Floodgates

[Jack Riguel]

Good plan with the A4. While I'm still out... (looking at my little steam icon in the side makes me cry) this is one of the maps I wanted to come back and take another look at as it's underway. Compared to a lot of maps being released nowadays this one did a rather decent job with flow and direction... something that even the most experienced mappers tend to fail at.

 

[evanonline]

You could maybe get your exploded dam and export it to an engine, make some tf2-esque water, run a sim of it pouring through and export it back if thats possible. The water renders for blender looked pretty damn good to me.

Ask around, I guarantee someone will know.

There's a very handy tutorial on this site for such a thing--but it's really just completely above my head and I really don't know anything about making 3D animations and the like in 3Ds Max/Rayfire etc. and even with the tutorial I was just sorta baffled.

I guess I'll have to figure it out, because I don't really know anyone who has any real knowledge in this field. :U But either way my focus has been on trying to figure out this explosion when that's not where it should've been; I still should refine my map design more.

I am pretty confident in the all-around layout now, and, barring any remaining sniper problems in the final area, my focus now lies more or less with spawn room pacing (Should RED be moved back later? Should BLU be moved up earlier) and the possibility of opening up new paths (namely, I've been wondering if a new path should be opened up for BLU at the final point) I think we might be good to go for a beta version whenever I can get an explosion in, one way or another.

For fun, here's shots of the two earliest screenshots of the map I have, and the dam the final point is based off of. The first one is just a conjectural screenshot to get a basic idea of how big the rain particles were and how everything would look because I hadn't done an alpine map at this point in time yet. The second one is of the first in-progress shot I have of what would eventually become the full map.

 

[Shmitz]

This map saw massive amounts of client crashes on gameday today. I crashed three times. The second two it was within twenty seconds of joining the server and spawning. I just gave up at that point.

 

[Sikyanakotik]

This map saw massive amounts of client crashes on gameday today. I crashed three times. The second two it was within twenty seconds of joining the server and spawning. I just gave up at that point.

I crashed twice on this map, both times trying to walk between the sawblades. There is something seriously wrong here, and that room is probably the best place to start looking for the problem.

Also, the map took an extremely long time to download. I was actually able to book a dental appointment in the time it took to download.

No joke. It's at 10:45 on September 10th. I'm getting a root canal done.

 

[evanonline]

My map is SO awesome, that it caused everyone to crash, I guess.

I really have absolutely no clue what could possibly be causing this, but it emptied the server so it must be something, erm, big. A3's testing went fine, so it certainly isn't the size. I did fuck with the saws a bit, I guess it wouldn't hurt to just re-do those. Somebody suggested "too many entities", if THAT'S the problem there's nothing I can do about it.

Mapping is encouraging and rewarding in every way!

 

[evanonline]

After spending 90% of my day being very angry at this map I channeled my rage into some serious mappin'. I shrunk the final area down by a considerable amount! Hooray! The dam is now much closer to the concrete area.

Not pictured is how I've completely de-sniperfied the dam! I also fixed up the doorway. Rejoicings all around!!

Tomorrow I shall:

-Find what the fuck is causing this map to destroy everyone's computers from the inside. I think it was the saws but I honestly just don't know
-Tiny up more places
-Find out why the trigger_teleports weren't working
-Make it so BLU moves up sooner
-Make delicious new posters to advertise Baseball Bill's Sports Slick and Texas Slim's Dome Shine

I am very curious as to why my map took so long for many to download. While 47mb is large, it certainly isn't the biggest file I've seen passed through gamedays and I don't think it should have caused the long download times that it did.

 

[evanonline]

The top of the RED spawn was meant to be accessible--given that you can get to that path up there, it would look weird if you, for some reason, wouldn't be able to fall onto a rooftop directly below you.

The second one is quite obviously a mistake, though. Thanks.

 

[evanonline]

Oh crap I completely forgot to release A5.

A5 contains a number of fixes, mainly to the final area. I believe I've fixed the crashing problem, but no one seemed to have the five minutes it'd take to find out for me, so I can't quite confirm that! Oh well, if it causes the entire server to empty next time we test this you can't say I didn't try.

...though actually, I'm starting a job today and school starts Thursday so I will pretty much never have convenient free time for gamedays again. I'm guessing my solution here is to donate and start doing direct uploads.

 

[rahmie]

in a5, some models are not shown

 

[evanonline]

in a5, some models are not shown

Pfffff, shit. I must've fucked up packing in the rock models. Thanks for pointing this out to me.

I don't really know when I'll have a new version out. There's no real interest in this map and I don't have the time to really do much with it these days. My motivation for mapping is dead, between the lukewarm reception, my general loathing towards the current state of the TF2 community, and bucketloads of self-doubt. Bah.

 

[evanonline]

I'll be uploading a fixed version of Floodgates A5 with the rock models properly in place. My apologies to the few of you who already downloaded it.

I intend to get back to working on this soon--I was looking through it again on a whim today and this map really isn't all too bad. I really want to test out A5 but the opportunity hasn't presented itself--I think I ought to donate so I can stick this up on my own schedule.

 

[evanonline]

Ok ok ok I'm giving this the old bumpola because I desperately desire to work on this again but I have no idea where to start. I've never had A5 tested yet.

The only thing I've been able to find that I have a problem with so far is that the backside of a displacement in visible in one area, and...I fixed that. So yeah. I want to add in a new poster, too. Other than that...my scheduled doesn't really match up with TF2maps's gamedays anymore, so I have to either not be there, donate and have it tested, or find some other chumps to stick it on.

If anyone wouldn't mind just taking a look at it and saying what they think I'd appreciate it, in the meantime.

 

[evanonline]

I've been reviewing the demo from Friday--I apologize for being unable to make it, but I've been pouring over the game extensively because it's the first chance I've had to see how this map plays without RED being 94% snipers.

In spite of my sniper-proofing efforts, the map is still very large and also very boring. I've gone through the efforts of spicing up the visuals and I feel I've done a pretty good job of it--I'll have to posts some screens later. I really have neglected to spruce up this map visually and I feel its general flatness is a very big problem.

But my thoughts--the final area is incredibly problematic. I don't think giving RED a bit of a long walk is all too bad--think of the distance they have to walk to point 3 on Badwater. However, I still feel the final leg of the map isn't quite what it should be and not even extensively shrinking it down has helped.

There are two big problems the floodgates present:

A) They require a huge amount of space for me to do everything I want to with them
B) Everyone instantly expects a HUGE EXPLOSION with water pouring out even though the map is in alpha, which IS something I'd love to do and was the concept this map was initially based around, but it's far, far out of my range and area of expertise.
C) It sets RED too far back

I think the solution is going to be to just axe the final area altogether, which is going to be rather painful considering the amount of work I put into the final area, but shrinking it down further will do absolutely nothing.

So I ask you, TF2maps (not that anyone will care I guess): FLOODGATES OR NO FLOODGATES? I'm leaning towards no but I have no idea what to replace it with for the time being

 

[evanonline]

B1 is officially released!

The final area has been completely retooled. The Floodgates are no longer accessible and are merely a pretty cornerstone to the map now. The final area all in all has been greatly sized down. It kinda sucks, but it was worth it in the long run to abandon the concept of pushing it into the dam itself, so I could work with a more realistic explosion idea to pull off.

A bit of fine-tuning may be in order with the final area now, mainly regarding spawning and the placement of CP3, but I'm satisfied with how the map seems to feel. I'm ready to start pushing this on now, and hopefully we'll stop having entire pages of me babbling on about my own map in here.

 

[absurdistof]

Has this been submitted for gameday often?

 

[evanonline]

I've submitted it a few times, but every time it came up the sheer size of the final area just ruined everything and it sort of fell apart for a few months. I finally regrouped this week and put together a new final area, and I have a good feeling about it.

 

[evanonline]

New version out!

This one has fixes for many tiny ledges that players probably shouldn't have been able to get on, a new custom chair model by Acumen just because I really used that one spytech chair way too much, a few tiny things from the MTS model pack (but so missable you'd never even know I put them in), and a bunch of detailing and lighting changes to make the level a little less ugly!

I haven't been able to playtest B1 yet, though, and I'm still very iffy about a multitude of things gameplay-wise.

 

[evanonline]

B3 released. It's only been like a day, but the changelog should show that I've been doing a fair bit of work in that day; enough that I feel comfortable with releasing an entire new version. I removed the Meet the Sniper models--I didn't really expect a friggin' bobblehead to be so expensive. I thought the camper would be the only big problem, but I was wrong!

In addition, various errors have been tidied up and I think I'm finally satisfied with the map, so this should be the last update for a while.

 

[Acumen]

man first of all, i gotta tell you how sad i find it, that you seem to be talking to yourself for an entire thread page, while some really weird projects get tons and tons of replies. not helpful - but still attention that your project would be more benefiting of ! cause i think the map has really an awful lot of potential !

i just downloaded your map and gave it a runaround. there were three things that got my mind.

1) the lighting is rather uniform and dark in a lot of places. a bit more colored spots (not only whiteish/yellowish and corners wouldn't harm, imo. and these buros with the consoles and chairs are veeery dark, i'd say brighten it up a tad.

2) you seem to have many of the wooden beams and planks textured in a 90° way, so that the wooden structure doesn't follow it's natural flow but is against the flow/Stroke. that looks really odd !

3) the surrounding buildings are really flat, i think if you just run around some other maps, you'll easily get inspired to spice things up a notch

oh and a minor thing, that bugged me. there's these 2 huge floor lights in the area where blu spawns, they look really weird - position- and functionwise. i'd get rid of these and think about another detail or lighting solution

should be really exciting what you can come up with this map ! i'll be following

 

[evanonline]

Ha ha. I don't even realize how much I post or why I even bother bumping it so much. B1 was just going to be my last crack at this map because previous versions were very poorly received and I wasn't quite sure my big revamp to the final area did anything to help, but then I started fixing so many issues that I pushed off testing for a while and now I feel pretty pleased with it again. But I haven't tested anything since A5 or so, so it may still be sucky.

This is pretty helpful, though. My lighting was pretty sloppy in previous versions and I recently began an effort to tune it up after seeing some rainy alpine maps that pulled it off pretty well. I'll attempt to think of some better solutions in the next version.

Detailing buildings better is also something I've been trying to pay more attention to. I think I have some ideas in mind for that as well. Taking a peek through Badlands made me notice this recently and I want to spruce things up, but I have had more pressing matters to attend to on the map as of late. All in all, thanks very much!