KotH Geiger

[ForbiddenDonut]

That door to door sightline looks fun.

Are you talking about the top tier one?

Sightlines is something I'm going to be controlling. I like tactical usage of sightline, but considering how powerful the Sniper is, it's certainly something I'm going to be focused on throughout the development process.

 

[tyler]

The one that is on the same level as the point.

 

[ForbiddenDonut]

The one that is on the same level as the point.

Yeah, that one won't exist by tonight. I really only had like an hour last night to work in Hammer.

 

[ForbiddenDonut]

Alright. Got a little bit more work done today.

A few notes: all the textures are pretty much placeholders. I'm not a fan of dev textured cliffs, so I'll slap any ol' cliff texture on there. The lower flank on the ridge looks like a pit of death - it's going to be fenced to point where you can't walk off to your death automatically, but if a Pyro airblasts you correctly, you'll be killed.

 

[ForbiddenDonut]

Triple posting like a boss.

So, today I wanted to feel out what I wanted to do with this map aesthetically and roll out the carpet for the mood that I want to capture. I'm a big fan of the stock TF2 style: spytech bases, doomsday devices and general 60s' spy film environments.

I'm playing around with embedding the central focus area within the coastal cliff and giving it that James Bond feeling. This is all really an experiment and I'm just playing around with ideas, so it's real rough. However, I wouldn't enjoy mapping if I didn't try and roll off the rails time to time.

So, here's what I'm trying out:

Comments and suggestions are appreciate, as always. I really want to get this downloadable and playtested in the next few days, but I want to make sure I was happy with where I was taking this first.

 

[tyler]

Really like the direction you're going with that. I love that general point shape in KOTH but haven't seen a map get it right yet. Looking forward to playing this one.

 

[Spacek531]

How come nobody's mentioned air-cooled reactors? You can plop those pretty much anywhere you can get hydrogen (which is just about anywhere).

I do like this cascading-level style point though, and I am anxiously waiting to see those awesome cliffs.

 

[ForbiddenDonut]

Well, time to update with a few screenshots.

I should have a download up pretty soon.

 

[ForbiddenDonut]

Alright. Here's an overview-ish. Getting there.

 

[ForbiddenDonut]

/sigh

3D skybox ocean. Y U NO SYNC UP WITH IN-MAP OCEAN.

Considering putting a short tsunami wall to hide the transition. Ugh.

 

[Fruity Snacks]

/sigh

3D skybox ocean. Y U NO SYNC UP WITH IN-MAP OCEAN.

Considering putting a short tsunami wall to hide the transition. Ugh.

Or you can make the in-map one really big.

 

[ForbiddenDonut]

Or you can make the in-map one really big.

I kind of wanted to put a few things in the distance - corners of the land or perhaps a far off island.

Besides, wouldn't that be bad for file size optimization? That's a lot of space to cover.

 

[Another Bad Pun]

Why not do what 3Dnj did for the lake in koth_lakeside?

The 3d skybox water here overlaps the real world geometry. All of that water is from the 3d skybox. Put a small shore near the bottom of the cliff, and the 3d skybox will do the rest. To sell it, put some objects on the horizon shrouded in magical fog so the player can't see the magical end of the 3d skybox water.

 

[Fruity Snacks]

That won't work because it looks like his water is interactive, that is. People fall into it. If you want the dead bodies to float, you'd need to use in-map water, rather than in-skybox.

Or you could do it like lakeside and just ignore the part about the water, croissant does it I think (or it was some water bug, i forget)

 

[Another Bad Pun]

Put a small shore near the bottom of the cliff, and the 3d skybox will do the rest.

I had imagined that the player would always fall short of the water and onto the beach below. (And hopefully the beach would be solid.)


Edit: hey look its my 140th post

 

[ForbiddenDonut]

I used a decompiled Lakeside to sort of guide me into the position I am now (this is my first time with skybox cameras). Frozen is right in the context that people fall into my water (so thus, it needs a bit more distance to not look terrible when submerged).

The water in lakeside occurs outside the bounds of play and is very short in comparison to the 3D skybox water (as rehtona noted).

I'll play around with a bit more. Perhaps Le Swordfish might give me a tip or two on how he got the water in atoll to sync up nicely.

 

[tyler]

He didn't get them to meet up very well, actually, and also disguised the point where they meet with a couple props.

 

[ForbiddenDonut]

I just checked croissant. Arnold put a wooden fence up in the water that hides the transition.

Alright, well. A tsunami wall for now I suppose. I'll play around and see what else I can do after the contest.

 

[ForbiddenDonut]

Alright, the download is up! The map should be all set for its first gameday.

Here's a few pictures to get an idea of where the map is going in the meantime!

(Lighting is awful, but hey - at least it's playable now!)

 

[LeSwordfish]

Yeah, don't look at me. Atoll's water was terrible. Best advice i can give is to disguise the worse bits.

If i were to do it again, i'd try making the water a) larger and b) more rounded, since the corners are the most obnoxious bits i think.