no way is that anywhere near beta. I just have a compulsive obsession with not having bland maps.
WiP in WiP, post your screenshots!
- Thread starter Arhurt
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no way is that anywhere near beta. I just have a compulsive obsession with not having bland maps.
I think the concrete buildings need more work. At the moment they look like you've concrete textured game geometry. That'd be fine, except you've planned it without paying too much attention to how a real building works. That's the magic of gorge, right there: buildings that look like you could work in them. Also i want to put that hoodoo in my anus.
Loc_n_lol
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Deodorant
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Hello! I'm working on my first map. It's a symmetrical koth map without any special features, to make it as simple as possible, and despite this I've had a f*ckbunch of problems. The nice people over at SPUF have helped me with most of them though. Anyway, I decided to go here fore some more general questions.
So... The map is made mostly in the alpine theme, and takes place in a little mountaintop village-thing. It's currently very underfurnished, so you'll have to imagine more snow and detailing. Anyway, the area right outside the spawn currently looks like this:
The hovering of the houses (The temporary ground texture doesn't quite make it obvious, but they're all hovering, trust me) suggests a slight incline. The massive hovering of the most nearby house suggests either a solid first floor or some beam structure holding it up. It may look terrible now, but I see the potential for creating one of those characteristic areas that make TF2 maps memorable. The problem is, I've been really uninspired about it for quite a long time. Sure, I could slap an even incline, a snow-free path and a bottom floor on there, but that would look pretty boring. Does anyone have any suggestion.
The second thing, and one of the reasons that I didn't take an in-game screenshot, is that the lighting in the map is terrible. I've stuck a few basic lights in some areas just to see where I'm going when I'm playtesting, but I have no ideas what shades and strenghts and placements I should use to make it look TF2ish, and I don't want to do an ambitious ligh overhaul of the level until I know those things. Is there any useful tutorial on the subject?
Oh, and one little queston as well. There is an indoor pool in the level, but all the types of water I've tried to use this far spawn some sort of algae-looking particle effects after a while. What's the name of the water texture used in koth_lakeside, or any other clean water'?
Oh, yeah, a tutorial on detailing theory could be nice as well.
So... The map is made mostly in the alpine theme, and takes place in a little mountaintop village-thing. It's currently very underfurnished, so you'll have to imagine more snow and detailing. Anyway, the area right outside the spawn currently looks like this:
The hovering of the houses (The temporary ground texture doesn't quite make it obvious, but they're all hovering, trust me) suggests a slight incline. The massive hovering of the most nearby house suggests either a solid first floor or some beam structure holding it up. It may look terrible now, but I see the potential for creating one of those characteristic areas that make TF2 maps memorable. The problem is, I've been really uninspired about it for quite a long time. Sure, I could slap an even incline, a snow-free path and a bottom floor on there, but that would look pretty boring. Does anyone have any suggestion.
The second thing, and one of the reasons that I didn't take an in-game screenshot, is that the lighting in the map is terrible. I've stuck a few basic lights in some areas just to see where I'm going when I'm playtesting, but I have no ideas what shades and strenghts and placements I should use to make it look TF2ish, and I don't want to do an ambitious ligh overhaul of the level until I know those things. Is there any useful tutorial on the subject?
Oh, and one little queston as well. There is an indoor pool in the level, but all the types of water I've tried to use this far spawn some sort of algae-looking particle effects after a while. What's the name of the water texture used in koth_lakeside, or any other clean water'?
Oh, yeah, a tutorial on detailing theory could be nice as well.
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Sel
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AgeNt_
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Did you just model those walls for the height map? that would be the more performance-efficient thing to do.
Shanghai
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He'd probably have to rework all the surrounding areas of the building to accommodate it if it were outside. Otherwise, it would have a really jarring transition that would just break the flow. I say we get off the man's back about his air storing habits. Maybe later he'll learn that air can be stored in barrels (hint hint), and then we can all get on with our lives.
In other news, I compiled my map today with VBCT for absolutely no reason other than to say that I like VBCT a lot. It's very easy to use.
What part of "developing map" sounds like "release candidate" to you? This part wont be empty, it's in its fifth beta and CP's 3 and 4 are undeveloped. I don't get why you think this room is gonna stay/is supposed to be like this.
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Godslayer57
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Deodorant
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Yep, and I even managed to set it so it more or less matches the placement of the sun on the skybox.
That's a nice idea, thanks!
The mapsrc folder only contains a delection of the official maps though, where can I look for the rest if I want to look up a specific part of a specific map?
I think I figured out how to make the area look good now, so I don't need any suggestions about that.
Loc_n_lol
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Make sure your env lighting has the correct pitch so that light actually falls into your map from above, the default is horizontal so your map may be cast in complete shadow as a result.
Also, base light values tend not to be sufficient. The default brightness for light's/light_spot's is 200 when the minimum values used tend to trend along 450 and can go as high as 1600. The brightness value is the 4th set of figures after the RGB values in the lights brightness panel.
Lastly light is also calculated with "light bounces" so light textures like some concretes will reflect a lot of light and keep the general ambience high whilst rooms made out of wood, specifically the red and brown ones, will reflect very little light reducing the brightness of a room. In such circumstances it is useful to use said high values like 1200-1600, as demonstrated in 2fort.
You can access some of the official maps in your SDK tf maps folder without having to DL any decompiled maps. 2fort is one of about 10 available to you. they'll be named sdk_ctf_2fort, etc.
Also, base light values tend not to be sufficient. The default brightness for light's/light_spot's is 200 when the minimum values used tend to trend along 450 and can go as high as 1600. The brightness value is the 4th set of figures after the RGB values in the lights brightness panel.
Lastly light is also calculated with "light bounces" so light textures like some concretes will reflect a lot of light and keep the general ambience high whilst rooms made out of wood, specifically the red and brown ones, will reflect very little light reducing the brightness of a room. In such circumstances it is useful to use said high values like 1200-1600, as demonstrated in 2fort.
You can access some of the official maps in your SDK tf maps folder without having to DL any decompiled maps. 2fort is one of about 10 available to you. they'll be named sdk_ctf_2fort, etc.
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Godslayer57
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Got to love it how even though I know what grazr is talking about perfectly, I got lost in the tech talk. D:
