock?

My vision is for the detailing to be the same as Bioshock, but with the higher poly count that's expected of a Source game and with the same "painted" look used by the stock content. Rockwell and Leyendecker lived and worked during the same period Bioshock takes place in, so it seems like it'd be a good fit.

That having been said, I have no experience with 3D modeling or texturing, so this depends largely on whether I can find the time and willpower to learn, or someone else with experience stepping into the picture.
 

NinjillaX

L3: Member
Apr 4, 2011
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Looks super sweet, I love the way Bioshock looks and it's looking great mixed with TF2!
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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Fixed the download file not having an extension. Thanks for that "feature", 7-Zip!
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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Bumping for gameday and to mention that I added some signage and the ammopacks I had forgotten the first time around (or maybe my plan was to leave them all out and let people tell me where they needed them the most... but if it was, in hindsight it was a bad idea).

Also, last night I experimented with importing some of the textures from the original game to see how bad they looked. As I suspected, the clash with TF2's art style is completely unacceptable. I also learned a few things:

1. Normal maps translate perfectly between Unreal and Source
2. Normal maps on floor tiles make virtually no difference unless there's some reflectivity or severely directional lighting
3. Source doesn't seem to support specmaps on brushes
4. Unreal 2.5 meanwhile not only supports specmaps, but full-color ones at that
5. Source is so far behind Unreal in some areas it makes my face hurt
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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So gameday was a failure, but we more than made up for it in the Cafe last night. Rounds lasted longer than normal for arena, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. I noticed three possible hiccups:

  • People had a bit of a hard time finding the control point and suggested I either move it or add signage. I can't really think of a better place to put it, so I'm adding some more signs, most prominently one over the door itself. Hopefully people will at least see that when they're running around and figure out where the point is before it unlocks.
  • I noticed an engie camping the downstairs doors with a mini-sentry. Does this seem like a potential issue to anyone? I have no real problem just removing the doors (I'm honestly not sure what they were there for in the original game; I just left them in for authenticity).
  • I caught an uncloaked spy trying to hide in the space under the spawn room stairs, so I'm going to just fill them in for now. That whole area is going to be redesigned eventually once I get some theming stuff to play with.

Which brings me to my next point: Theming! I found a plugin that lets GMAX (a stripped-down, free version of 3DS Max aimed at game designers, like what Mod Tool is for XSI) open BioShock's models, and after changing the specified material to the TGA export of the base texture, discovered that the UV meshes are intact! Check it:

gmaxknowshow.jpg


Problem is, what I have here still isn't good enough to actually turn into a Source-compatible model, since it's using a flat TGA file for its material instead of a VMT file. And... I'm not sure how to do that. I remember reading that Source's format includes some text files that can be edited; should I just try exporting what I have and then edit the files by hand?
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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Updated to A2, includes all the above changes plus:
  • Scaled down the roof in accordance with the source material (I had noticed that it was too wide, but couldn't figure out what I had done wrong until I flipped on noclip in Bioshock) and added metal arches
  • Added missing light fixtures, which I completely redid to better match the scaling in the real thing, and removed the remaining light entities from the hallways
  • Added two windows I had somehow missed
  • Removed nonfunctional water effect brushes; I'll figure that out once I actually get a 3D skybox in
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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Went to fix the cubemaps, ended up creating a brand-new version. Warmer lights, more accurate windows, a more complex dome, and posters courtesy of Umodel! I'm being held up on more changes because placing the original textures on the walls revealed some significant scaling differences that I'm now struggling to reconcile. In the meantime, here's some screenshots.

arena_fortfrolic_a30000.jpg


arena_fortfrolic_a30001.jpg


arena_fortfrolic_a30002.jpg


arena_fortfrolic_a30003.jpg
 

blue9075

L1: Registered
Jul 15, 2015
14
3
It looks dark. Is it the theme you're going for? If not, Try adding lights going in like the image below and more windows.

kyrnZKe.png


9ZCDAMS.png
 
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Kube

Not the correct way to make lasagna
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Aug 31, 2014
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>Looks at Recent Threads
>IS FORT FROLIC BEING PICKED UP AGAIN?!?!?!?
 

Twist.vmf

L420: High Member
Jul 29, 2016
439
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i was also working on a bioshock map, but i just could not get it out of concept faze, i think i have a photo of the layout around here somewhere...