When you make a map like this, after you've sketched out the map in your mind, how do you start things out? Did you put a base brush that covered the whole map, then put in displacment brush faces over the approximate terrain you wanted? Then, I imagine, buildings? Were the buildings made prefab? I'm not even sure I'm using right syntax with alot of these terms-- these are just some basic questions from an aspiring mapper. What program/how in the world/what command did you use to turn a photoshopped painting into the base for a map? You said you sketched out a map, photoshopped it into a 16-bit greyscale drawing, then somehow turned that into the basis for the level. I was just wondering how you did that. Also, do mappers ever use the models that came WITH half life? I see you (somehow) made satelite dishes (with some program out of SDK?), but would you ever use models from the game (i.e. if there were a satelite dish somewhere in the solo game.) Do respectable mapmakers EVER use the old models?
ahem , most models work with other mods some dont. i have a few models from single player in my map emp_slaughtered... by the southwest / brenodi base there are some fence props that were apart of hl2... also some arrow signs in the southeast pointing out that one should not drive off into the ocean [although i somehow think this will happen anyways] .. also i think what he said was he had that world maker program that just made the whole map, and then he took photoshop and painted depth to the displacement it made for more detail... should be a intresting map but he didnt have the fun and tourture that i went though hand painting the several sew'd displacement planes to depth with hammer
i love it. there isnt really a map quite as open as this. btw, that grey scale image you had a few pages back looks a bit demonic.
It's called Dispgen http://www.chaosincarnate.net/cannonfodder/cftools.htm Models are made with a 3d modeling package like 3dsmax, I use softimage XSI. I usually make textures and models for my maps because most of them requires some custom content, it's not "because I can" :D Check my latest map "Presidio", it has around 50 custom props: http://usuarios.lycos.es/gpumania/ just the opposite, the base height map was made with photoshop, it's not an automated process, requires very precise hand painting. Then used WM to make erosion marks around the level, that's the easiest part, but wasn't easy at all finding some values that deformed the level slightly with out destroying it at all . Each map requires different techniques, the best approach for this one was height map paint without any doubt. Not only because is much faster, this is also a very precise way of painting every part of the map with the exact height you want.
im not saying that its not better im just saying its not what i had to do to just use hammer, i bet you probably did the whole map in a day , it took me a month to get it to shape out into what it was , mainly because of the vis distance issues but it wasnt just a paint and done thing... i still used my wacom tablet for most of the painting , its just that hammer doesnt have pressure sensitive support , and well heh you cant use the whole map on the screen to paint on... the reason i thought you had a world program to generate it was the 3d display you have a picture of the map, so i thought you just had the program do everything , aside from the displacement brushed elevation.
yes, sorry, that was a statement not directly related with your comment. Simply I can't imagine doing this kind of map in a more efficient way. My initial plan was this: make the height map, transform into real geometry inside XSI, edit it, transform it again into height map, and finally use World Machine. But I got good results without the XSI step, so didn't used it. There is also manual painting inside hammer, it's almost impossible to get the perfect terrain just with a height map, but it's just some polishment. And this is another update, the dam. As you can see, can be crossed from the top and bottom, both are restricted to infantry. Upside will be closed so it's up to engineers to open that way.
realisticly... yes technically... no it woud make it need to run and let water poar out of the dam at the other side or somthing keep it as it is now, it is good
and it is, check the pics I posted earlier, maybe the perspective in this one confusses you. It's at half height, could be higher but then the surrounding cliffs would be underwater. yes, the water in fact does poar out at the other side across the bottom, I'm using func_dustcloud to simulate the effect. It can be seen at near distance.
holy shit this looks to be a good map! has any one contacted you about making a officle map when its a finished because it looks very pro!
do you reckon i could steal that radar model for another empires map ? its just what im looking for. I am making a conquest map based around one big mountain with a tunnel through the middle. I want a radar dish on top and some control centre type stuff in the tunnel. Puh - leeeeeeeeeze :
I also need some direction from all of you, so thanks for visiting the thread. The map should be almost ready for betatest but I had big problems, needed to scratch my head a little. Dispgen has a serious bug, it creates every displacement with the same id. I found that problems once I was ready to add overlays, they cannot be attached to displacements because all of them had the same id number (overlays need a different face number for each displacement). I needed to create a php script to edit de vmf and change all those id's to unique numbers. It could be done manually with notepad, but there were 1200 displacements id's to change :D Fortunately all is fine now. These shots shows the first overlays over the slopes I'm also adding some cover using rocks, do you think a few rocks here and there is ok? I also want to leave work for engies and their little walls.
