[BETA 4](last beta) Mprodm6

[Murrez]

This is the latest Beta build before i make it final.
There is a little player clipping left but that is going to be fixed in the final version.

-GL and RL switched places. RL was too near LG
-Removed some health and armor shards.
-Added a little more detail. Lowered the floor over the entire map so the gray border looks better.

Compiled with some switches.
Bots works.

Latest Screenshots: (30 Januari 2011)
[lvlshot]http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/5972/shot0122.jpg[/lvlshot][lvlshot]http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/9005/shot0123.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/3972/shot0124n.jpg[/lvlshot][lvlshot]http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/6199/shot0125.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/5555/shot0126.jpg[/lvlshot][lvlshot]http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/340/shot0127f.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/6579/shot0128w.jpg[/lvlshot][lvlshot]http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/5966/shot0129u.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/4948/shot0130d.jpg[/lvlshot]


Latest build.
http://www.mediafire.com/?de2fxcw84yqj9fq

[mrd]

Had a quick run through with a handful of bots. Is there no RL in this? I couldn't find one anywhere.

-You need to work on clipping. There are spots where doorway trim will catch the player, no good. Just make a small angled clip brush that nudges the player through the doorway. Nothing sucks more than blasting through a map only to get snagged on a brush that's 2 units wide.

-Not sure about having the MH so close to the RA. Granted, the MH is pretty tricky to get... might wanna consider switching the MH and RA, actually. I think RA is a bit more sought after.

-Make the grate above the MH so you can shoot through it, it would allow for more ambush opportunities

-The texturing in this map is all over the, erm, map. It doesn't actually look too bad, you have nicely defined areas with certain groups of textures. I think the problem, at least for me, is there is just too many of them. Might want to consider paring down the overall amount of textures and going for a more unified look. Try using architecture to distinguish areas rather than textures.

-Lighting could also use some work, it seems rather bland at the moment.

I only played for about 10 minutes, but the layout seemed OK. The lack of RL was strange, though. I like the pillars you've put in, a la Q3DM6.

Hope it helps.

[Murrez]

take a new look and say what u think

[DaEngineer]

I've taken nine screenshots and wrote some suggestions.



One thing I forgot: the RA above the lava is placed in a really long dead end street. Another escape route would be nice.

You said the lighting is not final and I really hope so. Some spots are too dark and should get brightened up.

I played this map with four bots and the only thing I can complain about concerning item placement (independent from picture 7 with the ramps/stairs suggestion) is the GL. It took me ages to find it and I wondered if there even is one. Maybe you can place a second one somewhere? I don't remember the layout well enough to tell if this would be wise, but you surely do and could check this.

[Murrez]

Thanks!

3-point clipping ? phong shader?

is the green block texture the only odd texture in this map or do you feel like others should be changed to ?

[DaEngineer]

The green texture is the one I think misfits most. But it's rather the combination of gothic and base look than specific textures in particular. The way you've done it works, but sometimes the change in style is too obvious.

[me making a writing pause and opening your map again]

Now, after some minutes of running around I figured out what irritates me. It's the grey concrete texture you used to border almost everything. Here are two pictures:



On both pictures, the brick texture/black texture in the middle has the same height as the concrete texture around it. Adding a bit depth to it as you've done it here



would make thinks look way better This flat look is simply implausible, pushing stuff in will help.

There are two other things: first, the glowing cable texture on this picture



is far too dominant. I would replace it with something else. And there are these pillars here I can't appreciate.



They don't have any obvious use and if they are meant to be broken, they don't look destroyed enough.

About phong shading and 3-point clipping: right now I don't have time to explain it because real life forces me to leave my desk for some time Sock wrote an excellent tutorial about phong shading you should read. If you don't know anything about shaders yet and get stuck, just ask. I'll explain 3-point clipping later (or someone else will do) when I'm back.

[Murrez]

ok i see what u mean.

[DaEngineer]

So, about 3-point clipping: when you are clipping brushes, you usually only use two markers. But it's possible to use a third one and cut brushes in all three dimensions instead of just two. It's easy to do but a bit confusing and hard to understand when you do it the first time.

Create a quadratic brush and place three clipping markers in the top viewport like this:



Then take a look at the front viewport and drag the second marker that's overlapping the third one upwards:



In your perspective viewport you'll see this:



When you press SHIFT+ENTER now, you'll seperate this brush in two pieces - delete the piece you do no longer need manually. If you only press Enter, one specific side will be deleted. Which side depends on the order of your markers (clockwise or counter-clockwise). Because this makes things even harder, I prefer to just separate and then delete manually.

With this technique combined with simple 2-point clipping you can break these hard concrete edges and make them look destroyed. The phong shader I've mentioned will help to smoothen out the triangles. Read the tutorial and ask if necessary.

Oh, and what you said about lighting: I decompiled your map and compiled it again to see what you could do about it. You compiled only with -light -fast, right? I tried out -light -fast -dark -patchshadows -filter -bounce 8 -gamma 1.4. That's what your map looks like with this (textures are misaligned because of decompiling):



Much brighter, right? If you want to finalize your lighting, you can try out these switches and then fine tune your light entities.

[obsidian]

If you only press Enter, one specific side will be deleted. Which side depends on the order of your markers (clockwise or counter-clockwise). Because this makes things even harder, I prefer to just separate and then delete manually.

... Or just hit CTRL+ENTER to cycle between which side you want and then hit ENTER to confirm.

[Murrez]

hmm ok thanks will try out the clipping and the switches. I am going to write a new shader for the sky to get the coloring right.
I have also remodeled the map a bit so the walls that u wanted me to 3-point clipp is gone. hehe. The map uses the same layout but im just trying to play around with other textures (i hate the original textures, but its a challenge to use them in a good way) to make it look better.
Im going for a clean look with good details. i will throw up the latest map soon. I would appreciate it if u wanted to take another look at the latest one.
Ill post a reply either tonight or tomorrow with the latest build. thanks again.

Updated.

[DaEngineer]

That's wat I call an update! Very well done! I ran through your map for some time now and found lots of things fixed and changed. Everything you have done improves this map a lot. But I still have some ideas, and there are a few issues still to fix:

The clipbrush for this place is still missing:



And some picture spam again



As you see, the most important part now is clipping - especially the ceilings. Double-check all these ledges and so on. And keep on the good work. That map deserves to grow!

[Murrez]

Thanks man i appreciate it alot !

yes well the clipping.. i haven't been working on that aspect yet. wanted to get the layout to feel good enough before i started clipping.

Do u have any suggestions on lighting.. ? does the map feel bland with the current lights/colors?.

[DaEngineer]

Theres not much to bitch about, because you already said, it's not final. Nonetheless there's one place I would brighten up - this one here:



The picture shows the decompiled version of your map compiled with the switches I've posted above. Although they brighten up your map a lot, this very place has too few light sources. I'd suggest to compile your map with these switches (feel free to use different values for gamma, I got used to 1.4 for my maps and it doesn't seem to hurt yours either). It will be easier for you to judge your lighting by yourself when using these switches. Try them and on the outcome's base start fine tuning your lights. For example, the ones around the RA are much too bright then. You haven't placed any additional light sources there, so darkening the yellow light trims on the ceiling would be a solution. I don't know how much you already know about mapping (could you tell me? Knowing this makes things easier), but you need to edit the shader this texture uses. If you don't know how that works, just ask, I'll explain it to you.

Another issue I've just found are the pipes in your map. You've put caps on each and every of 'em. Here's a picture from Radiant, where I've hidden four pipes:



Fix this! These patches are causing tons of extra polys that are completely unnecessary. Don't forget to delete both caps where two patches meet and the ones facing the ceiling. Filtering caulked faces (alt+6) will make them easier to spot.

Oh, and when you're done with geometry - start placing hint brushes and using detail brushes. I can't judge if you've already done so, as decompiled maps consist only of structural brushes.

[Murrez]

map updated look at first post

[deqer]

any news on this? can you provide more screenshots of birds eye view? fix some of your screenshot links in your post too. or try the forum attachment.

[Murrez]

Fixed!(first post)

waiting for feedback.

[DaEngineer]

I'm sorry I reply this late to your posting. I wanted to do this a week ago, but was distracted by tons of other things.



I was flying around your map with r_fullbright 1 and found more things that should be fixed I didn't notice before:

There's z-Fighting on this wall. Are there intersecting brushes?


Like you did with the pipes, you've put caps on all other curves you have used, too. The screenshot contains only some of them to show what I mean. Check all your patches in the entire map to find those unnecessary caps. Why do you have created them anyway?


Here you can save a lot of frames again. I've taken this picture with r_fullbright 1, usually it's so dark in this area that the ceiling is entirely black. If you delete the brushes and patches I've marked in red and extend the ones below them up to the ceiling, nobody will see a difference and you get some frames back.

[Murrez]

thanks man!