Escherhaus - WIP TF2 CTF Map

#56

I’ve made changes to roof access again. I’m “boarding” up more of the roofline so you can’t rocket jump directly onto the intel, but you can still rocket jump up there… there’s just less room for you to really do so. I’ve improved (hopefully) the clip brushes around the stone to the back of the houses, scouts should have an easier time scaling it to get to the roofline and there will be new access to double jump up. It’s a more agile route that will take some getting used to in order to navigate but adds another area to guard against that isn’t the stairs. You can rocket jump up this area as well, but it’s not very HP friendly to do so.

Also implemented are the clip brushes around the radar dish and small peaked roof suggested by Kirt. I don’t think many people will really notice it and now having added more stuff to the rooftop (since my first design, not since Beta 5) it makes more sense to be knocked away as opposed to a perfectly clear and inaccessable roofline.

Fixed is the hole in the displacements. They were near impossible to notice in Hammer because there’s no shadows, it blended together perfectly and in the game it’s not a common area to stand around looking at the floor, so great eye Kirt. Saved me some embarassment there in the finished copy.

New doorway to the spawn rooms, I originally planned a long hallway to the basement but couldn’t join the two very well, so now the hallway runs overtop with a glass window to pour some light into the dark tunnel coming up from the lower spawn room. You’ll understand it when you play the new changes.

I’m not posting any screenshots because I can’t recompile right now, my computer is busy downloading homework from the school network and I don’t want it to crash. It’s a real pain to access network files from home.

Beta 6 will NOT be ready for this Friday/Saturday matchup, so we’ll all just have to put up with the super-shiny floors in Beta 5 for a while longer. I don’t know why that happened, exactly. Seems 30% of the time the floors shine up like that, 70% of the time they show up as they have been in the past. Dunno whether to blame the Source SDK, Steam, TF2 or my shoddy PC. I have another computer I’m going to do the final compile on, just to see if it makes a difference in filesize, compile stability and lighting quality. I have a strong feeling this PC is on its last legs and I have $0 to replace it with.

#57

I’ve been working on adding some life to the map and opening up a few areas that were too cramped. The changes are coming along but it’s time to optimize for performance. It gets kind of sluggish due to the current way I’m “handling” things which brings me to a difficult decision.

For those who have played you should be familiar with the center of the cave where you can take the tunnels under or the stairs over. This division was supposed to serve as both a tactical decision and a way for the engine to block Line Of Sight and NOT draw details behind it.

Tactically it seems to work, but for optimization it has failed miserably. As a result the engine draws too much of the map all the time. I’m thinking of redesigning this spot to better block engine LOS but would an enclosed room or fenced off area at the top affect gameplay too much? I’m thinking of changing the top of the stairs to be some kind of storage or office room with a doorway at each far corner. This should block the engine LOS but might create a chokepoint where there wasn’t one previously.

Advice on how to handle this location? Those who have played the map with lower-end PCs, have you had difficulty with framerates in certain locations? I need some benchmarks to tell whether I truely need to make changes or if things are currently allright.

#58

This is my favorite custom map to do date. Hopefully Meelo can compile a final draft before his computer explodes.

Cheers,
{CD} Conker

#59

Thanks for your support Conker, and thanks for another reason too.
Cubemaps puzzle me considerably. When I compileand run the appropriate tools to build cubemaps they suddenly get all chromed out and super bling-bling. I don’t seem to have any control over that, so for Beta6 I have skipped the cubemaps step. Hopefully this won’t cause problems on anybody else’s machine, everything seems OK on my side.

For your enjoyment I present to you: ctf_EscherHausBeta6 BZ2. However, this is hosted from my ISP’s supplied hosting meaning it has suuuper limited bandwidth. I’m going to PM Kirt and Vanilla to get it on the server and mirrored at Vanilla’s site before the bandwidth is totally drained.

Plenty of new features including optimizations few of you will notice but I sure have. From 3 hours to 30 minutes compile time (assuming I use the right computer to compile on… which I don’t always have access to).

I also created this nifty Magic Eye, if you look at it long enough I might be able to backstab somebody as a spy for once.

#60

Don’t know if you resolved this yet. Also keep in mind I don’t know all the proper terms in Hammer.

In most of the Valve maps when you transition from one area to another the walls, rock face, you know the big items, they always take a turn sometimes a right angle before moving to the next area. That part on the top seems blocked by nothing but metal plates and props. Now I don’t know if they provide the same blocking as say a rock face but seems this may be part of the problem. Maybe at the top of the stairs have 2 rock walls extend out and overlap a bit so that the game won’t render the other side till you transition.

I’m thinking something like this.

#61

Now that I did some good reading on hint brushes and visleafs over my snowday breaks, I’ve been able to see where and why the problem exists and it’s mainly the bottom of the rocks. I know exactly what you’re saying and that’s about the only solution that would really work, but it would create a choke point in the center that I strongly wanted to avoid. I could reconstruct the entrance to the caves in a similar fashion however, now that I think about it, and that probably wouldn’t be a bad idea. I can make it into a branch that starts a single tunnel, branches left and right, and meets back as a single tunnel again. I wanted to avoid something like that so that the large trucks parked out front could, believably, drive into and out of the caves somehow but I may have to trade realism for functionality.

For anybody who’s bored and has HDR enabled, noclip through the rockwalls to see the other base and watch the neat fog effect absorb or receed from the far end. It’s a neat teleporter effect if you move fast enough!

I think I’m going to have to rebuild the entrance to the caves again to encorporate this new angled hall idea. It might slow down the flag carrier a little, but should provide performance gains and compile-time gains we can all appreciate.

Oh and as a little note, Wyatt, since you’re thinking of starting in on Source mapping, take a look for some tutorials an explainations on the Hint brushes. It’ll show you why Valve makes those decisions that you noticed about right angles in transition and also help you make better design choices than I did so far in Escherhaus.

#62

Choking the flag carrier in the middle might not be a bad idea. Once someones past that point its usually a quick jaunt to the capture point, though the defense on a dropped case was pretty intense this weekend.

Checked out the hint brushes, why are most of the names in the hammer editor so odd? I would’ve never guessed thats what it did. Anyway, good info thanks for pointing it out. Seems everyday I make a new discovery on the valve wiki that will help.

#63

Found 2 spots last night that could use some tweaking.

First:
Center section. When coming over the top via the stairway route my first instinct is usually to drop off the cliff onto the metal platform, then drop down to the platform around the rock column and then down to the ground and keep on moving. The railing around the stairways stops you dead in your tracks. I’m talking about the small railing thats only a few inches tall. If it were taller like a real rail I would jump over it or walk the path down but because its so short I never notice it till I’m stopped dead. Then you have to jump and at a dead stop you typically jump straight up making you an easy target. I prefer not to jump at all when I’m on the run as it makes you an easy target so I would prefer to simply skip down. Don’t know if that rail is simply cosmetic or if it serves a purpose but maybe make it to where the player passes through it.

Second:
Center section again. Leaving the lower tunnels and heading to the side cave entrance to the base on the right, okay got me :D. The rock doesn’t evenly meet with the floor of that first room on the left side. When you pass on the right side of the entrance, no problem. When you pass on the left side you get stuck and stop dead. The health and ammo pickups are also on the left side of that room so when I’m going up the rock I typically aim for the pickups and get stuck. I eventually learned to not pass on the left side but it would flow better if this wasn’t an issue I think.

As for the chokepoint in the middle I think its fine. It seems impassable sometimes but 2fort can seem the same way when an engineer fortifies the stairs in that open area. It takes either a well timed assault, an uber heavy or a skilled spy and the chokepoint is eliminated. Thats my thought, so far I haven’t seen any scenario where the right class can’t overcome anything.

#64

“Zoner” built the hint/skip brush tool back in HL1 before he (I assume he’s employed by Valve now) was working with them. It was established before the Source engine hit the market, they probably just felt it was easier to leave it as is, since returning mappers are already familiar with it and new mappers can catch on quickly, despite the strange naming conventions.

I’ve never had trouble with the railings before, but I can fix that up with a clip brush, no problem. I’ll have to look into that rock, that section seems to be giving me quite a bit of annoyance with things not lining up properly. Perhaps I’ll have to create a clip brush to help cordon it off better to prevent players from getting stuck.

I agree with so many sides of the center arguement. Some people may be upset that they can’t solo cap everything and others might be annoyed that it’s too easy to run around capturing everything solo… I think that any strong defense can be overcome with a strong offense and coordinated teamplay. I Left the center open so demoman could lob grenades over and try to dislodge an embedded sentry, the medic über can certainly help make short work of defenses also.

Uh oh, I’m supposed to do some work for school now, so I guess I’d better post and get to work. I’ll troll again later.

#65

Ah, do what you think is best and what plays smoothest. People will figure out what to do.

Lol, Mardi Gras was yesterday so I’m not exactly in the ‘working’ mood today. :smiley:

#66

Honestly, I think the map is fine. I look at other custom maps like Labor, Toy Fort, Lazytown, etc and all of those have middle choke points, they are also CP maps but you get the idea. I think if we weren’t held up in the middle there would be a problem. Like others have said, its just about teamwork. Get the right people in there and its a back and forth battle.

#67

Well kro ignore what I said. I loaded up the map locally and couldn’t duplicate what I was talking about. Everything moved smooth as can be. I tested it with scout, sniper, soldier and engineer. That should be enough different speeds to cover it. I thought maybe it had to do with running it locally so I connected to the server but couldn’t get the map to load.

So, guess it was a false alarm. There must’ve been a player in the way but IDK.

#68

Oops, I hit reply in the wrong thread :confused:

#69

Reposting a comment I made in the General Chat TF2 thread.
Thankfully WyattHarris pointed out an entity I can use to control construction in certain areas that I had missed.

#70

Updates! Sort of…



This is a newly constructed pathway from center to the water-side of the cliff that goes through the formerly inaccessable hut on the cliffside. This cliffside hut can be used for sniping and unturtling an otherwise formidable defense. It does no provide direct access to the rooftop, but you can soften up defenders considerably from this position.

It should serve as a way of bombarding sentryguns built up outside the doorway as well that were preventing players from getting into the courtyards.

#71

Beta 8 has hit the shelves! In two flavours no less. I accidentally compressed to 7z format instead of BZ2 and noticed that while BZ2 was half the size of the BSP, 7z was half the size of the BZ2… so for your downloading convenience (or inconvenience since I’m still forced to use Rapidshare for the time being) I offer you:

Beta 8 in 14MB BZ2 format
and
Beta 8 in 7MB 7z format

Enjoy and hope to see you in game on Fridays and Saturdays!

#72

Well, now I’ve gone and done it. I’ve done it bad… or good, or something. It’s quarter to two in the morning and I just wrapped things up at the “studio” and I come to you now, live and twice the size of a breadbox to present ctf_escherhaus final release

Kirt and Vanilla will hate me for this one. There are multiple files and such in the archive, I didn’t bz2 any of it but setting it up for proper server hosting won’t be a simple matter of uploading one BSP… Then again, it could very well be that easy, since the SECRET PRIZE isn’t required for the map to work.

So in case you missed it, download CTF ESCHERHAUS now! Or later, or whenever’s convenient for you.

#73

Superbly done Kromano!

Congrats on getting this finished… was a wonderful process all the way! :thumbsup:

What are you going to do next?
I don’t sleep at night thinking about it :stuck_out_tongue:

#74

I’ve started and abandoned a few projects for various reasons since. The most recent was a largely vertical map suspended over long falls, but with the pyro update and the huge ammount of shoving off the bridges that would occur, I decided the gameplay wouldn’t be much fun anymore and have left that idea.

I have the start of an under-sea lab constructed, but I couldn’t figure out where the map was going, so that map is on hiatus.

With Kirt’s help I’m working on a new prop design that should fuel another map that will hopefully REALLY push the escher theme I was going for in this one. I feel I could have gotten a lot more out of the twisted halls in this map but didn’t take enough advantage of the concept. This release is still a successful map, I think, but fell short on the Escher Scale.

#75

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