[WIP]cp_casablanca

Uriak

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Apr 27, 2008
543
70
mainly, the situations is just one of these mindless fights : red members are taking a break in this residence, but blu ones are coming... and find their hotel full of their favorite ennemies...

I think I'll work a bit the entrance and spawns to represent this.
 

FLOOR_MASTER

L3: Member
Mar 10, 2008
118
140
Yes, it was B2. I like to poke around different servers for new maps and run them on my own server and don't remember exactly where I got it from. I'm sorry if you intended for it to be restricted to a select group of servers. I'll definitely give your released version (B3) a try and give more substantive feedback on that.
 

MangyCarface

Mapper
aa
Feb 26, 2008
1,626
1,325
mainly, the situations is just one of these mindless fights : red members are taking a break in this residence, but blu ones are coming... and find their hotel full of their favorite ennemies...

I think I'll work a bit the entrance and spawns to represent this.

Perhaps add some luggage with everyone's weapons peeking out from inside?
 

Uriak

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Apr 27, 2008
543
70
@Mangy : Yep, I was going to use intelligence props to do this. And it will piss of one our favorite admins who can't bear ctf mode at all* :laugh:

@FLOOR_MASTER : no problem, I was wondering... basically, it was an unfinished map :blushing:
*the very same reason the innermost room of cp_cube is full of intellingences :blush:
 

Uriak

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Apr 27, 2008
543
70
So most feedback on fpsbanana is related on the graphic aspect of the map and is rather negative. :( I lack more information on the gameplay.

Meanwhile, for beta 4, I decided to turn all the roofs blue to give the place a more mediterranean feeling, get rid of TF2 texture, apply displacements on the ground. The worst issue are the props, anyway, and I'm going to focus on my second project, an underground map I thought as a CP and may turn into a payload type.

Here's a sample of the new art direction :
 
Last edited:

Uriak

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Apr 27, 2008
543
70
okay, some grate news :

thanks to Hawk's excellent tutorial, I managed to create my first working model, with crude mesh and texture, but, hey, I'm still so... moved.



I'm currently modifying the last CP (it is lowered, and the surrounding elements have been simplified.) and I'm going to seriously make some fitting props for the map :)
 

Uriak

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Apr 27, 2008
543
70
We are going to begin playtest of the B4 tonight. I still haven't custom props at my disposal, so I've just done some refinement. For those who playtested the former version, here are the main changes

-both exits of the blue spawn are on the same wall, in order to help cohesion
-last point has been through some modifications. The terrace is lower and more simpler. A little tower makes the link between the mid A-C red exit and the main terrace.
-less spots for engies in C, but i've added new ammo packs and enlarged old ones.
-total round time lowered to 6 min + 3 + 4. Defense respawn times is not changed, but this should advert boring stalemates.


We have recently added some heatmap calculation on our servers, and it showed that people get killed almost everywhere in this map (the former version), a situation quite different than most official and custom maps. (Science, by instance, have only three relevant "kill zone")
 
Last edited:

Uriak

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Apr 27, 2008
543
70
I've been upgrading the map for some time time now, with the recent addition of many custom textures

cp_casablanca_b6 on fpsbanana

I don't think my time schedule will really allow me to design custom props after all... so I'm going to stick with this and do a couple last graphic upgrades to get rid of glitches. If I'm going to a second map, then I should stick with the original themes... much much easier to complement.


 
Last edited:

Spike

L10: Glamorous Member
Feb 13, 2008
716
82
That's very cool! I still have to give you the palms. I'm sorry but I'll give you next week or so, because I'm changing my computer after so many months of problems with it.
 

Uriak

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Apr 27, 2008
543
70
ha that would be very nice :) I'd nearly stopped updating this map for some time because while I achieved jumping into the props making process I lacked the experience to get something nice.

I nearly hid the last palm trees for this reason, but with this props, I should have a release candidate.

Gameplay wise, the last versions seemed to give the offensive team some advantage at first but with 147 games played, it averaged to 45/55 %. Of course I don't think it has been played elsewhere than our servers...
 

Uriak

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Apr 27, 2008
543
70
I'm digging up this old material :blushing: - especially for you Apom

So, by learning from the great custom maps that blossomed since the game launch, I'm confident that I can fix the issues of what was essentially a beginner's work.

Casablanca played okay (so our community thinks, at least) but suffered heavy issues

-squaryness
-bland surfaces
-monotonous colour tones
-long boring corridors
-lack of props
-use of HL2 material
-lack of space/open zones/inner rooms to look at

Now, I'm confident most ot it can be fixed

As a beginner, I was afraid of messing up with vvis and gave up drilling my buildings, or rounding a bit some angles. But details/nodraw WB and hints are here to help. I saw how in many great custom maps, "scenery rooms" are used to greatly decorated most places, and create a sens of life in the areas. Cp_egypt gave me access to palm tree :p

While I still want to keep up with a consistent color theme (white buildings, with small red and blu zones), by using alpha painting techniques, textures can be more varied. And I've given up going for a preindustrial look, so all sort of air vents, chimneys, electric cables will be used. I also learned how to split up single walls to use severals layers of texture.

Finally, I've made errors because I wanted casablanca to be a small scale project, hence the small tight hallways that were used to create more passages. Most of them should be turned into fully detailed rooms/buildings instead.

In this screen is shown the alpha painting effect on a wall, by mixing custom concrete and brick texture. It involves turning walls into displacement but may be worth it.

 

flubber

L4: Comfortable Member
Nov 16, 2007
171
35
T'as dix minutes.
 

Uriak

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Apr 27, 2008
543
70
So I'm experimenting with the displ wall (while detailing)

I found out that I must pair them at odd size to force hammer not to bind their vertices (to have "sharp" angles)



but in any case they won't be lighted in the same way as regular wall, for instance



What do you think ? Should I restrict "displ walls" to some flat areas at the sides ? Is the alpha painting mor than a trade off for more acute lighting ?
 

Apom

L6: Sharp Member
Sep 14, 2008
366
65
Try a higher displacement power to get better lighting maybe ? I'm not sure how these are lit, but if it's mesh-based (i.e. no lightmap as on brush faces) then a higher power could sove it.