Ghost Town

[TheDarkerSideofYourShadow]

Had a few hours to do some work today. Just did a little around the Blu first spawn. Texturing and displacements. Still need to do props, lighting, and then signs/overlays and other misc stuff. Then I can cross the river

Also, and this is to Political, what are your thoughts on where to break up the map to make it a goldrush style. I was thinking do the first area (2 points) and add stuff to make it longer, with the 2st point near the cave and the the final where it is now. The second round would be the second area, with 2 or 3 points, one at the elevator (after it comes down), and then the other a bit further on beyond where the 2nd currently is. The final round would be 3 points, with one in the third area, another before the decending ramps above the fourth area, and the final at the end.

 

[Tinker]

If you can make it just as fun (man, I love walking over roofs!) as the versions I've played in single payload mode, I think it's a good idea.

 

[The Political Gamer]

OK after taking a quick run around the map I think you should go with a 4-2, in other words a 8 point, 2 stage map. With this in mind I outlined approximately were I think all the points should go.

 

[TheDarkerSideofYourShadow]

Displacements ftl. And this is just the first area :-/ Maybe 1/4th of the way done there?

 

[PenPen]

I played this map on gameday (I only played this and Cauldron). Unfortunately, I think the map is really too big - there are multiple paths for blu to help advance the cart but before CP3 it became a chokepoint of sorts, took us a while to get past there.

But blu never won a match. I don't know if it was the case before since it's my first time playing this map, but seems like blu has a hard time pushing the cart past the third point?

On the next round blu didn't push past the first CP (I think it was the first, the point in the building) since I setup a sentry next to the point and it's really hard to take out.

Judging from a runthru during gameday and a quick look at the overview of the map, the payload track is too winding. I'd suggest shortening unnecessary distances (like open area u-turns?) or splitting up the map, I guess.

 

[TheDarkerSideofYourShadow]

So I was planning on making a blog post explaining how work is a pain in the ass and it removes a huge portion of my free time, even that time not spent at work due to physical and mental exhaustion. Instead, I figured I'd just state very briefly that this project is not dead, that I have more free time now, particularly this week, to devote to this map, that I would like to get this and the associated goldrush style map truly finished asap so I can work on 3 or so other maps I have in mind, as well as a possible L4D campaign.


So... here are some various shots of the first area, spawnroom, and warehouse. I'm almost finished with the warehouse and am moving into the second large area, dubbed "The Town." Hopefully beta1 will be half finished, detailing wise, by the end of this week (the last two points should be easier, particularly due to the lack of displacements in the final area). I'll still need to go through and optimize (a process I'll have to learn first :-/) as well as procure the talents of a modeler/texturer to make a decent sized amount of custom content for this project.

ETA is uncertain, because while I plan on releasing the first beta prior to the addition of custom content, it would be best for everyone if it was after at least some optimization. Oh, and there is another detailing contest afoot, which could very well take up my time for a few days, especially since multiple entries are allowed :-/

Ugly shadows, etc, to be removed when I do a complete compile.

 

[TheDarkerSideofYourShadow]

A flood of pictures from the second area, which I have been working on for the past 2/3 days. Final is an overview to see my progress. Should be able to finish the rest of it (not counting the transitional building to the next area) this weekend, then things will slow down as I have to go back to work. So much to do, so little time.

 

[Hanz]

Looks nice!

 

[Void]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUyYace8318"]YouTube- Robocop - "I like it"[/ame]

 

[TheDarkerSideofYourShadow]

Working at a snails pace will get you this far in a week:

 

[The Political Gamer]

Looking good Darker! BTW Have you done anything about how far the cap points are? I know the HUD supports up to 8 now so I does not have to be more then one stage.

 

[TheDarkerSideofYourShadow]

Huh, didn't know they bumped up the points to 8 now. No, I haven't messed with the layout at all since a9 (though I will do a little change in the fourth area). I'm not sure if I will either, since I plan on doing a multi round version anyways, though if more people give it a shot when its beta and I get mass scale feedback on how succesful that map is in its current state (or not), then I'll actually be able to make that call.

 

[TheDarkerSideofYourShadow]

*fingers crossed* Finishing the first detail pass tomorrow. Still have:

Second detail pass.
Seal map.
Clip.
Fix errors.
Optimize.
Generate custom content and add in (what I can do myself).
Release b1 and find people to make other custom content.

b1 most likely won't include a skybox, or a lot of other fancy detailing stuff I'll do later on when I have a) some more feedback, b) custom stuff and c) more time.

 

[Void]

Oh man oh god oh man oh god Ghost Town!!

 

[Jbbbbb]

Really nice !

 

[TheDarkerSideofYourShadow]

Anyways, finished detail pass 1 yesterday/this morning. Sealed the map too. Next up is detail pass 2, which should add environment detail (stuff between buildings, rocks/shrubs, cleaning up where the sky is, etc). Then its optimization time!

And just in case you'd like to take a look...

Object names Objects/Maxobjs Memory / Maxmem Fullness
------------ --------------- --------------- --------
models 115/1024 5520/49152 (11.2%)
brushes 5941/8192 71292/98304 (72.5%)
brushsides 44290/65536 354320/524288 (67.6%)
planes 19482/65536 389640/1310720 (29.7%)
vertexes 38244/65536 458928/786432 (58.4%)
nodes 8248/65536 263936/2097152 (12.6%)
texinfos 2528/12288 182016/884736 (20.6%)
texdata 180/2048 5760/65536 ( 8.8%)
dispinfos 1060/0 186560/0 ( 0.0%)
disp_verts 26724/0 534480/0 ( 0.0%)
disp_tris 34304/0 68608/0 ( 0.0%)
disp_lmsamples 1812252/0 1812252/0 ( 0.0%)
faces 22750/65536 1274000/3670016 (34.7%)
hdr faces 0/65536 0/3670016 ( 0.0%)
origfaces 17315/65536 969640/3670016 (26.4%)
leaves 8364/65536 267648/2097152 (12.8%)
leaffaces 28170/65536 56340/131072 (43.0%)
leafbrushes 11405/65536 22810/131072 (17.4%)
areas 2/256 16/2048 ( 0.8%)
surfedges 185675/512000 742700/2048000 (36.3%)
edges 116143/256000 464572/1024000 (45.4%)
LDR worldlights 155/8192 13640/720896 ( 1.9%)
HDR worldlights 0/8192 0/720896 ( 0.0%)
leafwaterdata 6/32768 72/393216 ( 0.0%)
waterstrips 2987/32768 29870/327680 ( 9.1%)
waterverts 0/65536 0/786432 ( 0.0%)
waterindices 62109/65536 124218/131072 (94.8%) VERY FULL!
cubemapsamples 1/1024 16/16384 ( 0.1%)
overlays 340/512 119680/180224 (66.4%)
LDR lightdata [variable] 14823024/0 ( 0.0%)
HDR lightdata [variable] 0/0 ( 0.0%)
visdata [variable] 1206894/16777216 ( 7.2%)
entdata [variable] 320658/393216 (81.5%) VERY FULL!
LDR ambient table 8364/65536 33456/262144 (12.8%)
HDR ambient table 8364/65536 33456/262144 (12.8%)
LDR leaf ambient 40905/65536 1145340/1835008 (62.4%)
HDR leaf ambient 8364/65536 234192/1835008 (12.8%)
occluders 0/0 0/0 ( 0.0%)
occluder polygons 0/0 0/0 ( 0.0%)
occluder vert ind 0/0 0/0 ( 0.0%)
detail props [variable] 1/158440 ( 0.0%)
dtl prp lght [variable] 1/4 (25.0%)
HDR dtl prp lght [variable] 1/4 (25.0%)
static props [variable] 1/177720 ( 0.0%)
pakfile [variable] 6992/0 ( 0.0%)
physics [variable] 2194784/4194304 (52.3%)
physics terrain [variable] 215348/1048576 (20.5%)

 

[The Political Gamer]

Looking really good darker!