- Apr 15, 2018
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- Thread starter youporkchop5
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- Apr 15, 2018
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- Apr 15, 2018
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- Apr 15, 2018
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Is that sign and hallway the only change in this new version?
I'm concerned that for the last few playtests that one building before C has been absolute misery to push through, and if this version only has that arrow change, all it'll do is make some of those times blu could push because read hadn't set up fast enough, into successful red holds in that building
I'm concerned that for the last few playtests that one building before C has been absolute misery to push through, and if this version only has that arrow change, all it'll do is make some of those times blu could push because read hadn't set up fast enough, into successful red holds in that building
- Apr 15, 2018
- 129
- 60
- Apr 15, 2018
- 129
- 60
- Apr 15, 2018
- 129
- 60
youporkchop5 updated Jerrycan 3 with a new update entry:
b1 is finally here!
Read the rest of this update entry...
b1 is finally here!
its b1. the clipping is worse. but the visuals are good
(all credit to emil's amazing work)
Read the rest of this update entry...
- Sep 10, 2016
- 531
- 398
Early notes:
Appreciated artpass more than I was expecting.
On seeing the sky texture and amount of custom assets, I feared the worst.
Orange-red (or, in this case, pink-red) skies generally lead to too little visual contrast at best and the map looking like an alien planet at worst. However in this map the sunlight colour was chosen very tastefully and the shadows are blue and dark enough that it wins back some favour.
Sky texture could perhaps still be improved. More on this later.
One thing that strikes me is that SunSpreadAngle 0 is a strange choice for a late-evening/post-apocalyptic/alien-planet setting.
Usually light in those settings is portrayed as pretty diffuse.
For maps with similar themes I tend to go for a SunSpreadAngle of 0.75-1.0 to accommodate this.
Custom assets are also tastefully used in this map as many of them are unique industrial machinery which looks nice enough and would be reasonably hard (although nowhere near impossible) to effectively substitute with base-game assets. Recommend investigating this possibility if able as map filesize is very large.
The "engine/defaultcubemap" finish does the custom props no favours.
My main perception of tasteful custom asset usage comes from the map's eager willingness to sprinkle base-game assets absolutely everywhere in a way that reminds of well-crafted 2009 maps.
Optimisation is very poor and I feel that this has limited the map's ability to place detail.
Examples where far, far too much is being rendered:
BLU's first spawn, looking towards the skybox props and rendering all of B:
B forward hold, looking into B backward hold and rendering all of C:
B backward hold, looking towards C and rendering all of C as well as the D forward hold:
C lobby/forward hold, looking towards B and rendering all of B, all of A, all of C and the D forward hold (you can't make this shit up):
Recommend fixing this at earliest possible juncture.
Primary optimisation issues are:
Shortlist of custom assets that should and could be removed:
One avenue to keep the cloud textures you're using is to change the sky texture. Right now, they blend in easy because the sky is both high-detail and homogenous in colour.
This would also add some much-needed visual contrast.
Here are a couple of experimental decompiles to show my favourite picks:
sky_well_01
sky_badlands_01 (basically the same thing with more frequent clouds which suits the map more but this angle shows it poorly)
One thing you tend to notice with Valve's skies is that they rarely stray away from the blues and greys.
This is mostly because their sunlight colours rarely stray away from the off-whites, yellows and orange-yellows, much like the sun in real life.
Although TF2 may exist for wild flights of fantasy, you tend to find over and over again in paintings and animated movies and suchlike that the highest-quality fictional worlds are actually lit almost exactly like real life.
Even if the colours are distorted to communicate some special meaning, they strive to keep that strong measure of visual contrast that makes a scene interesting, and blue skies vs. orange-yellow sunlight is an excellent path towards that. Having everything in orange or pink is about as far away as you could possibly stray away from that, which is why I've always hated the autumn theme - none the less for the conspicuous blueness of the sky in real-life autumns...
But that's my rant over. Now into more practical matters.
Misc. Comments:
V. obvious rendering issue on the sky props near C (building is bisected by sky brush and should be a func_brush):
Horrible lighting on the same props on the other side - please enable lightmaps (although, idk how much that'll help since it's in the 3D skybox) (also, gantry is missing a leg)
Many buildings are obviously cut by sky brushes
(not so obvious on the other side)
Tiftid is making zipbomb 50MB maps because of his sharp shadows
(( just ignore the 43.06 MB pakfile guys
This isn't cut by anything, it's just plain old visible nodraw.
Nearly every func_brush roof still has the original dev textures rendering underneath. This causes (slight) overdraw and wastes precious luxels on invisible geometry.
Here's a closing summary:
Appreciated artpass more than I was expecting.
On seeing the sky texture and amount of custom assets, I feared the worst.
Orange-red (or, in this case, pink-red) skies generally lead to too little visual contrast at best and the map looking like an alien planet at worst. However in this map the sunlight colour was chosen very tastefully and the shadows are blue and dark enough that it wins back some favour.
Sky texture could perhaps still be improved. More on this later.
One thing that strikes me is that SunSpreadAngle 0 is a strange choice for a late-evening/post-apocalyptic/alien-planet setting.
Usually light in those settings is portrayed as pretty diffuse.
For maps with similar themes I tend to go for a SunSpreadAngle of 0.75-1.0 to accommodate this.
Custom assets are also tastefully used in this map as many of them are unique industrial machinery which looks nice enough and would be reasonably hard (although nowhere near impossible) to effectively substitute with base-game assets. Recommend investigating this possibility if able as map filesize is very large.
The "engine/defaultcubemap" finish does the custom props no favours.
My main perception of tasteful custom asset usage comes from the map's eager willingness to sprinkle base-game assets absolutely everywhere in a way that reminds of well-crafted 2009 maps.
Optimisation is very poor and I feel that this has limited the map's ability to place detail.
Examples where far, far too much is being rendered:
BLU's first spawn, looking towards the skybox props and rendering all of B:
B forward hold, looking into B backward hold and rendering all of C:
B backward hold, looking towards C and rendering all of C as well as the D forward hold:
C lobby/forward hold, looking towards B and rendering all of B, all of A, all of C and the D forward hold (you can't make this shit up):
Recommend fixing this at earliest possible juncture.
Primary optimisation issues are:
- Many roofs not skyboxed or ineffectually skyboxed
- Precisely 0 func_areaportal or func_occluder entities on the map - perhaps map compiled with a couple of visgroups disabled?
- Many cases where the map seemingly wants to use a skybox-areaportal combo to allow you to see something through an area that should be skyboxed could be substituted with cleverer use of func_brush (e.g. the "viscrumb" technique of making an entire building on the other side of the skybox brush a func_brush, then adding one invisible cube to it on the other side so its bounding box extends through the brush)
Shortlist of custom assets that should and could be removed:
- coldera/oil001.vtf (use the exact same VMT with literally any other black texture in the game, such as tools/toolsblack or one of the warpaint textures)
- jerrycan/jerrycan_fog.vtf (almost impossible to even notice, and can easily be replaced by "lights/gradient_window" with the Additive rendermode, low opacity and a rendercolour of your choice)
- nature/scroll_clouds_1.vtf (almost imperceptible, replace with 2fort skybox cloud props with low opacity)
- models/props_kemil/machinery_generator.mdl (only used in a single, out-of-the-way room, substitute with any other machinery or spytech prop)
- models/props_avenue/urban_van_01.mdl (only used once, replace with the hydro dumptruck or hoodoo ambulance)
- I feel that many of the pipe props could be substituted with base-game equivalents or brushes. For instance, models/props_jerrycan/gas_oil_pipe_512.mdl looks dreadfully similar to models/props_mining/generator_pipe01.mdl.
One avenue to keep the cloud textures you're using is to change the sky texture. Right now, they blend in easy because the sky is both high-detail and homogenous in colour.
This would also add some much-needed visual contrast.
Here are a couple of experimental decompiles to show my favourite picks:
sky_well_01
sky_badlands_01 (basically the same thing with more frequent clouds which suits the map more but this angle shows it poorly)
One thing you tend to notice with Valve's skies is that they rarely stray away from the blues and greys.
This is mostly because their sunlight colours rarely stray away from the off-whites, yellows and orange-yellows, much like the sun in real life.
Although TF2 may exist for wild flights of fantasy, you tend to find over and over again in paintings and animated movies and suchlike that the highest-quality fictional worlds are actually lit almost exactly like real life.
Even if the colours are distorted to communicate some special meaning, they strive to keep that strong measure of visual contrast that makes a scene interesting, and blue skies vs. orange-yellow sunlight is an excellent path towards that. Having everything in orange or pink is about as far away as you could possibly stray away from that, which is why I've always hated the autumn theme - none the less for the conspicuous blueness of the sky in real-life autumns...
But that's my rant over. Now into more practical matters.
Misc. Comments:
V. obvious rendering issue on the sky props near C (building is bisected by sky brush and should be a func_brush):
Horrible lighting on the same props on the other side - please enable lightmaps (although, idk how much that'll help since it's in the 3D skybox) (also, gantry is missing a leg)
Many buildings are obviously cut by sky brushes
(not so obvious on the other side)
Tiftid is making zipbomb 50MB maps because of his sharp shadows
(( just ignore the 43.06 MB pakfile guysThis isn't cut by anything, it's just plain old visible nodraw.
Nearly every func_brush roof still has the original dev textures rendering underneath. This causes (slight) overdraw and wastes precious luxels on invisible geometry.
Here's a closing summary:
- Optimise your map so you have room to lavish more detail on the many neglected rooms
- Add some colour-contrast to make it prettier
- Trim down the filesize by removing some of the less effectual custom assets
- You may choose not to listen to me and I will be no worse off for it
Last edited:
- Apr 15, 2018
- 129
- 60
youporkchop5 updated Jerrycan 3 with a new update entry:
B2 Emil
Read the rest of this update entry...
B2 Emil
Read the rest of this update entry...
- Apr 15, 2018
- 129
- 60
youporkchop5 updated Jerrycan 3 with a new update entry:
Release Candidate 1!!!!!
Read the rest of this update entry...
Release Candidate 1!!!!!
Read the rest of this update entry...
- Apr 15, 2018
- 129
- 60
youporkchop5 updated Jerrycan 3 with a new update entry:
Release Candidate 2!!!!!
Read the rest of this update entry...
Release Candidate 2!!!!!
Read the rest of this update entry...