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Discussion in 'Mapping' started by Chris0132', Jan 31, 2011.

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  1. blizzerd

    blizzerd Member

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    anything in the skybox is rendered far far far far cheaper then anything else
     
  2. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    it has severe downsides too. if you use a skybox scale of 16 youll run into lighting glitches if your lighting scale is below 16 (since it doesnt line up anymore, shadows look washed out - look at old duststorm for example, it was very visible there) - which is quite high for indoor enviroments where you want hard shadows and thelike. also youll use a lighting scale of 1 then and how this effects compiles i dont have to tell you i think?!

    you could use a 1:1 skybox, but i doubt the net gain really is much. sure the skybox doesnt collide, but having rockets disappear when they hit the ceilling sucks balls, so youd have to create some invisible brush that collides with the rockets and the gain is lost again ...

    its a quite decent method for vast open maps like isle where you have high lightmap scales (= what mayama complained about in that other thread) and not much well defined shadows ...

    or im doing it completely wrong, which is a possibility too ...
     
  3. blizzerd

    blizzerd Member

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    there is truth in what you say, however, shadows on ceilings dont need to be crisp or hard... people rarely look at ceilings, and even when they do they dont expect it to be as pretty as things that they need to look constantly at

    if visual prettyness has to be distributed it should be something like this on a boring 1 dimentional corridoor:
    walls: 5
    floor: 3
    ceiling: 2 (maybe even 1)


    its only really appliccable on certain locations, and i replied it not as something that should be done to this map, but that could be used to fix a problem that might occur
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2011
  4. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    Er, why?
     
  5. Deadpool

    Deadpool SVETLANNNAAAAAA

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    skyboxes have to be higher than mortar range

    anything else is just ...... bad.
     
  6. LordDz

    LordDz Capitan Rainbow Flowers

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    This, if you use skyboxes as a celing, you could probably use the artillery strike?
     
  7. complete_

    complete_ lamer

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    the lowest hint brush is the place where arty drops from
     
  8. Metal Smith

    Metal Smith Member

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    somehow I don't think it's the hint brush from my experience. Maybe the nodraw viscluster directly above it, but not the hint brush itself.
     
  9. LordDz

    LordDz Capitan Rainbow Flowers

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    *Opens up duststorm.vmf*
    It uses two things in the air:
    TOOLSHINT
    and
    SKYBOX
     
  10. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    I'm pretty sure it goes from the skybox, because I recall it taking an ungodly amount of time to hit the floor on king.

    Might have changed though.

    I don't know how it uses hint brushes, because if you make the hint brush upward facing when you compile the map then presumably the arty strike trace wouldn't be able to detect it even if it was compiled into the map.

    Using the edge of visleaves just seems weird, that would mean arty would drop from the height of the top of the nearest visblocking geometry in the 1024 chunk.
     
  11. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    a bit offtopic, but why dont you let arty strikes drop from a fixed height again? youd have to rayintersect with the terrain anyway just add <abritrary value> to z (y) and you should be fine?!?!?!?!
     
  12. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    This is the core room.

    [​IMG]

    It's a bit dark.

    [​IMG]

    This is what it looks like for five out of every forty five seconds.

    The core uses lighting as a mechanic, the actual room itself is quite dark, but every 45 seconds a big beam fires in the centre and lights the whole place up, it also blows out the lighting in the control rooms for 15 seconds.

    The control rooms are located either side of the core, and form the only means of progressing through the core into the other side of the generator building. The rooms themselves are normally lit up.

    [​IMG]

    But when the reactor fires the power cuts to this:

    [​IMG]

    I might add some more lights to the core which light up with the control rooms, but basically you want flashlights on in this room.

    I need to add a little spawn room in the core, flag is probably going to be the control rooms. This map really does have a lot of terrain to cover between spawns, revives are going to be absolutely vital to make progress, as is working in groups. The map is physically small enough to work with few players, but with big groups it will probably play better. 64 players in a map a quarter the size of duststorm. Should be entertaining.

    I have to add the train room, fill in the miscellaneous areas (which are mostly just going to be full of generic junk so shouldn't be too hard) and then the map is basically done. Just need to add in the gameplay entities and then ship it off for testing, should be out before the weekend hopefully.
     
  13. Metal Smith

    Metal Smith Member

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    That'll be interesting. I've never seen a multiplayer game use a light mechanic like that. Generally people shy away from it, but it might work well. Flashlights give away your position just as much as they help you see after all.
     
  14. complete_

    complete_ lamer

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    ill just turn my brightness up and melee shit (of course when the lights turn on ill be blinded)
     
  15. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    Well actually it's literally pitch black in most of the dark parts, so turning your brightness up will just make everything a bright grey, it won't allow you to see anything.
     
  16. Deadpool

    Deadpool SVETLANNNAAAAAA

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    thats awesome
     
  17. D.D.D. Destroyer

    D.D.D. Destroyer Member Staff Member Moderator

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    Yes.

    I just love the lighting concept, expect me to camp there.

    Chris FTW.
     
  18. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    Have fun trying, it's miles away from any other spawn.

    I'm going to see if I can make it so you need to control both control rooms in order to activate the spawn in the room, should be possible with a bit of logic work, I think flags can be triggered to switch sides using i/o.

    [​IMG]

    This is the train room, it is the NF version of the turbine room and has a few features.

    First off you start in a pit at either end, which will be filled with a few crates and things, from here you need to ascend some stairs to get onto the train platforms, they are the main combat focus of the room and have a few interesting things.

    First off I plan to have the trains be climbable with a couple of ladders on them. Also the tracks themselves are recessed so you can get between the trains and use the rails as a way to move without being shot at.

    There are also glass partitions in between the pillars, so you can see enemies without shooting them or being shot yourself, combine this with the room being very tall and use of the mortar may be advisable in this and in the turbine room because it has similar glass in places.

    Across one side of the room also runs a catwalk which is raised off the ground considerably, it allows access to the central building roof and also better vantage for the room itself, but at the same time it is more exposed.

    [​IMG]

    At the far end of this room is a small crate storage area with a couple of gantry cranes overhead, I will probably add some access on top of the crates so that the whole are has a bit of a vertical element to it like the turbine room, except this area should be a bit more open.
     
    Last edited: Mar 8, 2011
  19. Metal Smith

    Metal Smith Member

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    does the train have a place on the underside where you can hide and turn completely black and can't be seen but can rape everyone? :D

    (de_train).

    One comment, the passenger section of the train might look silly directly next to the hazardous materials tank of the train.
     
  20. MOOtant

    MOOtant Member

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    Chris likes epicness and then 1 year later, after he finished the map no one can navigate in his maze.
     
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