WIP pl_railroad

S.W.A.T.Y

Banned
Sep 28, 2008
315
116
[Contest Entry] pl_railroad

UPDATED VERSION!!


Alright guys, All this time i have been working on my map and it looks completely different. I have changed the whole map. Its way more optimized now. Im almost done with the map. I hope you guys like it! :D

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Ida

deer
aa
Jan 6, 2008
2,289
1,372
This is absolutely beatiful, looks like it'll be fun to play too. Make sure you get it on gameday as soon as you can.

Some complaints though: the tracks have ugly shadows (you should probably just turn off their shadows) and that road strikes me as very odd. The road itself looks fine, but why are the train tracks on the road? Looks very out of place. Oh, and you might want to do something about some of your displacements in for example this picture, they look a bit twisted and broken.

But as I said, overall it looks great. One of the best looking TF2 maps I've seen in a long while, so I hope it'll play well too. :)
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
Yes, very pretty.

Some things though:
1. A selection of missalligned textures that are just a little obvious. >>see<<
2. Your displacements that border your 3dskybox are incredibly spikey, you have random sink holes/peaks dotting your nice dirt mounds; you need to go over these a smooth them out just a little, though you don't have to flatten the overall mounds themselves.
3. You could mix up the wood textures a bit, especially when you have a large building with several segments.
4. Is that an alpine skybox for your desert map?
5. I think you need a cubemap in your skybox.. i'm not sure. Maybe you just have low graphics settings..
6. these rocks seem quite.. off. I'm not sure what it is, it looks like they're covering up a displacement misallignment..
7. I'm not sure what's happening here with your overlays, but you can select multiple brush faces assigning a single overlay to many segments sharing the same plane. It looks like this is messed up though because of the overlaping "sloppy" allignment
8. Bad displacement allignment is causing lightmap bugs at your displacement seams.

You have the displacement style down to a tee, i myself am overtly reserved, but you've been quite rash with your displacement forming which is a shame. If you were a little more methodical it would be so beautiful.
 

Ida

deer
aa
Jan 6, 2008
2,289
1,372
I have turned their shadows off but it still looks like that(i dont know what else to do). Im trying to make the setting of my map desert and if you saw "meet the sniper video" you saw the road that he was driving and I have made that..

The road is definitely a cool idea, it's the fact that the train tracks go on top of it that makes it seem so very unnatural.

About your shadows: If that really doesn't work (I'm convinced it should), you could try this.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
I did what you told me to do but it crashed when I tried to play the map, it crashed to the desktop.

*edit; does it crash every time you try to load the map, try to keep the console up whilst loading the map and see if you can catch it saying anything right before it shuts down..

Are you running on a good system?
 
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Ida

deer
aa
Jan 6, 2008
2,289
1,372
Have you tried starting up the map from within the game instead of directly from the compile? For some reason, the same thing has happened to me the past few times, but it worked when I started the game and made a server.
 

laghlagh

L6: Sharp Member
Jul 15, 2008
389
53
My suggestion: Forget about the road and stuff, make the whole map like the awesome first part, the town. it's beautiful! You ddon't need that road.
 

Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
1,443
710
Or if you have to have the road just make it go into a big tunnel that fades to black pretty fast.

I could see the tracks crossing the road 90 degree and running alongside it, just not down the middle.
If you do make them cross build up some wood 'ramps/platform' the same hieght so cars could roll smoothly across instead of 'bump bump'.

Put those rocks beside the road.
 

S.W.A.T.Y

Banned
Sep 28, 2008
315
116
Alright guys, I fixed the ugly shadows by following Youme's tutorial that he made. I added some stuff and HDR. Here are some pics

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laghlagh

L6: Sharp Member
Jul 15, 2008
389
53
Damn that's nice! Damn!
This lake does in my opinion look a bit large and bland. How about something like this?
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laghlagh

L6: Sharp Member
Jul 15, 2008
389
53
It looks very good, remeber to have optimizing in mind when building.
 

toutfou

L3: Member
Sep 8, 2008
136
16
Im trying to optimize it with hints but its not helping that much, I dont fully get the area_portals and occluders. I keep getting area_portal doesnt touch two sides.

It means that one side of your area portal can trace a line around your level and see the other side. It should be completely shut off, in the same fashion you'd prevent your level from having leaks.

In the attachment, the first diagram an areaportal has been placed over entrance A and B, but C hasn't been covered, so a (and b) and see both of their respective faces (follow the red line).

In the second diagram, the area is completely sealed, so A and B can no longer see their opposing faces.

This is a very simple diagram though, it's likely you there's a very small hole in your BSP structure where it's able to trace itself out of and see the opposing faces. Go to Map > Load Point File after compiling and follow the red line, it should help give you an indication of where it's leaking.

Its not that bad, some of my friends have tested it with low end pc's and they got acceptable fps.

As MangyCarface said, it's not just about visual performance, it's for network reasons too. It'd be wise to try and optimise for both as best as you can.
 

NoHeroes

L2: Junior Member
Oct 16, 2008
94
53
Is this map still in development? It looked so promising....