[WIP] ctf_Aerospace

[Arhurt]

I'm glad you liked it. The original Gatling guns were giving the plane a clunky look, and after a while I came to realise that in order to compete with the missle equiped blue jet the Redbaron would need an extra kick. The 18 extra cannon barrels kinda made it.

The waterfall presents a challenge because it needs a kinda of ig mountain for it to be formed with such a steady and strong stream.

So here is a quick sketch of what I plan for this map scenery-wise, with the waterfall:

now with the desert-theme, I'm thinking along the lines of this pic:

Now for the cons/pros

Forest:
Pros

• Lots of original models
• Original Theme
• Different look than Stock maps
• Keep the waterfall

Cons

• Lots of new props and materials to make from scratch
• General public will not download a huge map

Desert:
Pros

• In-line with stock maps theme
• Less work to be done
• Faster release
• Better general public acceptance, but the file size will be larger anyway

Cons

• Just another desert map
• Lose the waterfall (doesn't fit)

I'm leaning strongly for the forest theme. I love creating my own stuff and the extra effort really pays off in the end. The map will be a good 70-80Mb download, but heck I'm making this for a select group of people who enjoy custom-made original maps such as yourselves

Thanks a lot for the feedback and compliments. I wish I could quit my job to work on it full-time

 

[Vander]

/votes forest theme.

 

[Juice]

forest ftw!!

 

[Randdalf]

I wish I had such an amazing creative process... my maps usually involve a page of scribble in a notebook, and that's f I actually make them, sometimes they're just ideas. I made downpour with no planning whatsoever, I just made it. That's why it's taking so long to make, because it's nowhere near perfect.

Oh, and forest; will the waterfall have a scrolling texture, and lots of mist effects?

 

[Arhurt]

Forest it is then!

The waterfall will have some mist and splashes, it already has a scrolling texture (mas was that a pain to learn and implement). My main concern is keeping it in the boundaries of TF2 style. I like the way it looks now, I just fear it may be too cartoony looking for some, but side by side with, say, the muzzle flash from the heavy gun it looks just in place.

Or are you concerned with FPS loss due to lots of effects?

Thanks for the feedback guys, always appreciated.

 

[Half-Life_Maniac]

Looking forward to trying the map. Currently downloading, but this is going to take til next week on my "dialup" speed.

 

[Arhurt]

Looking forward to trying the map. Currently downloading, but this is going to take til next week on my "dialup" speed.

Hey, thanks for taking the time to download it and take a look. I'm sorry for the big file size, and unfortunately it just tends to get bigger and bigger. I wonder if there is some way to reduce it beyond just zipping the file?

 

[Vander]

Be sure to check out the tutorial on optimization in these forums. There's also a pretty cool guide here: http://www.student.ru.nl/rvanhoorn/optimization.php?chapter=intro

 

[oxy]

I love seeing your concept sketches. Keep cranking away~!

 

[Arhurt]

Ok, I have just watched the gameday demo and have made some notes. I'd like to thank you all again for testing it out, seeing it in action really helped me get a feel of the map. These where the points brought up during the game:

• Map feels too big
• Cave section is underused
• Intelligence is very hard to defend
• Intelligence is hard to find
• Ramps and walkways are too narrow
• Engineer needs better places for setting up
• Hangar window is hard to go trough from inside
• There needs to be more connections between the two major paths of the map (cave/yard)
• Water texture needs to be more transparent
• Too many high walls
• Planes in the hangar blocks passage
• Water does not carry you away

On the other hand, I also got:

• Nice models
• Good displacements
• Pretty good for a first map

That's a very good list to start off, and I'm already working on all of these issues. I'm sorry to deliver such a rough map out, I'll improve it a thousandfold using prowess for Alpha 2.

Thanks a lot, I'll make sure to make it on the next gameday!

 

[Arhurt]

So I have been out of town for the last week and havn't had much progress, but I could work a little this morning before leaving for work and wanted to share as I come back in my normal schedule.

Here is the new layout. I have considerably shortened the walk between the two bases and compressed the cavern a little bit. It's still big, mind you, but not over what was needed. Unfortunatey any class can now jump over the pits, but as the scout seemed to dominate the map giving this bonus to everyone seems like a fair choice.

The main change though is a new connection between the sewers and the yard. You can see the big entrance to the side of the office building. It is large enough that it might attract most of the traffic out of the office building.

This here is a little space I created for the engineer to setup. It's an obvious place for a sentry, but has it's weak spots. It gives the engineer control of the flag room, since a sentry put up like this:

Will not only take care of the imediate roof of the hangar and the small window on the side, but will also stare with it's heavy caliber machineguns to anyone getting to the intel:

Another change to the flag room was the closing of one entrance and narrowing the ceiling opening so a sentry or a demoman can stand in the corner and not be picked off by direct fire from above as seen below:

Finally, I am starting to add a little detail so the map will be prettier for the next gameday. Not adding a whole lot of detail, but some custom models at least add a little more personality to the blue hangar:

Now on the last screenshot is a problem I'm facing, apparently the models don't recieve shadow information from the world geometry. I guess I could break that door into two models and add the shadow to the texture, but I wonder if it's something I did wrong while compiling the map maybe.

And here's a look at the hangar door texture:

The windows are supposed to be the kind of safety glass you find in military compounds, but I'm having trouble with the material. Every time I add the transparency filter to the VMF the models looks all wrong with polygons being rendered in front of others. So I'm using "$Alphatest" 1 for now, but it not only kills the glass and makes it a grate, it get's all jagged up on the borders, even with antialiasing turned on.

 

[MangyCarface]

Looking excellent as usual. Don't forget to throw some cubemaps in there, so the intel doesn't show up all purple like that. Unfortunately I can't help you with the modelling question, but it seems like those doors would work fine as brushwork instead. How about you cut that texture into two, one for the window and one for the rest of the door, make a couple brushes and texture them with the new ones in hammer? Don't waste polys on simple doors if they won 't look that different from brushwork

 

[Arhurt]

Hey thanks! I've added some basic cubemaps in there, nothing fancy just yet, but at least the pink checkers are gone!

I'm adding more detail to the hangar door model so I'm definately going to need a model for that, but I've already found out a way to do it, just need to get a couple hours on it to get it working.

Here are some screenies of the new cave section for alpha 2:

I still have to add a lot of detail, but until I reach Beta I guess the cave is pretty much done for.

Here's a look at the map as it stands now. I've added more customization to the red base, but still have a lot (A LOT) to do.

Oh, and Alpha 2 is out, here's the link: http://forums.tf2maps.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=376

 

[Sgt Frag]

Dig the cave section. Looks cool. Like the water fall too, was thinking about trying to make one myself. Might have to copy yours

 

[Arhurt]

Hey thanks, I`m glad you liked it!

I`ll release all the models, prefabs and textures after release. Those stalactites and rocks in the cave are models, and the waterfall is a displacement with a scrolling texture applied to it (as buggy as hell, but it looks good and is cheap fps-wise).

Edit:

I tought I should bring these up as they are features I`d like to see tested:

• Demoman: You can jump on top of the Office building from both sides, just be careful with snipers if you are up front. You can also get anywhere a soldier can rocket-jump.
• Soldier: You are able to get to the top of the Hangar (a very good position to defend or ambush a flag carrier. You can also jump right to the balcony of the offices. You can also jump up trough the flag`s room opening in the ceiling to avoid taking the flag trough the beaten path. You can also rocket-jump over trough the opening in the sewer room right in front of the hangar.
• Engineer: The raised area by the hangar side is your own stronghold, use it! The office building is a good place for a teleporter exit, as is the inner side of the tower or behind the hangar.
• Scout: You can get quickly trough the yard by jumping atop the waterfall rocks trough the raised props (but you will lose cover from snipers). It is also a good way to avoid being ambushed by enemies coming out of the cave. You can double-jump from the inside balcony of the Office to the small platform around the tower and from there get to the top of the Hangar (you have to duck to be able to get across, it`s tricky, but key to a fast capture). Also, in the cavern, you can sometimes survive bumping on the slactites with a well timed double-jump across.
• Medic, Pyro, Spy and Heavy: Do your magic and mess up with the other classes plans, they are all spelled out above

 

[MangyCarface]

Cave looks unique, but light it pretty brightly, dark and tf2 don't mix well; you can achieve a dark feel by adding areas that are inaccessible but darker as well as using darkly colored yet bright light_spots here and there; they add ambient light but are less noticable than light entities

 

[Arhurt]

Thanks MangyCarface, I too loved the unique look of the cave. It's all custom material/models and I'm quite happy with the looks of it but indeed it needs a little bit more work to fit on TF2 looks. I had doubts about the cave's lightning and am still learning as I go, so still lots to do there. I'm going to work more on the lightning once I get to Beta, there is going to be a faint blue glow coming from the pits, as they are actually bigger holes that will be filled by the 3d skybox cavern model I'm working on.

Thanks for bringing this up, it's confirmed my tought's about the cave.

 

[MangyCarface]

Ah, I wanted to look at one thing ingame, and it seems the latest version crashes me to desktop on server creation (right before I get ingame.) Have you checked your resource integrity with another party? (as in did you pack the custom shit in correctly)

I wanted to see how high up the areas the demoman/soldier can get to are. One thing that can be incredibly frustrating to players is trying to fight a foe that is more than, say, 2x player height above them. This is the "roof" effect and can be 'exploited' heavily, ducking back and forth over the edge, firing down on foes with little to know repercussions. I can't confirm if you've got that situation going on but you might want to check it out.

I also wanted to say how impressive the stalagmites and particles are in the cave, shame I can't check 'em out ingame.

 

[Arhurt]

I'm at work right now, so I can't do much, but I have not tested it outside of my own machine You say you get an error right after loading the map?

I have not set up any cameras for spectators, so when you first enter the map you are looking from the void down below the map, essencially rendering everything at first until you spawn. Can it be the cause of this? If so I have to look for how to set up the cameras and release a patch for it when I get home in a couple hours.

I think that at least the demoman places are that high, but then they run out of ammo and have to drop down a loong way. But I'd like to check that in more depth for sure.

 

[Arhurt]

I recieve e-mail updatings ont this thread, I could salvage this post from Tigger:

Hi! Play tested today for the first time, so please take my comments for what they're worth.

Airplane models were awesome.

Cave and waterfall looked awesome. That said, the cave was far too dark, and it was too easy to fall in a hole to death. Does the map really need the "holes of death" since there are so many other ways to die from combat? I would rather be looking for enemies, not at the ground under my feet.

Need a pane of glass in the spawn room between the spawn points and the airplanes below the balcony. I kept trying to go that way when I spawned. Also need to spawn facing the exit of the room.

Need signs leading to the other base and to the intel. Took me several minutes to find my own intel.

In the building with the inner corkscrew ramp it's too hard to get the ammo and health from under the ramp.

In the no mans land area between the camps the far areas away from the cave weren't used. I'd consider removing them from the map.

The ammo and health in the cave were hard to see and get to in the dark. See "holes of death" above.

The entrances to the cave area didn't seem to match the map. They were very dark and plain. And there was a pit there too. See "holes of death".

The front of the red base looked more like a Frank Lloyd Wright house than the red base. I liked the red wood, but it didn't look militaristic to me. It looked like a house.

The intel was very hard to defend as an engineer. Even with that platform next to the building we couldn't keep the other team from the intel. The intel room needed to be a bit larger, and the intel not right next to an open skylight and open window.

There weren't enough ammo and health packs in the base areas. It was incredibly hard as an engie to set up if if I didn't make a dispenser first. And even then it was a race of time before an enemy scout showed up.

Suggestions:

Put the intels more in the center of the bases than off to one side.

Make the cavern larger. It looks awesome. Make it the center of the conflict. Take out the holes of death. Add more flat areas for engies to set up. Put holes in the ceiling so light can get in. It's a great area. Expand on it.

Make the outdoor passage a secondary option, not the primary one. Maybe even add another thin passage on the far side, or over the top of the cavern.

Looking forward to playing the next iteration.