ff_anticitizen (not cacti anymore)

[o_nezumi]

I think I may be able to round out this map without actually removing any detail. Maybe. But if you're talking about either of the buildings on the back left in this screenshot

http://www.superjer.com/nezumi/ff_ca..._cacti_07c.jpg

then no way, they tie the whole bottom area together. Rightnow I'm looking to cut down on displacements, so maybe the rocky room just before cp2 going the top way can be removed. Perhaps if I cut out some of the tunnels below it I can make section 2 shorter. It'll be a hassle in any case.

Edit: Link fix'd.

[o_tyrus]

broken link Nezumi!

[o_nodnarb]

I hope you can figure it out. I want to play this map so bad!

[o_twincannon]

Originally Posted by Nezumi

WTF is with the gimped HDR in HL2M?

It works... kinda... but it screws with a lot of textures and cubemaps. Like everything gets all glassy and shiny.

You've probably figured it out by now but you have to buildcubemaps both with and without HDR enabled. Woo for source being a pain in the balls :P

Great looking map, btw.

[o_gnyevko]

No tardo not that spot. Out of the first spawn on the end of the right wall there is a small building stuffed in the corner. Or at least there was last time I checked. It looks like you stand in it and shoot down the first hill or something I dunno. It always seemed kinda pointless compared to everything else in the map.

Or maybe I'm just fuckin' the dog, who knows.

[o_nezumi]

You must mean this one:

http://www.superjer.com/nezumi/ff_ca..._cacti_07e.jpg
(I realised I didn't have a screenshot of this building yet, so I had to go take one. You can see the lighting bug that's been giving me a hard time. It's the strip of black going across the hut in the back there.)

I've probably gotta leave that one in there because it makes the catwalk coming around work. Plus it's a good place for SGs and snipers (especially on offence). I was going to put an ammo bag in there too. I think the section would look visually unbalanced without it anyway.

@TwiNCannoN: Yea, but even if you do that HDR still doesn't work properly.

edit: Good thing I have a proofreader

[o_tyrus]

Originally Posted by Nezumi

You must mean this one:

htt://www.superjer.com/nezumi/ff_cacti/ff_cacti_07e.jpg

httP

You forgot the p! Just letting you know ;D

[o_nodnarb]

Originally Posted by tyrus

httP

You forgot the p! Just letting you know ;D

haha

[o_donny]

Originally Posted by nodnarb

haha

++++postcount++++



I havent seen updates for a while so I'll comment on the last pictures you showed. As you all should know by now, I have became a 'sharp edge nazi map commenter'. If it's carfed and curved, I'll give it my seal of approval. BUT THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE! Make the edges soft, think of the children, that thing is a people killer! Think of the winters, grannys will lose their heads if they fall on that thing!
EDIT: And I do hope you know that I was overreacting.

[o_player]

However, not everything requires smooth edges and curved faces :P

The only thing making that blocky wall look blocky is the basic texturing on its faces.

[o_nezumi]

Too many curves and it stops looking industrial/utilitarian.

[o_paft]

This is the first time I have come across your map, It's looking the part so far.

[o_bumgravy]

Originally Posted by Nezumi

You must mean this one:

http://www.superjer.com/nezumi/ff_ca..._cacti_07e.jpg
(I realised I didn't have a screenshot of this building yet, so I had to go take one. You can see the lighting bug that's been giving me a hard time. It's the strip of black going across the hut in the back there.)

I've probably gotta leave that one in there because it makes the catwalk coming around work. Plus it's a good place for SGs and snipers (especially on offence). I was going to put an ammo bag in there too. I think the section would look visually unbalanced without it anyway.

I had this lighting problem several times in different places before i worked out where it was coming from. In your miniature skybox, which should be your 16th scale brushes with a sky_camera entity, the walls that actually contain this stuff is just a box with "sky" texture applied. What the tuitorials dont tell you, is that this sky textured box is also scaled up and added to your map. Unfortunately sky textured blocks intersecting normal geometry results in shadowed patches, as no environmental light can be received. To fix this you dont have to actually move or edit your skybox, just make sure that the brushes constituting the outer walls are bigger than your map when scaled up 16 times, to ensure no intersecting of scaled up brushes with your world brushes.

[o_nezumi]

I was beginning to suspect that, although it seems strange that I've never had this problem before.

Anyway I'll give it a shot!

[o_nezumi]

O M G

BumGravy I love you. That is to say, I want to make love to you.

Now that that problem is sorted, it should be fairly clear sailing. I've got a bunch more optimisation and cleanup to do, but otherwise this map is pulling into the home stretch. It'd probably be done already but this lighting thing was discouraging me so much.

Here we can see the fog/sky/dust effects coming together a bit more. All that's missing here is the colorcorrection that I'll be adding. This must be like the 8th shot of this place I've shown


And this is the ladder/ramp path I've added. It should help the attackers get up, and the defenders get down. The ladder should provide good cover for attackers going up, because no one really likes fighting on ladders.

[o_player]

It looks fairly well done but the fog, although overall it looks decent, can appear to be overbearing in some places. It isn't exactly an issue though. The lower displacement located on the second screenshot looks severely horrendous :P

How far along the completion scale is ff_cacti?

[o_addicted to morphine]

I agree. Fog color looks good, but overall I'd like to see a higher max distance (so you can see further through the fog).

[o_sta_sirtiger]

As he said ^, tweak the fog a bit.

[o_twincannon]

Looking terrific, Nez. I do agree with the others that the fog looks a touch overbearing and "strong" although if you're planning on draining the color out a little with colorcorrection that could work. Just a bit too yellow for me in those shots, though.

Curious - what did you use for the "fog" effect in http://www.superjer.com/nezumi/ff_ca..._cacti_07c.jpg ? one of the func_ smoke emitters?

[o_nezumi]

Player, if you mean the thing in the middle, just above the sand, that's a model, not a displacement. I'm going to make the texture on the model and displacement match before I'm done. Hopefully I can find one with a good normal map for lighting.

That is a func_smokevolume, yes. And unfortunately, source doesn't like drawing too many sprites at once so it's screwing up other effects I have planned

edit...
...
...unless I use an entity generator to make the smokevolumes in the third area only AFTER the first is complete... *idea*

As for the fog, those screens are over deceptively long distances. There's nowhere in the first area as long as the far clipping plane, so the fog just adds color, and in the third area it's just far enough to make sniping a little tricky over the extreem distances.

I am willing to tweak it, but I'd need FF to get it just right. And it is possible to have the fog distance change, like for the first and third parts of the map, so that's a possibility.