Sanitarium

KotH Sanitarium a8

Deodorant

L6: Sharp Member
Oct 31, 2011
263
214
Whee, a6! The first one in a long time that isn't a complete overhaul. I'm hoping I can keep it that way for a while.

As most of the feedback on the a5 was about it being cramped, I've mostly opened stuff up here. All my previous versions have apparently oscillated between being overscaled and being underscaled, so I'm not quite sure I can trust my sense of proportion yet, but.. I did my best.

Other than that I've mostly done some minor redesigning. I changed the shapes of the roofs to make navigating them less of a pain, and replaced the prop stairs with prop ramps to make accessing them less of a pain as well.

Again: if you feel like downloading it, taking a stroll and telling me about whatever fatal flaws you find, that'd be great. If you don't, I'll just gameday it and blame you for any misery caused.
 

Rikka

L5: Dapper Member
Feb 10, 2009
208
388
The inside is still too cramped. It was very difficult for a team to take the point once it was captured.

I personally wasn't a fan of how I couldn't flank around the right side, but only go down into the basement. It made the yard right outside the point too safe an area.
 

Deodorant

L6: Sharp Member
Oct 31, 2011
263
214
I wasn't able to attend the gameday, but judging from the feedback my earlier optimism was horribly unfounded.
My apparently still persisting complete failure to scale things correctly is troubling, but nevertheless a straightforward problem that I can hopefully solve myself by more study of official maps. I find it a bit notable that feedback on the a5 told me to enlarge the central room by 15% whereas feedback on the a6 told me to enlarge the (now bigger) central room by 100% buuuut I'm not actually trying to argue this opinion. I, too, find it obvious in hindsight how underscaled the map is, just as I have found the flaws of previous versions obvious once they had been pointed out to me.

However, there are a few things I can't figure out on my own:

- Missing textures.
From the coordinates given, the missing texture seems to be that of the floor and the platforms of the red spawn. This is a bulletcrops texture, more specifically maritime/wood/coast_wood_001. When I play the map, the texture works fine. In case it helps, here's a step-by-step report of what I've done:
Compiled the map (BSP, VIS and RAD all set to normal)
Entered map, built cubemaps.
Exited map to reload materials, reentered map and jumped around to see that everything worked.
Exited steam.
Copied the map's .bsp from C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\[name]\team fortress 2\tf\maps to Dropbox public folder.
Copied the dropbox link, put it in this thread and later posted it in the gameday thread.

- Missing health/ammo packs.
This could be bad placement, I suppose, but I have pretty much the same health/ammo placements now as I did in the 15 and I got no complaints then. I have one medium health and ammo in each of the sheds outside the courtyards, then another set in the outer parts of the central house, as well as two small health packs in the stairs to the pool room. As I stickyjumped around the map to look for bugs in the final compile and frequently had to refill my health, I'm absolutely certain they worked for me. If they didn't show up in the gameday, they must have disappeared along the way. I guess this is related to the texture error.

- ban urself from mapping u fkn failure
Yay.
 

tyler

aa
Sep 11, 2013
5,102
4,621
You have to pack custom content with PakRat or PackBSP. Dunno what you think reloading materials does, but it don't do that
 
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Mar 20, 2012
391
806
- ban urself from mapping u fkn failure
Yay.

It's almost common knowledge that the feedback that players give during gamedays can be overly harsh in a non-helpful way. Just take no heed about those tidbits and focus on the comments that give you constructive criticism.

Hopefully the next version of the Feedback system will get closer to the "let's help other mappers improve" rather than "let's make them never want to map again."
 

Deodorant

L6: Sharp Member
Oct 31, 2011
263
214
You have to pack custom content with PakRat or PackBSP. Dunno what you think reloading materials does, but it don't do that
I think reloading materials is the last step of building cubemaps. I can't remember who or where, but I'm sure the person who taught me how to build cubemaps included 'disconnect, sv_cheats 1, mat_reloadallmaterials' at the end of the sequence.
In any case, thanks for the information! Any idea about the missing health/ammo?

http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=12601 is a good tutorial for using PakRat.
As far as I know you'll only have to do that to get custom textures working.
Ah, wonderful! Thanks.

It's almost common knowledge that the feedback that players give during gamedays can be overly harsh in a non-helpful way. Just take no heed about those tidbits and focus on the comments that give you constructive criticism.

Hopefully the next version of the Feedback system will get closer to the "let's help other mappers improve" rather than "let's make them never want to map again."
Yeah, I suppose. I am still a giant noob, though, and aware of it. It's difficult to ignore criticism that is sort of true, even if it's overly harsh.

I think one thing that would help the feedback system a lot would be to introduce a 'don't shoot at players who are standing still'. Getting killed while typing is a common problem. It makes it harder to leave annotations at certain coordinates, and it also enforces a bunch of bad habits; Pointing out simple bugs but not giving comprehensive map feedback, not giving any feedback at all in action-heavy areas, suggesting overly simple and radical solutions to problems, et cetera.
 

MetalKev

L2: Junior Member
Mar 5, 2012
70
23
I am still a giant noob, though, and aware of it. It's difficult to ignore criticism that is sort of true, even if it's overly harsh.

CPq0b.png
 

LeSwordfish

semi-trained quasi-professional
aa
Aug 8, 2010
4,102
6,597
It's almost common knowledge that the feedback that players give during gamedays can be overly harsh in a non-helpful way. Just take no heed about those tidbits and focus on the comments that give you constructive criticism.

Hopefully the next version of the Feedback system will get closer to the "let's help other mappers improve" rather than "let's make them never want to map again."

Also, this is prestige. Prestige is as well-balanced as an upturned pyramid. I really wouldn't take anything from it.


The new feedback plugin intends to allow you to mark spots with a keypress, and return to give feedback to them later, which shoul really help.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
I think the plugin should require you to tie your forum account to your Steam account, and auto-post your feedback in the map's thread under your name. Then mods can punish anyone who's being uncivil.
 

tyler

aa
Sep 11, 2013
5,102
4,621
I think reloading materials is the last step of building cubemaps. I can't remember who or where, but I'm sure the person who taught me how to build cubemaps included 'disconnect, sv_cheats 1, mat_reloadallmaterials' at the end of the sequence.
In any case, thanks for the information! Any idea about the missing health/ammo?
All reloading the materials does is allow reflections to update. You don't need to do that unless you're gonna take a picture of highly reflective surfaces.

As for health and ammo, people just didn't find it I imagine.

I think the plugin should require you to tie your forum account to your Steam account, and auto-post your feedback in the map's thread under your name. Then mods can punish anyone who's being uncivil.
Yeah, put it in the thread for the new version.
 

DarkApollo

L1: Registered
Jun 29, 2012
11
8
My issue with the map during testing yesterday was the glass covered window. I dont see a reason for that, and it takes away another 'death from above' vantage point.

It was also too easy to camp the respawns. I made it there untouched several times. Instead of only having that little room be the spawn, maybe make the doorways into there team specific as well?
 

Deodorant

L6: Sharp Member
Oct 31, 2011
263
214
Version A7 is done.

I mostly just deleted and rebuilt the map with what I hope is more appropriate scaling. I used the same basic layout as in the a5 and a6 versions, though I tweaked a few things. I removed the 'walkable roofs' and 'hole through which the point can be fired upon from above' aspects of the map, for example, which means that the pool room is the only thing this version has in common with the first one. I also gave the pool a funny shape.

Again, if someone feels like pointing out fatal flaws now (as opposed to twelve people in a gameday), that'd be great.

Ah, and I Pakrat'd the map this time. If someone feels like downloading the map and taking a promenade, make sure you take a look at the red spawn area to see if I managed to do it right.
 

Deodorant

L6: Sharp Member
Oct 31, 2011
263
214
EDIT: Whoa wall of text. here's the short version: If you have any opinion on how the outdoor areas should be improved, please enlighten me.



Gameday bump.

I regret to inform you that the nonsolid wall issue has been solved; I had accidentally based those displacements on skip brushes, presumably due to a tragic 'apply current texture' accident while I added hint planes. The whole ordeal was rather informative, in that it taught me that bot tests are more accurate than one may think; In an earlier version of the map I accidentally deleted a side wall in a small flank tunnel, and after a while the majority of the bots were faffing about at the bottom of the map.

From the feedback it seems like I can keep most of the map intact this time (yay!), but I am of course making a bunch of medium-sized changes. I'll add more teamcoloring and signage, redesign the mid a bit (more due to the feeling I got while playing on it than any feedback), and give the pickups more intuitive placements.

I would however very much appreciate some more elaborate feedback/tips about the smallness and funnel-y-ness some felt that the map still suffered from.

I'm planning to bring back the item shack; Partly to serve as intuitive item placement, partly to replace those awkward fences by the cliff, and partly to make the outdoor areas slightly more complex and interesting. Besides that, I have no idea how I could expand the map in a way that isn't just useless padding. The hill is already surrounded by sneaky flank routes on all sides, I think making something to accommodate Snipers would cause more balance problems than not accommodating them does. I guess I could make some new big weird building far out and fill it with health and ammo to artificially attract players, but that would be a dumb and confusing thing to do. When I look at official maps, those three things (flanks, battlements, pickups) seem to be what pretty much all areas not directly related to the hill are used for. Therefore, I can't think of any addition to Sanitarium that would feel meaningful and attract players.

Again, if anyone has any feedback/suggestions about this, that would be really appreciated. Otherwise I'll just do the item shack thing and stop there.

Another question: Why does everyone find the water so confusing? It's there partly so people around the hill have a place to extinguish/de-jarate/de-milk themselves, partly because it spices up an otherwise really plain room, and partly because it's the only thing the current version of the map has in common with the first one so it fills a symbolic purpose. Why would it be odder than the water in Sawmill or Lakeside?

Ah, and a final appendix: My compile log keeps telling me that the grass texture (nature/blendgroundtograss007, sampled from arena_lumberyard) is being confused about something related to details. Any idea what that's about and what I can do to solve it?
 
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Deodorant

L6: Sharp Member
Oct 31, 2011
263
214
Welp, here's the a8. I changed some things about the mid, added an item shack and did a few minor miscellaneous changes. I did absolutely nothing about the general alleged funnel-y flow of the map, because I don't quite know what it means and what I could do about it and how I could do that without ruining everything.
 

Idolon

they/them
aa
Feb 7, 2008
2,105
6,106
Ah, and a final appendix: My compile log keeps telling me that the grass texture (nature/blendgroundtograss007, sampled from arena_lumberyard) is being confused about something related to details. Any idea what that's about and what I can do to solve it?
Make sure you haven't tied any displacements to func_detail, they don't like that.
 

Deodorant

L6: Sharp Member
Oct 31, 2011
263
214
Make sure you haven't tied any displacements to func_detail, they don't like that.

I don't think it has anything to do with func_details. The texture exists in three versions, called something like 'texturename', 'texturename/lowdetail' and 'texturename/nodetail'. I forgot to copy the message in the compile log, but I control F'd the interloper's log checker list of errors and I think this is the one:
Material [texture] uses unknown detail object type [model]!

Description:
One of your textures is scripted to emit detail props (the grass thingies that appear on displacements), but the detail props specified are not defined in the mod's data files.

Solution:
Usually this error is caused by mindlessly porting textures from other mods, without porting the detail props file. The fix is to either get these detail props from that other mod, or fix the texture so it emits detail props that exist in the current mod.
Since the texture (as mentioned) is sampled from Lumberyard, all required files should reasonably exist in TF2 already.

looks nice!
I will try that map on my TF2 server..
Thanks! Keep in mind that it's still an alpha, though, which means that I haven't finished tweaking the gameplay in it yet. I don't know what kind of server you run, but if your players aren't used to playing WIPs by first-time mappers, you may want to postpone it a bit.