Jungle

Spike

L10: Glamorous Member
Feb 13, 2008
716
82
Hai guys, pl_jungle is finally out. It’s an alpha version of what the map is going to be. Alpha 1 includes the first stage of the map, and final project is going to be a 3 stage payload map.

I’ve been working on it since September 2008, it contains a huge amount of custom content, and it’s going to contain more on next stages. All custom content has been created by me, but I would want to thank those guys from www.interlopers.net and www.tf2maps.net who helped me in the modeling process. In the beginning, all vegetation models were animated, but Source engine can’t handle that amount of dynamic props, so I’ve made them all static, that would also help the people with low-spec computers to run it better (it would run smooth in all non prehistoric computers). It also was supposed to have some particle effects, that I’ll add in future versions.

Now some map story:

The map takes place on a desert island in the middle of the ocean, RED team have made a secret base in it. But BLU satellites took a pic of the island and discovered a RED heavy eating his sandvich on the beach. So BLU team prepared their pimp pirate ship and traveled to the island with a 10 megaton bomb. Here’s when you take part of it, join RED and defend the island, or join BLU and bomb it. It’s your choice!

To do:

-3dskybox
-2nd and 3rd stage
-Add particle effects with leaves falling from trees.
-Detail the ship with cannons and other stuff
-Optimize it more.

I’ve been inspired by Metal Gear Solid 3, Crysis and Far Cry, there’s a reference to MGS3, I’ve placed some frogs all around the map, try to find them! (don’t cheat ¬¬).


pljunglea120000.jpg


pljunglea120002copia.jpg


pljunglea120001.jpg


pljunglea120003.jpg


pljunglea120004.jpg


pljunglea120006.jpg
 
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Ida

deer
aa
Jan 6, 2008
2,289
1,372
This looks incredibly good!

I tried it, though, and there's a problem. When the cart rools backwards, BLU gains additional time when it hits the last point.

Also, the long tunnel isn't very good for gameplay I think. Both teams would be able to use it very easily to flank the others, which is never good. Not being able to pass the cart in the tunnel also seems like it would be frustrating.
 

Spike

L10: Glamorous Member
Feb 13, 2008
716
82
Oh S***! more problems :S! Cubemaps didn't work in old version. I'm fixing all quick, but I thing that time thing would be fixed in alpha 2. I won't recompile now and all the stuff. Thanks for feedback, need to get it tested to see how the gameplay goes :D
 

Ida

deer
aa
Jan 6, 2008
2,289
1,372
Oh, and the sails don't have collision. It's ok on the plants, but it feels weird on the sails.
 

Spike

L10: Glamorous Member
Feb 13, 2008
716
82
Oh, and the sails don't have collision. It's ok on the plants, but it feels weird on the sails.

Yeah a little bit... I thought as sails are not rigid they would be ok without collision... I'll add collision on newer versions
 

Bonafide

L6: Sharp Member
Mar 18, 2008
313
25
the only errors I noticed is that the Blu can open the red teams spawn doors (easy fix) and you have used a low textured HL2 boat on your coast line. The boat sticks out quite badly when everything looks so lush.

Personal opinion on the map is that the long, thin tunnel will become an impassable bottleneck in game. I dont know why you made such a good looking island just to have the BLUs push the cart through a thin mining tunnel. Also the shoreline with the aforementioned boat seems a little redundant gameplay wise, even though it looks really great. I guess I will have to wait until Ive played it to see if its used by anyone.

Also I had quite a lot of texture popping on the map, like quite a lot of the grass I had to be in quite close visable range before they popped up.
 

Spike

L10: Glamorous Member
Feb 13, 2008
716
82
From the video, the trees on the beach don't have shadows.


Yeah they don't. It's because engine limits, I can't make the shadows look propelly, so I disabled them on the beach.
 

Bonafide

L6: Sharp Member
Mar 18, 2008
313
25
And also time is added when the cart rolls backwards over an already captured point
 

Spike

L10: Glamorous Member
Feb 13, 2008
716
82
the only errors I noticed is that the Blu can open the red teams spawn doors (easy fix) and you have used a low textured HL2 boat on your coast line. The boat sticks out quite badly when everything looks so lush.

Personal opinion on the map is that the long, thin tunnel will become an impassable bottleneck in game. I dont know why you made such a good looking island just to have the BLUs push the cart through a thin mining tunnel. Also the shoreline with the aforementioned boat seems a little redundant gameplay wise, even though it looks really great. I guess I will have to wait until Ive played it to see if its used by anyone.

Also I had quite a lot of texture popping on the map, like quite a lot of the grass I had to be in quite close visable range before they popped up.

I made the long thin tunnel to make a short way from Blu spawn to RED spawn, also I thought a thin tunnel would favour BLU team because they can push the cart while hidding behind it. I'll have to see the testing to see how it affects gameplay.

Yeah I agree the shoreline is a bit redundant. It was made for a sniping spot and a spy way to get behind the enemy team (or a scout). I agree it's a bit redundant but necessary to some classes.

The grass thing could be a low spec computer, if so, I can't make anything to fix it. It worked fine on my pc, other people is telling me that it works fine.
 

pl

L5: Dapper Member
Mar 6, 2009
248
55
This map looks wonderful! My only suggestion is that you try and make the leaves on the palm tree a bit more thicker - it looks too detailed in my opinion.
 

bob+M|M+

L6: Sharp Member
Mar 31, 2008
346
394
So this is a showcase thread? Does that mean you're still looking for feedback? well anyways I'll just post it here.

I tried version a1b today. Gorgeous map. The custom content and the environment is really sweet.


Cubemaps still broken when I tried it on the server today. Remember to build your cubemaps BEFORE you pakrat your materials. Also check out this thread if you are still having problems: http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=2714&highlight=understanding+cubemaps
pic5jlk.jpg


Found a displacement hole
pic1jsb.jpg


Backing up a bit, it’s right here
pic3dyu.jpg


These stairs are very steep, and I often got caught on them. A playerclip would be nice.
pic4n.jpg


Gameplay notes:

I played 18 rounds on a full server, and everyone learned the map fairly quickly. Blue won 14 times, red won 4 times. The main complaint I heard was long walking distance for red at the beginning, and too much foliage in the gameplay areas (hidden sentrys, and pyros were popular).

Oh, and one thing stood out to me…

Take a look at the routes for checkpoint 1, and where the checkpoint 1 goal is.
pic7k.jpg


As a reference for future map projects, when you design flanks, you should generally NOT allow the players to flank past the current map objective… for all sorts of reasons. It’s confusing, it detracts from the gameplay, players wonder off to places they shouldn’t be, etc…



Other random notes:
Please add soundscapes for this stage in the next version :D

Thanks for the cool map. Looking forward to future updates!
bob+M|M+
 
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Spike

L10: Glamorous Member
Feb 13, 2008
716
82
Isn't sand texture showing up? :( People have told me that pl_jungle_a1b is fine with the sand :S

Thanks for feedback, I'll be fixing all the stuff.

About the foliage, I still need to find a way from flocking sentry bullets, if so that would be ok. I do agree it's a bit large the walk, but if you take the short way it isn't that much I think.
 

Cerious

L420: High Member
Aug 10, 2008
455
133
Holy crap, widen those tunnels. It is extremely spammy in there, and if I try to push the cart along to the side I'll snag on to the walls and get stuck. Also, the tunnel at the ship area leading to the second point really shouldn't be open at the start of the game; make it open only after Blu caps the second point (and conversely make it one-way for Red to exit before the first point is capped).

I also get pretty bad fps at the final point, I'd suggest removing a few of the bush models because there are so many of them. Have them fade at distances you can't really see them at would be great too.
 

no means nomad

L1: Registered
Dec 23, 2008
33
11
The second beach is way too big right now, and it diverts a lot of the action from the cart to people randomly fighting around the map.
 

Apom

L6: Sharp Member
Sep 14, 2008
366
65
Flanking routes for cap 1 of round 1 should probably not be there, simply. It should just be a big push where everyone gathers around the cart after having killed the initial enemy presence.
 

evanonline

L420: High Member
Mar 15, 2009
485
273
I really like the map. Really gorgeous and really TF2-ish. It's very unique.

Two issues I can think of though:

1. I like the mine area, but it definitely needs to be widened up.

2. I think the ship should be retextured to be more metal or just look sort of militaristic, akin to the battleship in corporation. I think the ship looks nice, but wood doesn't really suit BLU.

And just a suggestion--if you plan on adding an explosion for the final cap, I think the bomb igniting and starting a brush fire or something would be really cool. Incredibly difficult, but...
 

FLOOR_MASTER

L3: Member
Mar 10, 2008
118
140
We've played several 15v15 rounds. This feedback echoes what many others have said, but is worth repeating:

1) The map is incredibly well optimized considering the sheer amount of material on screen and with 30 players running around. Very, very impressive.
2) The actual outdoor environment is very well executed.
3) I'm sorry to be blunt, but the tunnel areas are an abomination. They absolutely need to be reworked with more clearance and more kinks in the paths to break up sightlines (think of the opening tunnel in Badwater).
4) Extremely long sniper sightlines along the coast
5) The sheer mass of foliage constrains visibility, both in the fact that players can hide sentries and themselves in the foliage, and in the sheer visual noise that hinders the ability to orient yourself and figure out where everything/everyone is. I understand the need to preserve a dense jungle look, but in its current form, the map is too cluttered, too narrow in critical paths, and too prone to ambushes/hidden sentries. I think you can still pull off the same look with more emphasis on an overhead canopy rather than ground-based foliage.

Looking forward to the next iteration of the map!