ladders, stairs and sniper lasers

[fartron]

I have a couple of questions that came up with a map I'm working on that I haven't found answered elsewhere.



The narrow steps mounted to the front of the dam are a workaround for the lack of ladders, but I wonder how well they will work in multiplayer with client prediction and such. Does anyone have experience with this?

The second question is more mysterious: why don't red sniper dots show up on the orange texture when it is in direct sunlight? I had planned on releasing this as an orange map, but I'm concerned about the sniper laser being invisible; it's a disadvantage to not know where the snipers are looking.

If you aim at the orange texture in any kind of shadow, or with a decal (rocket explosion, bullet mark, etc) the red dot reappears. The blue sniper dot appears everywhere. The situation is the same with HDR on and off.

 

[YM]

With the exception of those stairs, it looks good

About the sniper dots.... just don't use the orange texture (see Snipergen and my sig)

 

[fartron]

When you say the exception of those stairs, do you mean they aren't the best looking? Or do you mean that they won't work well with client prediction?

While I'm not a fan of surf maps, I'm not sure how you can argue that texture choices will ruin a game. There are plenty of rotten orange maps, but there are good ones too.

Part of my love of TF2 is the return to old school multiplayer, and I'm drawing inspiration for this map from quakeworld and quake2 maps. I think the dev textures are great for maps with simple geometry but complex flow. The unrealistic nature of the textures frees up the mapper from having to fulfill player expectations in layout and architecture.

I'm not sure the specific texturing that is in the shot is final, as I'm only using two of the dev textures there. I rather liked the challenge though of defining the surfaces and architecture within the limit of only two textures.

My rebuttal is becoming disjointed because I'm not sure exactly what your objection to orange maps is. I really can't stand maps that are giant open boxes with a few obstacles, whether they are orange or not. Here's an orange map that I'm a big fan of. It's CS:S, but the map is still an example of excellent gameplay, inventive design and attractive architecture.

Last point, the name of my map is ctf_2dam_orange which I hope will endear orange texture haters to it (in addition to it being a lot more fun than those 420 orange maps).

 

[Snipergen]

Exectly. Please stay away with orange maps for TF2. You call yourself a level designer or mapper? Act like one than and make a serious map, or a funmap that looks amazing.

Your insparation is quake maps. How can you even think of that when you are mapping for TF2? Did you actually play the game. I'd like to show you this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIikwDbZTCI

 

[fartron]

Despite your support for it, none of this criticism is constructive.

The video is very nice, and I can assure you that the players will still be cell shaded on my orange map. I can also assure you that despite the lack of red barn or blue cement textures, that I intend to make navigating the map quite simple.

The reason that I can think of quake maps for TF2 (and yes I actually played it) is because of the 2 in the title. The first one was for quakeworld.

 

[Snipergen]

My point is: you are mapping for TF2. TF2 did not use any reference from other games, it's entirely new with fantastic art direction. I say its a shame mappers flood servers with orange maps, and that is not the goal of valve when they give us hammer. However, I cannot stop you, I just try to talk sense in you

 

[fartron]

TF2 draws almost everything from QWTF, so I'm not sure how you can argue that it doesn't reference other games. This may look familiar:



I'll agree that valve put a ton of work into the visual style of the game, and it turned out beautifully. An indie map, however, with simple geometry and cement textures is no better looking to me than an indie map with simple geometry and orange textures. What interests me in multiplayer is awesome gameplay, and not custom skyboxes or fancy displacements.

I appreciate that you may find orange maps jarring in the midst of a map rotation, that they may somehow interrupt your suspension of disbelief. I don't think there's anything wrong with having a preference for fully textured maps. I just think that entirely dismissing maps based on texture choices and not design is closed minded.

 

[Snipergen]

Its a combination of both to make good maps, but indeed, some players only want good gameplay. I can't stop you like I said before I just told you my opinion and I will shut up now about it. If you need help with the map however I'm still avaible, orange or not.

 

[A Boojum Snark]

The second question is more mysterious: why don't red sniper dots show up on the orange texture when it is in direct sunlight? I had planned on releasing this as an orange map, but I'm concerned about the sniper laser being invisible; it's a disadvantage to not know where the snipers are looking.

My educated guess would be it's because the sniper dot is rendered additively, and sunlit orange is so bright that there isn't much color that can be added to it, so it is nigh-impossible to see.

 

[fartron]

That sounds about right. I couldn't figure out why the red dot wouldn't show on white textures and the blue dot would, but I guess it's just the red in my light_environment leaving some room for blue to add.