WiP in WiP, post your screenshots!

[UKCS-Alias]

The big problem i see on that screen is sightlines, here the reason in more detail on why and what you can do against it:

The sightlines on viaduct are an exact reason why i dont like viaduct. On koth maps dont make it too easy for snipers. At least force them to take a bit more risks if possible. Koth maps already focus attack to be near the cp, and having a sniper safely behind it is a bad idea. On many other koth maps you have paths that barely interact with the cp in a sightline. Those paths dont interact with the sniper sightline and allow countering.

On viaduct you can at least decently counter the sniper sightline by taking the other side route which goes under his view. Although it requires you to battle next to the cp to counter - which again is bad. But lets say some examples that are better (as koth, or as midcp in a 5cp map):
king - you can use the lower path which although it has its seperate sightline isnt a primary used one due to lower traffic and easy countering from the top. All sniper sightlines have backroutes with easy access
granary - that higher path forces snipers to make use of vertical aiming aswel and it isnt visible on normal key paths for horizontal sniping since those dumpsters block it. Although its a small map and not as koth it shows why for koth it wouldnt be too bad
harvest - it has alot of strong sniper sightlines but also a 90 degree angle of attacking which brings the hazard to face other snipers too often. The sniper for that reason cant fully focus on each doorway that exists and this is a counter aswel. Thats simply the reason that the map is wide (your map is narrow for comparing)
lakeside - again a map i dislike but the inside area already is a blind spot for snipers. Its a higher traffic area though which is still why snipers arent easy to take out - but getting through it at least gives a reward of killing them.

But in your map i have the idea that the only way to counter the sniper is to jump into his face which isnt a counter (a bodyshot is still 150 damage). You realy need to do something about that sightline.

NEVER EVER help a sniper. A map that isnt sniper friendly doesnt have to be a boring map, a map that is sniper friendly can quickly become boring. Even 2fort which is considered sniper heaven has a path thats fully protected from sniper spam. Good snipers will allways find ways to exploit a certain sightline, and those sightlines are good since they have their restrictions.

Your cp looks good for normal gameplay and makes good use of heights, but that sniper sightline bothers me too much

 

[Pocket]

Even 2fort which is considered sniper heaven has a path thats fully protected from sniper spam.

To be honest, I've never considered 2fort very sniper friendly because pretty much the only route they can cover is the opposite deck, and they're usually preoccupied with dueling the sniper on the other team. The result is that both decks wind up being little more than a waste of space.

 

[puxorb]

I really wouldn't have thought that viaduct would be your choice as an example of bad sightlines in koth maps. I play sniper a lot and have a lot of trouble on viaduct. The hill at point makes it hard to get a good line of sight from one side to the other without going onto the higher levels. And even if you decide to take cover behind the corrugated metal, the railing on the back makes a perfect 'bounce-off' region for grenades, making demoman an excellent counter for snipers on viaduct (at least in my experience). If you were going to talk about a koth map with powerful sniper sightlines, you should have mentioned koth_lakeside. But even that map has a decent counter sniper area for other classes to take shelter.

As for this map, players who own the point like to create a perimeter of influence around it. Seeing all those raised areas around the point suggests that once a team moves owns the area a sniper will have a hard time even coming up to where the sightline starts. I can just imagine myself trying to peek around a corner while demomen and soldiers with their medics are spamming some of the only good spots. Also, it looks like a sentry will have decent range and cover in that center area, causing snipers to flinch and miss a lot of their shots.

Now, I haven't played the map yet, but from just looking at that image I can imagine how a sniper would handle the area. I'm not an expert in map design but I've been playing sniper a lot in the last 3 years so I should know something.

 

[Grizzly Berry]

Your cp looks good for normal gameplay and makes good use of heights, but that sniper sightline bothers me too much

Yep, something I've been looking at myself. Played with some bots earlier and sniping was very easy. Thinking of ways to fix that right now. Open to suggestions.

 

[UKCS-Alias]

I really wouldn't have thought that viaduct would be your choice as an example of bad sightlines in koth maps. I play sniper a lot and have a lot of trouble on viaduct.

That you can have problems on viaduct isnt a bad thing, its just that once you face a good sniper he is able to deadlock 1 path. And thats the main problem since countering that is barely possible.

The issue isnt realy on the sightline itself, its on the lack of flank options that dont cross with that sightline and arent flooded with spam.

All popular sniper maps still have the part that an average skilled sniper just cant control the whole map. And in some cases (for example 2fort) cant even get pro snipers to make a perfect streak. Chaos is after all the best counter to strong sniping maps and the 2fort bridge or harvest completely have alot of that (note that in harvest you can see like 30% of the map at once and it doesnt feel as a sniper heaven map).

For a map its best to check how you would be able to counter (or avoid) snipers as pyro without a flaregun. This means you are restricted to close range. And cant use a major attack spot to flank. Viaduct in that case shows that the only decent way to counter the snipers is to get behind them while you have to pass the major bottleneck of the map called the control point. Thats bad map design from the start since you explicitely rule out some classes.

The sniper is a class you should harm the most in a map. A good sniper will allways be able to find the spot they need to do their job, while a bad sniper has to rely on common sniper spots indicating a weakness in the map. Koth king even with its many sightlines doesnt show a perfect sniper spot since there are like 5 of them (meaning that there are 5 potential sightlines that work but none of them is the best since if it was the best everyone would use it all the time).

 

[ScorpioUprising]

Not to put this thread to far off topic, but the idea that Viaduct is a bad map because of abusable sniper positions seems a bit off to me.

To be clear, Viaduct sees play in every competitive format. Sniper play definitely occurs (for the reasons cited above) but it is by no means completely disruptive, and managing to deal with the sniper is a bit of a skill tester IMO. Obviously, competitive play doesn't have to be the end all of decision making when it comes to what makes a good/bad map, but when a very dedicated group of extremely talented players (many of whom play sniper exceedingly well) have learned to adjust to a specific sight-line issue, I don't think it makes much sense to question it (or at least, not very much).

While the idea of "don't promote sniper play, good snipers will find their own spots" sounds nice in theory, in actuality its way to much of a limitation to really be taken seriously when designing a map. Its a kind of "in an ideal world in which all maps were perfect and every class was balanced relative to one another" sort of theory that really doesn't account for the actual reality of how TF2 plays and how specific maps actually work.

And the idea that koth_king is a superior map because of the way it shuts down sniper sightlines seems like the sort of idealized, armchair map theory that doesn't really result in producing maps that people actually want to play.

Just my 2 cents, I think that screenshot looks fine.

 

[xzzy]

Viaduct has a bit of a mudslide component to it, meaning that the worse your team is the quicker they get buried by the competition. In some ways this is a useful design feature because it means the round will end quickly which either triggers a team scramble or a map change.

With two evenly matched teams snipers aren't all that bad, the sniper spots are vulnerable enough that several classes have a legitimate shot at neutralizing them.

It does mean that truly incompetent teams will get spawn camped pretty bad. In this case I consider that more the fault of the server than the map.

 

[YM]

less words, more pictures

 

[Crash]

You first.

 

[Another Bad Pun]

 

[puxorb]

Well, f*** everything. I just worked for weeks on detailing cp_keikoku for the detailing portion of the 2 skillsets major mapping contest. I was about to post some screenshots yesterday/today but I kept running into issues, and eventually my computer started bluescreening after about 2 hours of gaming. Then it was 1 hour....then 20 minutes....now It crashes as soon as I load up any level of any game. I can browse the internet for hours and work on homework but as soon as I game it crashes.

Ive rolled back drivers, reinstalled drivers, did a system restore, read through the bluescreens, checked my temps! (no more than 65 Celsius) And so far, nothing has seemed to work.

At first I thought malware, then possibly some conflicting software...hen it hit me--My GPU just died. D: It just went kaput, after only 1.5 years of use...
I can't believe it, my poor machine! And this time, of all the times! Hopefully I can get it replaced and perform a proper cleaning of this thing!





All that work...

 

[leprecan]

Pictures too large here?

Original album here: http://imgur.com/a/IX9a4#QJCXb1a

 

[insane3004]

Yay, Pictures...

 

[Crash]

Finally picking Stoneyridge back up again. RC2 soonish.

 

[xzzy]

I hope it doesn't take me four hours to fix the lighting on that metal panel you put in. I have no idea why it's the brightest surface in the entire scene but hopefully it's just a question of pointing a spotlight somewhere else.

Or maybe I'll swap it for everyone's favorite protection texture, chicken wire.

(though I bet it's a good spot for spies to decloak as it stands right now)

 

[Crash]

Fast lighting probably didn't help, either.

 

[UKCS-Alias]

info_lighting can help since then it will use that spot as light reference for the prop. You could just put that one at a darker area. (although trial and error might be needed)

 

[Crash]

It's just brushwork.

And xzzy has tweaked the hell out of the map with info lightings. He raged on them for quite awhile.

 

[xzzy]

Especially with those metal panels everyone loves to slap all over buildings to make them look decrepit, fuck those things.

They look fine on daytime maps but when it's gloomy it refuses to light evenly.

Just look at this:

UGH.

 

[YM]

wtf is going on with the top of that cornwell building?

Also you have a horrible mismatch of styles going on there. Bricks, cinderblocks, concrete, wood, blue metal, red metal, all going on within the same field of view. It's visual yuck.

But anyway, on to the question you asked:
The metal panels light from one side only, because they're a single sheet of polygons and not actual doublesided. So you need to change "Ignore surface normal for computing vertex lighting" to "yes" in the keyvalues. Also, "Disable Self-Shadowing with vertex lighting" might be necessary, but I am less certain about that.

Oh, neither of those will do anything if you're not compiling with vertex lighting. So if you're not doing that, you should be (for at very minimum, your final compiles) If for quick testing you don't use vertex lighting, don't worry about the incorrect shadowing.

Learn you some stuff