Team Fortress 2 CTF level [image heavy]

#98

After playing your map during the CGtalk match last night I must say Im pleased with its progress. Although, I did prefer the original intel rooms you had designed. I understood the reasoning for changing it. They were too easy to defend I’m assuming?? I think once you get an alternate route that leads to the intel it should make it a lot harder.

If I remember correctly you also had 3 100hp health packs sitting close to the bases entrance/exists. It seems a little much for those areas. I think 1, maybe 2, would do the job. Just a suggestion.

There were also spawn problems last night again by the way, which I think you might already know about.

#99

I think there was consensus over the intel rooms last night in preference to the original design. I think you could do a good combo of both, though. Have your current sinister desk and vault, but behind the desk is overlooking the NASA room (as many put it).

I think we proved pretty adamantly that a pair of engineers (or even just one, probably) can effectively control that room as is (that is until they get bored of camping out). As I suggested in game a ceiling drop would be very useful in getting those campers out. A demoman could drop down some pellets of doom and flush them out. The room was too small for a single spy to really take anything out if an engineer was still hiding out there.

I’m really curious about the spawn problems that plague. You’ve got more than enough locations so that shouldn’t be the issue. I’ve found that if you’re short spawn locations for a player on one team, TF will put him onto the other team, regardless of which team it was set to be a spawn for.

Here’s a suggestion, use the entity report menu option to bring up a list of every entity, filter it down to info_playerteamspawn and select them, entire teams at a time and set them to the appropriate team. Hoping that made sense, I have some reports to write (and it’s only been the first class too).

#100

I’ve been trying to figure out the layout for the insides of the bases for a really long time and it’s proving to be a nightmare. I really don’t have much aptitude for industrial or architectural design, so that’s part of why the insides of the bases have been weird. I’m definitely going to add a vent to the top of the intel rooms and I still need to get the caves done. Once I get those things in (along with some other tweaks), the intel rooms should be better balanced. I’m also going to add background scenery like the big control room, but it needs to play well before I do that.

I figured out the spawn point issues as soon as I heard about them. I apparently had two spawn points set to red insead of blue and that was the problem.

Here’s a paintover of the front of the bases for the next iteration:

#101

Looks nice man! I havent had time on Fridays to play your map, hopefully tonight. I like how you have the mine cart tracks on the path.

Are you going to try and squeeze some ICBM’s in there?

#102

Swizzle I really dig the concept painting of the exterior, especially the high-up bridges and the train tracks.

Interiors can be a lot of fun or a huuuuge pain in the ass. I stink at planning things out before jumping into them (and yet they often somehow work, i.e escherhaus) but what I’ve found that seems to work for me is to come up with a concept for a single room, some aspect that simply must be included and build the rest of the design from there.

Construct your intel room and then figure out the rest of the base after that if you can’t get anything down on paper. I really liked the new wood texturing to the interiors, but I found the new layout very confusing, I think there might exist a happy medium between what you had in version 3 and what you have in version 4.

#103

Swizzle, we need an update! Had fun playing the map tonight, but Red has a disadvantage until you can fix that spawn point problem. This was the first time I played it with more than 4 players. It was fun.

Love your concept drawing above. Are those tracks and high house going to be accessable?

Keep 'em coming! :thumbsup:

#104

Auctane:
I’m going to end up squeezing a lot of background scenery in there eventually, but first I have to make sure it plays nicely.

kromano:
That’s some really great advice, and I think you may’ve just helped me through a huge problem I’ve been having with the bases.

Kirt:
I’ll have a new build of the map with fixed spawns online very soon. I’ll post a link in this thread and the General Discussion forum thread as soon as I get it done.

Okay, I’ve just made a major decision that’s going to change the entire feel of the bases and, possibly, the entire map. With kromano’s tip about figuring out something I just have to include, along with taking another look at that sketch I posted, I’m going to be doing some huge changes.
First off, the bases are going to be mostly outdoor affairs. See that barn in the background? That’s going to be the intel room. All those bridges and tracks way up there are going to be functional instead of just for looks like I’d originally intended.

I just gave myself a ton of work to do, but I think it’ll be to the general benefit of the level; I suck at doing interiors and this is the first time I’ve been excited about doing the bases.

#105

Here’s a download link to the fixed version of HappyValley:

http://www.fpsbanana.com/maps/download/38993

The spawn points have been fixed so no more people should be spawning in the wrong base.

#106

How’s the map redesign coming along Swizzle? Haven’t seen any updates in a while.

#107

The redesign’s coming along okay, but I haven’t actually done much in Hammer since I last posted. I have a few promising sketches, though I’ve been too busy preparing for Dominance War 3 to get much done. I’m trying to figure out a good normal mapping workflow and I’m still working on really learning how to combine textures with normal maps for best effect. I’ve also been trying to import models and textures into Source, but I’ve not been having much luck.

#108

Importing models and textures to source was a pain until you learn the process. If you want, PM me and I’ll send you a package of all the models and textures I built for de_kneedeep (probably not all, there’s a few hundred MB in TGAs floating in there). Some good tips for you on compiling textures and models (ignoring QC programming)

  • use the sourcesdk_content folder and the mod name, ie sourcesdk_content/tf/materialsrc
  • create new folders to separate your work from the valve defaults sourcesdk_content/tf/materialsrc/swizzle
  • create a new explorer shell command for VTex
    > Open an explorer window, go to tools folder options
    > Open File Types tab, find TGA and click ADVANCED
    > Click NEW, give Action a name (Such as VTEX or TGA to VMT, or was it VTF?)
    > Point Application used to Perform Action to sourcesdk\bin\orangebox\bin\vtex.exe and append “%1” -nop4 -mkdir to the end, -mkdir will create a folder if it doesn’t already exist. By default VTex will just fail if the folder doesn’t exist.
  • You can use a simliar process for compiling your model QCs, but by default StudioMDL doesn’t pause when it finishes so you can’t read errors. I wrote a batch file to do the compiles for me with PAUSE at the end of the script so I can read any error messages.
#109

File not found. PM me a link so I can get the most recent version please. Thanks Swizzle!

#110

First off, let me just say i think you’re doing awesome job so far!, can’t wait to see the changes.

secondly, i don’t suppose there’s a chance in high-holy-hell there’ll be a way to get this onto my 360 since i stupidly bought that version instead of pc and best buy won’t take it back?

#111

So I’ve been kinda slow to update this. Sue me. :stuck_out_tongue:

Working on the intel rooms:

[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2130/2223887999_73175f01d7_o.jpg[/img]

The intel's hard to see in that picture, but it's over by the computers on the cart. The upper area with the windows and that area behind the glass door are inaccessible, but I felt the room needed a little more depth and story. If you've played the latest version, then you should be able to figure out where I'm standing in the room.

Still working on the lighting. As you can see, most everything except this room is dark. I’m going through and completely revamping everything so it looks better. It’s taking a long time, though the compile times are mercifully short. If I just compile the base, it takes less than a minute right now.

As for my other big plans? They’re on hold; there were too many good ideas to put into one map. I’m going to try to make this one the best I can and then do different stuff on another map.

#112

Well it’s looking good so far. I haven’t played it yet but it looks good and I like the little inaccessible areas. This isn’t a very demanding game so if you can put more detail around without affecting the gameplay, go for it.

I’d suggest maybe just going into Photoshop and playing around with the colors, levels and lighting to save yourself some time and then just work on the actual level once you know exactly how you want it to look.

#113

iSOBigD:
I’ve actually done a few paintovers to help me get my bearings and it’s definitely helped. In fact, I did one earlier today to help me figure out what the background scenery in the screenshot below would look like. Luckily, I’ve been able to do tests in near real-time because my compile times are extremely short. Compiling what you see here takes in the neighborhood of one minute.

Anyway, here are some before and after comparisons as well as a shot of some background scenery:

#114

I like all the details you’ve put in although the parts you can actually run through look really dark on this monitor (at work). The ground looks just pure black. Maybe it’s just me, but you could still brighten up the parts where people can go. This isn’t the kind of game where you should camp and hide in the shadows so there’s no point in making rooms very dark imo.

#115

Hmm. The intel room is actually about as bright as the one in 2fort, though I do agree that it needs some brightening up everywhere. I’ll crank up the brightness on the lights.

#116

Looking good!

#117

Swizzle, I believe I’ve discovered the source of the “This map is too dark” complaint I hear quite often. I think both you and I run with HDR enabled when we check out the map which tends to oversaturate areas frequently. To us it looks great, to others using HDR it looks great, to those with HDR disabled it’s too dark.

Run your map, but first switch to HDR disabled and then load it up, compare the light values between HDR and LDR. Some areas in my map looked fine under HDR but needed a lot of brightening up in LDR. Fortunately Hammer gives us the option to adjust the brightness of one light and leave the other intact.