Badlands Classic.

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Buster Charlie

I'll try to get a shot, I've textured the main spawn roughly, but i'm still fighting smoothing groups. Also the cubemap function still appears broken so it'll take that figuring out.

Okay the cube maps appear to work maybe but I still get the purple checkers on the reflective floor material. I want to use that floor tile because the BLU team logo would be good for the cap point.

sorry for the crappy shots i'm still trying to figure out the lighting in source, it's much more flexable so there are a lot of options.



 
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Snipergen

L13: Stunning Member
Nov 16, 2007
1,051
150
this starts looking good man really! just make sure to build cubemaps :p but do that the last thing cos everything with reflection is still purple for me too in my map :p
 
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Buster Charlie

I think i'm gonna scour the vale maps for lighting setups and put them all in a test map. I might even 'publish' it as a reference for some common TF2 lighting setups. for me at least it'll give me a guide on how to do TF2-like lighting.
 
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Buster Charlie

Map is pretty much 100% roughed out.

No leaks, whole map is roughed in.

I need to figure out why the skybox is giving me errors, I'm getting that stupid checker texture on my reflective floors.

Also I need to redo the lighting, it's aweful, but that wasn't my focus anyway.

as always texturing and details are super alpha. A lot of rocks will be done with displacements, which is why some areas look larger than they originally are.




 
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Buster Charlie

Okay I fixed the cubemap issue by using the hydro skybox which is aparently the only one not broken in hammer.

I've been playing around with lighting, but it's still super rough.




 
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Buster Charlie

Update:

Some new shots, the bunkers are a bit more refined. I replaced the bunker ladder with a steep set of 'stairs' They seem to work fine, very fast to ascend. Started basic work on displacements. So far so good.





Hopefully these shots are a bit more exciting than the last ones.
 
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Buster Charlie

keep up the good work;)

Thanks, I'm working on the canyon displacements now. I'm thinking of doing a shallow steam running through the canyon, emptying from drains in the base dumping water down their silos. So basically you'd have a very shallow (would not put out fire or effect speed) stream running from the back solo, out the base, down the path to the middle, and the same on the other side. Maybe in the middle i'd have a small crack in the cliff were the water flows to, nothing that would effect gameplay but just for looks. I know water can have a negative impact on gameplay as far as slower machines.

I think it'll look nice and give a more realistic feel to the map, but I could always make it a implied 'dry' riverbed if you guys feel that it would be too much glitz.

Also I'm really tempted to do a 'night' version of this map with the outdoors being mostly dark, and having big spotlights outside the base to watch out for enemies. But Maybe have the lights be switchable so the enemy can shut down your spotlights.
 
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Buster Charlie

updates!

Okay, after a lot of work, the displacements for the canyon are nearly done. I still have to do the displcements inside the base, and the displacements in the front of the base. But the Canyon is pretty much 90% done (I need to tweak em, and finish the second cave but it's good so far)

I added a displacement ground with a small stream of water heading out of the base (with a sewer grate inside the base to explain were the water is coming from, i'll probably add more pipes and stuff.

I made the canyon overhang a bit for more dramatic shadows and looks. For the bunker I made a steep set of stairs that look like a ladder. For the Canyon I added a cave under the bridge, it's a U turn half spiral staircase made of rock.

It works pretty good and you can ascend it pretty zippy, it should also be a good ambush spot. I need to add a mirrored cave on the other side but besides that the canyon is pretty good. And with some good hint brush use the rendering is pretty smooth.

The silo entrance has a simple touch activated elevator. It moves pretty fast and stops at the 1st floor level, it does 25 damage if you get caught in it, mostly to discourage 100 people from packing on the elevator at once (something you couldn't do with the ladder) but I might take that away if it's too buggy. I didn't add any lighting near the elevator so no screen shot, but basically it's a metal grate inside a metal ring attached to the wall of the silo by a arm that rides in a rail.

Still a lot of work to go but it's looking good so far.

indoor lighting is 90% placeholder for now.





 
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Buster Charlie

Adding more details, finished the front displacements (still need to tidy them up and add some nodraws to create proper shadows) Adding more details to the interior, adding some structural supports to the map to make it look a little more interesting.



 

Crimson

L3: Member
Nov 25, 2007
119
1
I am more excited about this map than when Valve finally releases there next addition of maps. This looks amazing man, keep up the great work. I think it goes without saying this will be in rotation on my server lol.
 

ThatGuy

L2: Junior Member
Nov 5, 2007
51
0
That really looks awesome, very nice job.

Any ideas when beta will be released?
 
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Buster Charlie

I'm having so much fun adding detail I'm neglecting the beta release. :)

What I need to do before beta:
Fix silo elevator.
Finish rest of Doors.
Finish gameplay logic (flag cap, etc)

Finish displacements for inside base (the placeholder geometry is not good for gameplay, just sealing the map).

I work tommrow but I'll try and get a beta version out in the next few days if not sooner. I know you guys wanna play this but I don't want to release a crappy map!

Here are some rear entrance way shots, I tweaked the lighting a bit more to be a bit more dramatic and show off the geometry better. I also am designing this portion of the base to be a bit 'under developed' Very rough, lots of exposed wiring, crude finish, and low tech lighting. The main bottom portion of the base and the respawn areas will be more refined and classy looking.


This is a shot of the bottom bunker, you can see some signs and a misc locker for looks (locker is not a resupply locker)

stairs/ladder leading up to the rear entrance, a fire extinguisher added and some propane tanks behind the stairs for clutter.

Inside of the bunker is darker now, like the original, both to contrast the blazing sun outside, but also to provide snipers a bit more shade to hide in.


Looking inside the base, someone left the security door open! DOH!.

I added signs pretty much everywhere to let people know where stuff is, let me know if you think I added TOO many signs?


Standing just inside the base, you can see the respawn room, and the exit.
Lots of hanging wires, which are carefully draped over pipes because apparently conduits are too high tech for TF2. I hope I didn't go overboard, but I wanted the lights to have a visible source of power so it's not just magically getting it's lighting from nowhere. The base is carved out of a cliff, so I wanted to keep this part of the base rough and utilitarian.
 
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Buster Charlie

Back respawn room, enlarged a bit to add supply lockers, original one was a shoebox.


Will add more eye candy to it later.

Corner hallway between exit and spawnroom.

view from battlements into base.


View from top of spiral stairs looking to secondary spawn.
 
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Buster Charlie

Two views of flag room.





My biggest concern is the map looking like las Vegas with all the signs, but at the same time I don't want the map to be confusing for new players.