Cashworks

[eerieone]

RC2 out

PL_CASHWORKS_RC2

sry for the long delay, was pretty busy

FIXES:
* once again framerates via func_occluder (thx Andysss)
* added final fx-explosion by jive turkey
* added 3d-eagle-model by Nik instead of eagle-texture
* readjusted vault-explosion-sound by Tomster
* slightly reduced respawntime for red to defend cp3&4
* changed ammopack at cp3 to a full-ammo-pack
* changed some visuals at construction site
* slight visual changes on building 03
* tons of minor visual bugs corrected
* big crate near cp4 is now accessable without having to duckjump, just walk in
* added ammo-pack there to support defensive structures at that point

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2482/3531632953_7bbc4780b5.jpg?v=0

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3616/3531631765_b3c613494a.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2224/3532448386_6531e6c110.jpg?v=0

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3352/3531632127_5261d7bcd9.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2049/3532448862_1016a2c0ea.jpg?v=0

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3593/3532448692_50d0fd7f6e.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2447/3531632623_bfb525fe5d.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2216/3531632787_d84364fa35.jpg?v=0


Credit and giant thx:
All of you Folks here
Moe012 for custom logos and eagle and several implemented ideas
Tomster custom Vault Sound
Atresia for the custom Cap-Signs


QUICKTIME 360° Panorama
http://www.shareaec.com/v/33714/Panoramic-VR/pl_cashworks_b3-pano1
http://www.shareaec.com/v/33715/Panoramic-VR/pl_cashworks_b3-pano2
http://www.shareaec.com/v/33716/Panoramic-VR/pl_cashworks_b3-pano3
http://www.shareaec.com/v/33717/Panoramic-VR/pl_cashworks_b3-pano4
http://www.shareaec.com/v/33718/Panoramic-VR/pl_cashworks_b3-pano5
http://www.shareaec.com/v/33720/Panoramic-VR/pl_cashworks_b3-pano6
http://www.shareaec.com/v/33721/Panoramic-VR/pl_cashworks_b3-pano7 (http://www.shareaec.com/v/33714/Panoramic-VR/pl_cashwoks_b3-pano1)

[eerieone]

finally, i managed to get that thing to the public :)
i put several links to 360° panoramas into the thread-header, just as a gimmick

http://forums.tf2maps.net/geek/gars/images/2/1/6/2/pl_cashworks_b3.jpg

[GrimGriz]

Good times. The eagle noise is a little annoying
and I have hard time imagining ppl getting crushed by the door due to the explosion killing them before the door falls

[eerieone]

once you are batteling, you will hardly hear it, true, when you are alone on the map, it might get annoying, but i think its a neat touch every now and then when walking to the frontline :)

the bomb explodes 1,5 seconds after the capture, then the animation plays, the door hits the ground ~3seconds after the explosion, so there is time to get beneath it, tried it myself :)

[Sgt.Sausage]

The changes look great, looking forward to trying it out tomorrow, hopefully servers will have updated by then.

Love the red and blu logos

[FLOOR_MASTER]

B3 will crash a large server almost instantly due to running out of entities.

[MrAlBobo]

once you are batteling, you will hardly hear it, true, when you are alone on the map, it might get annoying, but i think its a neat touch every now and then when walking to the frontline :)


eagle is very annoying
one shriek, is huh, thats interesting, 2nd is hmm..., 3rd starts to be irritating, the 50th time is highly annoying

perhaps tie the shriek to the cart movement in some way so its only heard 3 or so times a game

[GrimGriz]

Evil player Clip - doesn't seem like there is a good reason for it to be there either...
http://forums.tf2maps.net/picture.php?albumid=54&pictureid=466

Cart+Tin wall thing = hard to get past
http://forums.tf2maps.net/picture.php?albumid=54&pictureid=467

You know at the very beginning of a round when you can jump and look around, but not move? That happens at this spawn in the middle of the game....
http://forums.tf2maps.net/picture.php?albumid=54&pictureid=468

[flubber]

I was wondering while uploading last cashworks version if there was any limits in the download size, we're closing near 50Mo in bz2 which is (my memory could be flaw)close from the actual limit (70mo). Even if download is not a problem for me and my community (great maps requires it, if people don't want to download the can play 2fort 24/7) it have it be ingame, it was just a technical issue i was worring about.

[eerieone]

sry, i forgot to delete that darn playerclip, there is always something i miss :/

size: the only thing i can do is compile without staticproplighting, spares 20mb but looks ugly

eagles: i will revise that, for me it didn´t feel annoying, but i´ll listen to what you say

spawn room: i´ll look into that

did anyone else witness crashes?

[ProfFiendish]

Well, I liked the eagles. Made the map feel more unique.

I really have no complaints, except for its size, which of course can't really be modified.

[Icarus]

B3 will crash a large server almost instantly due to running out of entities.

GASP

Another victim of ED_Alloc!

Your map will crash more populated servers indefinitely.

Quick, you must begin removing expensive entities at once!

(Test by spawning 31 bots, bot_mimic 1, and run around jumping and shooting.)

size: the only thing i can do is compile without staticproplighting, spares 20mb but looks ugly
20MB is a hellavalot for something not many people notice.

Actually, 20MB is a hellavalot no matter what it is.

On another note: Have you tried increasing lightmaps? That, too, can save you another 20MB

As it is now, Cashworks is too large to put on our server.

[TheDarkerSideofYourShadow]

Just a few things I noticed last night when running around.


First there is this, just by the first cap point. I'm not sure whats going on there, maybe the floor inside is up by ~8 units or something. But visually it stands out.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l35/TheDarkestShadow_2006/TF2/pl_cashworks/pl_cashworks_b30000.jpg



Take a look at the upper right in this one. Notice the cap point doesn't have a proper name :-D Same with the first picture too.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l35/TheDarkestShadow_2006/TF2/pl_cashworks/pl_cashworks_b30002.jpg

[eerieone]

see, these are things that show that i´m still a novice mapper :)
i´ll quickfix this too

[Zanpa]

This map is definitely my favourite. I love your work, eerieone. The look and the gameplay are both awesome.

(Too bad it's so big :p )

[GrimGriz]

I got used to the screeching...but it was annoying at first...

[flubber]

did anyone else witness crashes?

Just got 2 in a row on B3, server is crashing can't really say when but it was between CP1 & CP2.

[NoHeroes]

sry, i forgot to delete that darn playerclip, there is always something i miss :/

size: the only thing i can do is compile without staticproplighting, spares 20mb but looks ugly

eagles: i will revise that, for me it didn´t feel annoying, but i´ll listen to what you say

spawn room: i´ll look into that

did anyone else witness crashes?

We just had a crash on a full 32 player server. Nothing in the error logs, though. If we have another crash, we'll have to revert back to b2 until you find the cause.

[Zanpa]

There is the regular team logo on the vault on the final point.
And this (http://uppix.net/4/9/5/b2eed28081c77491a539e8b81184d.jpg) looks odd... Maybe it's because of my settings (crappy computer).

[eerieone]

i overlooked the logo in the vault-skin completely
i´m not that happy with the displacement too, gotta work on that, you´re right :)

[Sgt.Sausage]

I see everything here is about things they didn't like.

Yes i agree with almost everything posted so far but, for some non bugs comments.

I really love the changes you have made, especially the bottom of the hill and the capture points moves you made where a good idea.

I need to play it some more to notice things and enjoy it but i will have to wait till b4 because almost no servers are running b3 but their is still alot of b2 so i can still enjoy cashworks.

one question i have is have you started optimizing it yet, i saw the thread that you posted needed some help with it and you got some help which is good but i want to compare b2 and b3 but i want to know if you did any optimization yet. If not i hope you dont have to much trouble with the optimizing.

Great job, great changes, Good luck with displacement issues and crashes

[eerieone]

I don´t care being busted for what is still wrong, i rather like it..
These guys have a good eye for errors and annoyances in a map, so i´m thankful for every hint to make it better

i´ve optimized as good as i could, still i´m a beginner in optimization, and having finished the layout and building before i even knew i had to optimize, the current framerate are the best i can offer.
the multicore-beta for the source-engine helps out a littlebit to crank up the frames

if anyone with a good eye for better optimization offers his service, i won´t hold him back :)

[Sgt.Sausage]

Well you did a good job since this was your first map. I have tried hammer and i don't know where to start and never got to far from online tutorials.

Yes i did get a frame boost of between 10-20 from the multi-core update so that helps a lot i am sure, i was just wondering because that is one of the main problems people have with you map though it doesn't bother me.

[Tinker]

I'm hoping you'll make a quickfix version any time soon, as I can't wait to play b3 but the server owners are very reluctant to upload it now.

[DaBeatzProject]

Hey eerieone,
I've looked around in your map for a while, and saw an amazing map! :thumbup:
But I found some small "problems" or whatever ..

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/642432/cashworks/pl_cashworks_b30003.jpg
Some of those textures aren't lined up very well, and look a bit messy there.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/642432/cashworks/pl_cashworks_b30006.jpg
This could look better if there was a sprite, at the moment it looks quite abnormal.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/642432/cashworks/pl_cashworks_b30009.jpg
Same here.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/642432/cashworks/pl_cashworks_b30010.jpg
On one of the lamps you used point_spotlights, on the other one you didn't?

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/642432/cashworks/pl_cashworks_b30018.jpg
Your ropes are coming through the wood..

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/642432/cashworks/pl_cashworks_b30024.jpg
This light prop hasn't got a light entity + sprite, and the area looks dark there.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/642432/cashworks/pl_cashworks_b30029.jpg
You got some ugly shadows there, try to dissable them.

I know, these were all small details, but man, really, I love the detail in the map. I hope I've helped you a bit, and an other thanks for let me using some things!! :D

-DBP

[eerieone]

k, i hopefully quickfixed everything, reduced number of entities by 10%

PL_CASHWORKS_B3a (http://forums.tf2maps.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=1185)

FIXES:
* hopefully fixed entity overflow crash
* reduced filesize by 20mb
* eagle screech less frequent
* fixed teleport selfdestruction on final point area
* fixed names of CPs
* applied alternative teamlogos to model
* made middlepart of bridge less narrow
* small texture change

known issues:
* some texture-errors due to inexperience with lightmaps, need to finetune that
* whatever you see, plz report

[Sgt.Sausage]

Thanks for releasing this so fast now i cant wait to try it, servers update please.

[PMAvers]

We're uploading as fast as we can, Cap'n! :D

[GrimGriz]

Thanks for releasing this so fast now i cant wait to try it, servers update please.

Just finished playing it for over an hour :) I definitely approve of the skreech frequency changes.

[FLOOR_MASTER]

Quick feedback on a couple of rounds of B3A - entity count is around 1850 - still on the high side (future TF2 updates or plugins may push the dynamic ent count higher and lead to crashes), but the server won't crash for the immediate future.

I can't comment on gameplay until I've seen more rounds...

One thing that's still a big problem is RED setting up sentries outside of BLU's last spawn room. This is a widely-known "strategy". Is it possible to destroy all RED buildables outside the spawn room after CP3 is taken?

[Sgt.Sausage]

That is not a problem, blu should destroy those before going to the final point, this can happen in any map.

Buildings should not be destroyed because of a point cap

[eerieone]

giant thanks for the stability test

i have only once witnessed something that might have been like the issue you described, the other times we got rid of every defense before capturing CP3

if i see it being a major issue, i will find another alternative, destroying the sentries by letting the game do it will people make hate me :D

[FLOOR_MASTER]

As BLU, it is unreasonably difficult to approach that area before it becomes a spawn point since it is easy to control access to it as RED when BLU is concentrating on taking CP2 (and later, CP3). Given the extremely small size of the spawn room, using the close proximity to the health cabinet to take pot shots at a sentry setup outside of the spawn room is not feasible. The door trigger overlaps a large portion of the area and you cannot coordinate a 15-person team to stay inside spawn to build an uber or to dispatch a spy out of spawn (the sentries have LOS to the entire room and a spy will immediately get killed in the crossfire).

Yes, this can happen in any map, but you don't see me raising this issue about every map we have playtested or run for months on end. In this instance, it is a serious issue.

[Sgt.Sausage]

I understand what you mean, i will need to play b3 more but i didnt notice much changes from b2 in that area except the wall, and i never noticed a problem and i have probably played a little under 50 rounds of cashworks.

I have only lost (both teams) at cp3 a few times and it was never because of spawn camping after cp3 was captured but i will post if it ever happens to me.

If it becomes a problem it should definitely be fixed but not in the way of removing sentries after cap.

[eerieone]

I see your point, i´ve never really witnessed that "tactic", so i didn´t adress the problem in b3.
What i will do...
enlarge the spawnroom and/or sideexit
we don´t need to dispute about a problem that has an easy fix to it :)

[DontWannaName]

Im guessing 20mb smaller was before it was bzipped cause its still 40mb when zipped.

[fireblade42]

dont know if it was intended but there is a space that you can hide in here:
http://fireblade42.dongues.net/pl_cashworks_b3a0000.jpg
and camp as people drop down from above.

[Tinker]

It even says Danger! Hazardous! People are thoroughly warned before being buttburned :p

[Sgt.Sausage]

That's a good idea, either or not its a problem this makes it easier to leave spawn.

The place with the dangerous sign above it is kinda cool to be able to go in a little, i see no reason of removing it, but whatever eerieone thinks.

[eerieone]

i alwas forget to clip -.-

[Sgt.Sausage]

oh i see you didn't intend to that,

its ok your first map, and a really good one at that, i don't even no half the stuff people talk about making maps in hammer.

[Evang7]

Tiny problem with the download, don't know if it's been addressed yet: the VMT file included is for menu_photos and not menu_thumb. It's not a horribly big deal because no one seems to use the quick list but me, and I know how to fix it myself, ha ha. But you know.

Haven't tried B3 yet but it looks to have fixed the flaws with this map--it was always really fun up until the last point. Glad to see such a beautiful-looking map get fine-tuning.

[kankle_king]

Played this last night and FPS was AWFUL! In b2 there was some minor FPS issues looking down/up the curvy hill area, that is gone is this version. However, the 1st part of the map was getting hit HARD with FPS issues. I am constantly over 100 and it was at a steady 20-25 the whole first part until you reached the hill. Besides that, it played very well and was well received. Def be doing it again but might play b2 b/c of the new FPS issues :\

[eerieone]

hm, i had to change some distance-disappearing brushes for the sake of the quickfix, so those might hit the fps, but there weren´t as many, that they severly influence the fps. i will reevaluate the details for b4/rc

[mug]

Hey eerieone, I am an amatuer mapper & admin @ Festers Place 32 player instaspawn server. We run your map on rotation(currently b2 Need updating to b3a). But the map is very popular on our server and very possible (with instaspawn) to win even if quite hard :laugh:(lots of ubers). Overall one of my favourite maps at the moment
I had a quick run about on b3a on lan, found a few minor issues.
Black overlapping wood
http://inlinethumb28.webshots.com/41115/2607060780104674517S600x600Q85.jpg (http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2607060780104674517mAkcmM)
This hiding spot(addressed above too) like the hiding spot, just needs texture on ND faces
http://inlinethumb15.webshots.com/44366/2350925940104674517S600x600Q85.jpg (http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2350925940104674517oJiyBZ)
The way the wood joins here looks a little strange
http://inlinethumb54.webshots.com/43573/2846919720104674517S600x600Q85.jpg (http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2846919720104674517sTlLNw)
Grass poking through the wooden floor(intentional?)
http://inlinethumb40.webshots.com/17575/2005842700104674517S600x600Q85.jpg (http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2005842700104674517AOJXWc)
Why block the small gap up here?
http://inlinethumb64.webshots.com/44927/2424989530104674517S600x600Q85.jpg (http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2424989530104674517MAYlgX)
As in B2 (The small gap allowed me to demo the sentry farm on the far platform and keep my team moving)
http://inlinethumb29.webshots.com/10332/2086001200104674517S600x600Q85.jpg (http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2086001200104674517pIXEAw)

Love the map! Keep up the good work!
I will report back here when we've played a few rounds of b3a with 32 players.

[eerieone]

thx for the screenies
°1 hm, we´ll what i can do about that
°2 forgot to playerclip the area, but since you like it, ´ll texture it
°3 yeah, saw that too, tried to align it with the other texture, but i wont, i´ll place a small dark wood inbetween those 2 brushes
°4 whoopsy, got some of those left, no, it´s not intentional :)
°5&6 I closed the gap because it was way to easy to capture CP3, now the area is worth a fight, Blu still has a major advantage with the overhanging balcony which is perfect for sentries and building ubers to attack CP3 defenses

[eerieone]

thx to zpqrei´s tutorial :)

YouTube - : Cashworks Flythrough 1 :

smashman from axal production (machinima) made this one for me

YouTube - Cashworks Flythrough 2

[DaBeatzProject]

That's very nice! What's the name of the song?

[Zanpa]

Since you didn't answered him, I wonder if you saw ch1lly's post on steampowered forums (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9592384&postcount=42). He has listed a few glitches he saw on the map.


The flythroughs are absolutely... :wow:

[zpqrei]

Hope you don't mind. Linked your video in my tutorial. :D

[eerieone]

no, i don´t mind :)
the song is called "Our Lives Changed" Artist: Tryad
Albums are available for free at Jamendo (http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/tryad)

thanks for the link to chilly´s post on the steamforums, didn´t check it for a while
i´m happy he´s only nitpicking, that´s a good sign :)

[Tinker]

B3a is a huge improvement, great work! The only thing that bothers me is that people seem to be getting stuck in the cart more often since this version, especially when it's pushed when an enemy is in front. I'm not sure what's up with that.

[eerieone]

not sure too, didn´t change a thing on the cart-setup, hm....

[RocketSurgeon]

dont know if it was intended but there is a space that you can hide in here:
Image removed.
and camp as people drop down from above.

Echoing this. It's not so bad a Pyro, but it can be awful if you're a Demo.

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/4660/plcashworksb3a0002.th.jpg (http://img299.imageshack.us/my.php?image=plcashworksb3a0002.jpg)

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/3718/plcashworksb3a0003.th.jpg (http://img410.imageshack.us/my.php?image=plcashworksb3a0003.jpg)

It's a bit hard to tell in the first picture, but you can see the door opening through the grate floor, so you know when to detonate. Even if you cant sticky the door, stickying the floor under the hole from below is still really really strong.

Also, I managed to get stuck in the terrain here.
http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/7258/plcashworksb3a0000.th.jpg (http://img237.imageshack.us/my.php?image=plcashworksb3a0000.jpg)

Very nice map so far. Keep it up.

[Mar]

About camping with the stickies, personally I think that's fine, it's nice spot for a demo, and if people realize the spot, it's not that hard to counter. First few times you get owned, but then people remember and counter it. Keep, it's a cool ace up the demo's sleeve.

[Apom]

The demo is already the most powerful class in the game, I doubt it needs any extra aces.

[Mar]

Once you learn the map it's not that bad. I had no trouble countering it. And it's not an ace, it's a just a cool trick. Just like neat scout jumping spots.

[eerieone]

i don´t really know what might cause this, it´s the gravel-texture from gravelpit
but for some reason it has checkers on it
is it because i´m in the alpine environment?

in the first 2, i made a custom .vmt that makes alpine ground/sand blend into gravel
"WorldVertexTransition"
{
"Nature/dirtground009"
"Nature/dirtground002"
%tooltexture "Nature/blendgroundtogravel001_tooltexture"
"Nature/dirtground002_normal"
"Nature/dirtground001_normal"
"Nature/grass_blendmask"
%keywords "tf"
%detailtype "tf_forest_grass"
"dirt"


}

http://imagefarm.net/images/rug1uhcvtmf2vvdwdhkl.jpg (http://imagefarm.net/)
http://imagefarm.net/images/7pcvnggtdh9s7rli76h.jpg (http://imagefarm.net/)
http://imagefarm.net/images/8719ojg02f708exzfev0.jpg (http://imagefarm.net/)
http://imagefarm.net/images/eap4rbagi2ba0f7rua6.jpg (http://imagefarm.net/)

[TMP]

The blendmask or bumpmap doesn't exist. I think.

[DaBeatzProject]

Yeah, I had the same error, long ago...
http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/4206/plcornfield0017jp4.jpg

Funky, no?
I was able to get rid of them, but afterwards, the texture didn't have bumpmaps anymore.. No checkers, no shadows.

[Hellfire]

mb u need to tweak lightmap scale to decrease size? it has great impact on compiled map size,as foe my it was 17.7Mb with LS=16 and 9.2Mbs with LS=32

[eerieone]

solved, i used the wrong gravelpit texture :) easy as that
thx DBP

[Icarus]

Make the eagle quieter. It sounds like it's taking a dive towards you, the player, but it's just gliding calmly in the background.

It also scares the crap out of me.

[Westerhound]

Make the eagle quieter. It sounds like it's taking a dive towards you, the player, but it's just gliding calmly in the background.

It also scares the crap out of me.

IMO it could be like you cannot really hear it in combat, but once have died and are walking back you could hear them clearly. Like 50 or 60 % of what it is now

[Hellfire]

disagree,i rly think its good as it is now,it was worse in B3,but now when frequency is tuned is good. sometimes it is loud,but otherwise u wont hear it esp. in battle. my imo, only)

anyway as i said the map is GREAT, rly the best custom payload map. u put 1000+ tonns of effort im making it, and u did rly well. Bravo!

[zpqrei]

I love it although I noticed one thing. BLU NEVER WINS. I'm not sure how you could go about changing this. But surely adding more time would help? Heck, it might've just been the teams. I dunno.

[DaBeatzProject]

Uhh, I think BLU won one round, but I missed the pretty explosion though.. :(

[eerieone]

haha, sometimes i think the community is divided into an angel and a devil sitting on my shoulder
the ones are whispering i should improve defenses, the others i should make it easier to attack, what´s up with that?

what i´ve seen in my map is, that an unbalanced team will not advance, it needs at least one medic, one engi, a decent sniper and spy

the medics are surely needed to push through defenses at cp1&2, whereas the engi needs to get up on a higher position to build up his sentry and hold off defenders pushing back. every time i saw an engi doing this, it was no problem for blu to advance. i designed the middle house in the first section for that purpose (big ammopack) as well as the overhanging platform above cp2, they both provide a major advantage for blu once an engi gets his gear up there

these are pretty secure positions for medics to charge their ubers, if they don´t use this secure positions or the team has no medics, yeah, then it will surely be hard to advance.
thats for me kinda the second level of balancing: forcing a certain balanced team-setup

[Zanpa]

Yes, the balance is perfect.
I play b3a quite often, and it always seemed balanced for me.

[eerieone]

lil´ update

there has always been the sick little child, i call him CP3, way to easy to take, too long walking distance for red, too easy cover for blu

so, my new approach (sry for not disabling models and hud)

http://imagefarm.net/images/bi0entnage5cp7r9lt.jpg (http://imagefarm.net/)
http://imagefarm.net/images/2epawd1aumxq9jf7yr5.jpg (http://imagefarm.net/)
http://imagefarm.net/images/xlx4e1qfru9tmjd3kaf.jpg (http://imagefarm.net/)

[Muffin Man]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v429/Yellow22/pl_cashworks_b3a0003.png
This is a nice little hiding spot... but something tells me it's not intentional, because once you crawl in there, you can see a bunch of nodraw faces.

Look at these two pictures...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v429/Yellow22/pl_cashworks_b3a0007.png
I'm coming around the corner. But where's the door?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v429/Yellow22/pl_cashworks_b3a0006.png
There it is! Half a second late, apparently.

Dunno what's wrong there, but it looks a bit funky.

[eerieone]

the door, hm, strange, didn´t see that happen before :) visleaf problem? dunno
i´ll fix the hiding spot

[GrimGriz]

i think its a prop draw distance thing maybe? I've seen them elsewhere in the map as well, but they never bothered me

[YM]

Shmitz claims it's to do with areaportals in meridian when it happens exactly the samely.. I'm gunna run a test to see what can be done about it

[Zanpa]

A friend got stuck while trying to hide...
Here (http://brocasio.free.fr/LAN-Time/TF2/2009-04-19/pl_cashworks_b3a0066.jpg)
Here (http://brocasio.free.fr/LAN-Time/TF2/2009-04-19/pl_cashworks_b3a0068.jpg)
Here (http://brocasio.free.fr/LAN-Time/TF2/2009-04-19/pl_cashworks_b3a0069.jpg)

This rock could get some clip or whatever ;)

[kankle_king]

Sorry if I have already posted this, but the optimization in the new version is RLY bad at the 1st point. After that, is gets much better, even at the hill where FPS used to be really bad its seems to be fixed there. Please help the severe FPS problems at 1st point. Thanks, we're long time fans and we all love this map. :)

[eerieone]

Ok, for the next release i´m going for the RC

soooo

Shoot any ideas, wishes, glitches, improvements, basically everything you wanted to let out, positive or negative, BRING IT ON!

This is one of the last chances to make the call.

So, put away the satin gloves and punch on the weak spots!

:D

[The Political Gamer]

The last BLU spawn is VERY easy to spawn camp. D: With enough sentries and Demomen the BLU team can be trapped for a long time. :thumbdown: If you fixed that I think the map is almost done, other than more optimization and details. Keep up the good work I love your map!:thumbup1:

[Tinker]

I've always thought the less spawnpoints, the better. As such, I'd like to suggest that instead of having so much spawnpoints, you'd instead make some shortcuts to benefit both teams throughout the game, which close and open as points get captured. Very basic view:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/Fotootjes/cashworks.jpg

I don't know if that's something you'd like to change still, but what I mean here is that both RED and BLU should only have one spawn, á la Badwater, but get shortcuts for when points are captured. This makes it all less of a hassle to engineers, moving up with the spawns.

[eerieone]

i had some of those in earlier versions, the complaints that came then were that people get bored seing always the same spawns and environment
also, getting a forward spawn after capturing a hard defended CP feels like a small reward and keeps the morale up. it always feels great, when you capture CP3 in badwater and then finally get that forward spawn

after the capture of CP1,i´ve been thinking on building in a little shortcut that exits where the double-doors are on the red building, but i´m not sure if that would be overpowered for blu, or somewhere below that to make it also accessable for red

[Vigilante212]

At the last point make it so you can build on top of the roof with the tire on it. Its a pain to get up thier, but it would be a decent spot.

[Icarus]

i had some of those in earlier versions, the complaints that came then were that people get bored seing always the same spawns and environment
also, getting a forward spawn after capturing a hard defended CP feels like a small reward and keeps the morale up. it always feels great, when you capture CP3 in badwater and then finally get that forward spawn

You're really annoying engineers by doing this, you know.

[eerieone]

maybe i can kill 2 flies with one stroke,
i´ll give the 2nd forward an exit towards CP4, since its anyway close to the 3rd spawn, and delete the 3rd spawn, this way, build up teleporters at spawn2 don´t need to be abandoned and rebuild elsewhere
that way, i can also alter the camped spawnarea effectively :)

[The Political Gamer]

As an 200+ hour engie I hate to take down my stuff and move it, thank you! :thumbup: Also before I forget you can build stuff in the spawn right next to the gold vault. If you want pictures just message me.

[Tinker]

maybe i can kill 2 flies with one stroke,
i´ll give the 2nd forward an exit towards CP4, since its anyway close to the 3rd spawn, and delete the 3rd spawn, this way, build up teleporters at spawn2 don´t need to be abandoned and rebuild elsewhere
that way, i can also alter the camped spawnarea effectively :)

Aaahh, yes! This seems like a great idea.

[eerieone]

:D ok, i got a result i´m happy with

so, the goal was to cut one blu forward spawn and to prevent Red from setting up defenses in front of the last blu spawn, as well as make the life of engis easier by not forcing them to rebuild tele-entrences after the 3rd capture

so, here is my solution
(sry, forgot to take a screeny of the respawndoor, but you can imagine where it is, right in front of the arrow-slider)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3396/3479295009_d12f628c39.jpg?v=0
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3343/3479294683_b1863aa67a.jpg?v=0
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3572/3480100592_0bee7b64f5.jpg?v=0
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3334/3479295299_30dd30d573.jpg?v=0
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3653/3479293943_16ce424bab.jpg?v=0
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3633/3479294325_4701b3549d.jpg?v=0
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3635/3480103078_d91551ac82.jpg?v=0
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3657/3480102720_a500124c41.jpg?v=0

hope this plays out well

[TheNeverman]

awesome, yeah, should cut down the transit time considerably...

[flubber]

Sweet, eta? :)

[eerieone]

eta maybe this weekend
still need some input from gameplay to legitimize the rc version of the map

[kankle_king]

Fix the major FPS issues please, then we will play this :)

[flubber]

eta maybe this weekend
still need some input from gameplay to legitimize the rc version of the map

Do you need an update heatmaps for the actual version?

[eerieone]

surely wouldn´t hurt, since i moved cp3 furter back now and would like to see how cp2 plays out on the heatmap
thx in advance

[Mar]

Things I love:

Eagle screech
Detail
Looks very nice

Things I hate:
Very long walk time from first spawn too second point. If it wasn't for the engi I'd've gone scout just becuase it takes too long to walk.

FPS! It sucks. I was playing with 24 people and it constantly dipped below 30~25 FPS, when I normally get 60 on other maps. And this happened to everyone on the server. It was terrible and unplayable. You really need to optimize and reduce the lines of sight. You can see really far from the spawn to the first point, the rolling hills to till the second point and such. This really needs to be fixed. Maybe use a func_areaportalwindow to spilt up these long chunks of map.

Again, the FPS is terrible and it's destroying most people machines.

[MungoKing]

Maybe use a func_areaportalwindow to spilt up these long chunks of map.


Usually, you do not ever, ever, ever, want to use an areaportalwindow in a multiplayer map, since it forces rendering depending on the position of the player. You could end up with the situation where the Blue sniper can see the red Heavy, but the Red Heavy can not see the Blue Sniper. Not good at all.

[Zanpa]

Again, the FPS is terrible and it's destroying most people machines.
On our server, only a few are complaining about this, and that never makes the game unplayable.
This is a problem, but not so important...

And eerione said that it couldn't be more optimized because of the layout, which he did before thinking to optimizing. Still, everyone seems to ignore that.

[Mar]

Maybe there needs to be a layout change then. It was really bad, and then when the map switched to badwater, everyone's FPS was fine. My FPS in cashworks was 1/3 of what it was on badwater. Maybe between the 2 houses on going to the first point, have a big wall in the middle of the playing field or something.

It was absolutely terrible, and I would definitely have a layout change that would fix the bad FPS.

[eerieone]

i´m pumping up the frames the level of b2, nobody complained about fps at b2
don´t worry, it´s a major concern of mine too :)

its mostly just the first section, after that the fps are acceptable
atm, i raised the fps by 15 in comparison to b3a atm

[Westerhound]

Our server some people kept complaining about the FPS in the alphas, but after that I havent really heard anything about it, maybe cause they removed it from the server soon after the B1 came out, same as with every other custom map :( I have a FPS of 20-30 which is about half of other maps, but Im fine with 20

[The Political Gamer]

I have had only 3-4 times were I have had bad FPS on this map, in all versions. But that just may be my computer. Crysis at full specs: 30fps :O!

[taraph75]

The feedback I'm getting is that FPS dropped on the most recent release (b3a I think). I have heard from people that it is unplayable as well and they wanted to go back to the version before.

Also, I'm noticing on balancing that if blu get past the last bend (not final cap point, but before that) - it is REALLY hard for red to defend. I'm not sure if it's spawn times or the red spawns are easy to camp or what. Maybe too many routes for blu and not enough options for red coming out of each spawn. Anyways, we usually end up switching maps quickly because the last point seems undefendable.

[eerieone]

the fps issues and weak and the hard time defending cp3 is being adressed for the rc (scroll back some pages, there is my new layout for cp3)

every time i play the last point, we have a hard time capturing it, so i don´t see the must of impoving defence points at final cp atm

[eerieone]

i love showbudget

investigated deeper into what showbudget was showing and "Detail Prop Rendering" was higher than in the other sections of my map

"Detail Prop Rendering" are those cute little flowers and grass of the grasstexture i use.... soooo, tweaked the grass and got a 20-25 framejump up :D

Yeeeha!!!

[drpepper]

i love showbudget

investigated deeper into what showbudget was showing and "Detail Prop Rendering" was higher than in the other sections of my map

"Detail Prop Rendering" are those cute little flowers and grass of the grasstexture i use.... soooo, tweaked the grass and got a 20-25 framejump up :D

Yeeeha!!!
nice.

when can we expect the final?

[eerieone]

i´ll try to get onto tomorrows gameday if i manage to push out the rc today

i´ll then watch how the changes apply to gameplay, then maybe pushout a quick rc2, and then final :)

i renamed the CPs to
loading dock
serpentines
power house
vault

"capture point" was a little to dev-ish :)

[eerieone]

PL_CASHWORKS_RC

FIXES:
* improved framerates as good as possible
* merged 2nd and 3rd blu spawn to one spawn:
- makes the engi´s life easier
- gates prevent spawncamping
* pushed cp3 further to the bridge, provided sentrypositions,
decreased respawn by 1sec for red
* imported custom cap-point-signs with new alpine-logos
* renamed CPs to loading dock, serpentines, power house, vault
* minor skybox changes
* fixed stickies not sticking to ground at last cp
* fixed people getting stuck in underground red spawnroomdoor
* enlarged some doortriggers for smoother opening
* decreased explosion radius
* several lighting-adjustments
* fixed radius where people get smashed by the door
* several minor visual changes and object adjustment
* many many small changes not worth an own "*"

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2482/3531632953_7bbc4780b5.jpg?v=0

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3616/3531631765_b3c613494a.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2224/3532448386_6531e6c110.jpg?v=0

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3352/3531632127_5261d7bcd9.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2049/3532448862_1016a2c0ea.jpg?v=0

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3593/3532448692_50d0fd7f6e.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2447/3531632623_bfb525fe5d.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2216/3531632787_d84364fa35.jpg?v=0


Credit and giant thx:
All of you Folks here
Moe012 for custom logos and eagle and several implemented ideas
Tomster custom Vault Sound
Atresia for the custom Cap-Signs

[The Political Gamer]

Looks like you fixed pretty much every real big problem. I will take a quick run around and see if I can find anything you missed.

[eerieone]

i already found again some minor texture-problems and some stupid but not gamebreaking clipping. it´s like, you just see that after you have done like the 3rd final compile. :)

[Mar]

Jesus Christ, those screen shots look so beautiful. *tear*

EDIT: What did you do that made your map and screenies look so good?

[PMAvers]

Working on uploading it *so* hard...

...my FTP server for my server's been stupid tonight, though, and it keeps on restarting the upload from scratch when it gets "done"...

...had to restart it at least five times tonight. After running around it solo, it definitely looks worth the work, though.

EDIT: Okay, got it. That didn't take forever...

[Schmoe]

PL_CASHWORKS_RC
FIXES:
* pushed cp3 further to the bridge, provided sentrypositions,
decreased respawn by 1sec for red


This is a great adjustment. I haven't seen the map in more than a month, but it was one of the areas that needed attention. (The rest of the map is so great that it's easy to point out weaker areas.)

[Schmoe]

The feedback I'm getting is that FPS dropped on the most recent release (b3a I think). I have heard from people that it is unplayable as well and they wanted to go back to the version before.

I'd get a net_graph 4 screenshot to ensure it's not packet loss.

[eerieone]

@Schmoe:
i don´t think it was packetloss, all the other sections played relatively fine fps-wise
i had to cut on optimization (func_lod) on b3a to quickfix the entity-overflow servercrash issue
i did a little crysis-managment, reimplemented some func_lod and cut on some grassdetail. furhtermore i found some models peeking in from the serpentine section
as benchmark, i stand at the blu middle-gate and look outwards
b2: ~65 fps
b3: ~68 fps
b3a: ~54 fps
rc: ~80 fps :D

______________

EDIT: What did you do that made your map and screenies look so good?

screenshots:
perspective, perspective, perspective and another pictureratio than 4:3 or 16:9 :)

the rest:
i don´t know, it comes naturally, i´m not happy with something if it doesn´t look right and out of place, then i do some sketches, try to bring in some contrasts.

i think the most important thing is, you need to have something like a landmark in every section, a building/structure/theme that defines the area:
e.g. the high-rise house before cp3, the water beneath the bridge running towards the water in the skybox, things like that
at the end i started added some finer detail, like continuous numbers on the buildings that give the impression that everything is somehow connected and makes sense

[Schmoe]

@Schmoe:
b2: ~65 fps
b3: ~68 fps
b3a: ~54 fps
rc: ~80 fps :D

I think that's one of the most satisfying parts of mapping. Optimization. When you see that kind of speedup it's like... well I won't go there.

[Hellfire]

when i test my map alone i bare in mind that to be sure ppl get high enough fps on every parts of my map,i need to gp cl_showfps and then divide it by 3, cuz
1)my pc is more powerful than usual one
2) player models,blasts etc, chew lots of additional perfomance)
so as for me im satisfied when there is no spot on the map where my fps is below 150,as ideal fps for tf2 is 50+,and not 30-40 at all

as for u, at least divide by 2 when u test alone,and try to get at least 50fps (100/2) ,that will be ideal. but still good progress and dontforget about funk_occluders,they are sometimes very useful when u got lots of props and cant rly fine tune visability

[Engineer]

Sorry, i lost the screenshot, but while playing in the gameday, i saw that on the wall to the left from the last cap there was a overlapping texture on window.

[Zeewier]

The only small thing I found: In the first red spawn one of the stairs isn't clipped. Anyway it's already way better then any of the official custom maps :).

[Zanpa]

I love this map more and more. It totally deserves to become official. You put a lot of great work in it, and I see this in every detail while I play it.

One thing that bugs me :
http://uppix.net/6/2/8/6ff778acc477d5accce1452b6c4a2t.jpg (http://uppix.net/6/2/8/6ff778acc477d5accce1452b6c4a2.jpg) (click it)

You can't pass easily through these windows, since the update that changed the height of crouched players.
Sometimes, you go throught well ; sometimes, you are blocked just before the window.
Not very clear, but you can try it yourself ^^
I used sometimes this window to get on the bridge as a Scout.

[eerieone]

didn´t know the changed the height, i was always wondering why i couldnt enter the house throught the window in dustbowl stage2 point1 :)
thx

[Zanpa]

http://uppix.net/6/1/e/8de5fdf38a6783a33c7f37ae9dcb2t.jpg (http://uppix.net/6/1/e/8de5fdf38a6783a33c7f37ae9dcb2.jpg) (click it)

There is a problem with a texture. I don't know what it is.
I saw it when I was on the rock ::p:

[FLOOR_MASTER]

Great work on the RC! I'm seeing big framerate improvements in the opening area. BLU's forward spawn after capturing point 1 is very well executed. The only issue I'm seeing is that a RED sentry placed here after CP2 is taken is unusually strong:

http://2fort2furious.com/images/maps/cashworks/cashworks35.jpg

[Tinker]

To be fair, that area could always use a few good sentry spots.

[eerieone]

that´s what i was thinking
if an engy pulls back from cp2 to have a sentry up there early enough, he deserves a good sentry-spot
and its not that overpowered either, a demo shooting from the balcony backed up by a medic can take it down in a second. as spy i always had an easy time dealing with engis up there, they are in a stressful position where they try to manage staying on top of their gear and don´t spycheck everything

[dDan]

... amazingly well done man, when you keep on mapping
it could become an official map one day =)

[DontWannaName]

The first post on every page hasnt been updated for RC yet.

[botboyx3]

Beautiful, simply beautiful. Next time I get online, I will find a server hosting this.

[eerieone]

to Jive Turkey (Borax) for making this explosion for me

sound is still out of sync, but the animation is final
YouTube - Pl Cashworks Explosion finalversion

[HeaH]

What an awesome explosion!

Seriously, that's so cool! :P

When will the final be out?

[An Icy Mouse]

cameraman should stick to his dayjob

but otherwise that looks really epic! love it. if only there was an explosion in hoodoo :/

If I must make one criticizm (and I must) I'd say your fire should go out the instant the door lands on it, it looks odd to see flames and smoke coming through solid metal. you can achieve this by simply sending a "stop" output to all the particles.

:thumbup:

[kankle_king]

the 'gimmick' as you called it is a great idea!!! I can check the map out w/o DLing etc. More ppl do this...

[Zanpa]

It looks very good ! Nice work, Jive Turkey !
Post here so that I can thank you ^^

[MangyCarface]

Excellent explosion! Remember to disable the cap model after it happens. Also, when testing, you can just use console to make the cart keep moving: "ent_fire (name of tracktrain here) setspeeddir 1" :)

[Demonz312]

wow amazing map i not play yet it, but i sure the map Great! Good job.

[The Political Gamer]

I am loving the new explosion!

[Mr. Happy]

OH NO SIR PLEASE DONT RELEASE YET. Cashworks is an excellent map and you have done a wonderful job, and yet I see you think you have optimized as much as possible! I am sorry to say this is not true :( That's ok though, optimizing is very difficult!

I want to help! I did a quick inspection of your map and at first glance see many possible optimizations! Below are many paintovers to show you some things that are possible.

For starters you really must get a better handle on the overdraw! There are many places where hidden or all but hidden faces are not nodrawed, where props are being rendered and where func_details could be func_lod's. I know what you are thinking, "func_lod is awesome new entity but it has alot of computational overhead!" this is true, however many places in your map could benefit from it's judicious use.

While your hinting is quite good it does leave alot to be desired :( You have forgotten the power of angled hints in many places, and are not splitting high action/view areas and vertical spaces enough! I have done some paintovers that might give you a few ideas.

Also in some places, vis could be controlled better simply by better "filling in" space (especialyl behind displacements) and further hint shaping from there.

Controlling the vertical could be very important to you. XY hint planes and large func_viscluster volumes will group the upper outdoor leaves into more efficient clusters.

Please keep working. You can do it!

Photobucket gallery of paintovers for optimization: http://s136.photobucket.com/albums/q192/MrHappy_photos/please%20optmiize%20cashworks/

[kankle_king]

Wow, I have so much more respect for you mapmakers after looking at that....

[The Political Gamer]

Wow! Mr. Happy that was one of the most informative and well made reviews I have ever seen for a map. For that I give you my thanks!

[Mar]

OH NO SIR PLEASE DONT RELEASE YET. Cashworks is an excellent map and you have done a wonderful job, and yet I see you think you have optimized as much as possible! I am sorry to say this is not true :( That's ok though, optimizing is very difficult!

I want to help! I did a quick inspection of your map and at first glance see many possible optimizations! Below are many paintovers to show you some things that are possible.

For starters you really must get a better handle on the overdraw! There are many places where hidden or all but hidden faces are not nodrawed, where props are being rendered and where func_details could be func_lod's. I know what you are thinking, "func_lod is awesome new entity but it has alot of computational overhead!" this is true, however many places in your map could benefit from it's judicious use.

While your hinting is quite good it does leave alot to be desired :( You have forgotten the power of angled hints in many places, and are not splitting high action/view areas and vertical spaces enough! I have done some paintovers that might give you a few ideas.

Also in some places, vis could be controlled better simply by better "filling in" space (especialyl behind displacements) and further hint shaping from there.

Controlling the vertical could be very important to you. XY hint planes and large func_viscluster volumes will group the upper outdoor leaves into more efficient clusters.

Please keep working. You can do it!

Photobucket gallery of paintovers for optimization: http://s136.photobucket.com/albums/q192/MrHappy_photos/please%20optmiize%20cashworks/

I'd also like to the say the same. There has been drastic improvement and by average FPS has doubled, but in many action intensive areas I tend to lag a bit. Any noticeable lag on a mid-high range PC will surely be noticeable on a low end and the low end base for TF2 is huge. So please optimize it.

For reference I got a FPS of 20 before RC, 40 on the RC, but it does drop to 30 some times. I get an FPS of 65 on all Valve and most fully optimized custom maps. (I set my FPS max limit to 65)

[eerieone]

@Mr. Happy:
Don´t worry, not releasing yet :) there´s an rc2 coming

I´ve done much for that with working with occluders (thx andysss456), which now effectively kills the models past a corner which were drawn beforehand.

About your func_lod proposals :)
i know this func_lod bastard too well, and believe me, i func_lod whatever possible and get rid of props to be able to afford another lod-entity
tricky thing about lod is, stickies don´t stick to them, so making geometry the player uses func_lod makes a demos life unpleasant
putting a block-bullet brush over it won´t help either since they just don´t stick to brush-entities

i will surely try out the hint-setups you provided, since i´m no real expert on them

viewdistances... yes some might be shorter, it´s a try and error, i personally see every too short viewdistance in every map and they bother me much, i just don´t like things appearing out of thin air...

so, no worries, the optimization part is still underway :)
thx for the giant effort on putting together those screens, they will certainly come to good use, i promise

eerie out

[MrTwoVideoCards]

I'd have to say that occluders are fairly expensive, I've never used 1, and I've never honestly needed one. Heck Valve doesn't even use occluders anymore.

Mainly though I agree with everything Happy has mentioned, there is a load of visleafs in the area that can be simplified. Moreover you need to keep an eye out for your texture budgets.

I haven't checked on this within the map myself, but I feel that the world budget might be a little too high. That, alongside lightmap usage of the texture memory budget. Areas that hardly receive any light can be turned into scales of 32.

[eerieone]

it´s not that i overuse them, i use them at the big turning points like after cp1, at the bottom of the hill, at cp3 and the big building at cp4
it surely can´t be more expensive to process if a player can see it than to actually having to render 20 props

i´m pretty sure valve is using occluders, i can see them in the visgroups, i think that they don´t get decompiled correctly, therefore we don´t see them in the vmf

[MrTwoVideoCards]

it´s not that i overuse them, i use them at the big turning points like after cp1, at the bottom of the hill, at cp3 and the big building at cp4
it surely can´t be more expensive to process if a player can see it than to actually having to render 20 props

i´m pretty sure valve is using occluders, i can see them in the visgroups, i think that they don´t get decompiled correctly, therefore we don´t see them in the vmf

Wait wat? Your're post was confusing. The point is that Vis leafs control what's visible in a single leaf, therefore ironically yeah they could probably see 20 props.

More importantly though concentrate on your texture budgets. Use commands like +show_texturebudget.

[eerieone]

I meant 20 props extra which shouldn´t be visible because they are behind a corner
i´ll have a look into the texturebudget, didn´t bother with that so far, thx

[eerieone]

i´ve set up the hints as you proposed, but the framerate sunk to 50-60 at the gates and did not help with the visleaf-issues, i´m reverting to the previous hint-setup
sometimes less hint are more effective than a complicated hint-setup

[Tyker]

http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/161/feedback.jpg

I was stuck here for about 2 minutes, because the cart kept getting stalled.
I couldn't move around the kart, and I couldn't crouchjump over it. I think removing the beam I encircled removes this problem, but I'm not sure.

[gustav]

Take a look: http://picasaweb.google.pl/szarydegrey/CashworksRc#
Some screenshots with comments.

[taraph75]

We have your map on our rotation and while playing the other day, several of us got stuck between some rocks (tried to jump up on the rocks, slid down and couldn't get out)

Here's a screenshot, it was near the 3rd cap, hopefully you will recognize it. :)

[Don]

Ever noticed that last red spawn door was just.. not opening, ever?

http://i43.tinypic.com/r20t2f.jpg

[Void]

It's a visual bugs on some Computers. Happened to me on Strata once and no one said anything.

[DontWannaName]

On the last point, a blu sniper can stand just right to shoot red coming out of spawn by the long window hallway. At the end its an easy headshot for snipers on the balcony, any way to cover that area for red?

[Phobos]

Hey eerie, I know that Premuda is your new baby now, but what happened to RC2 of Cashworks? Didn't you want to release it last weekend? I guess good things take their time.

Also, the blue custom hologram looks blurry, it is very hard to read the backwoods logging union writing. Any way to "sharpen" it up?

[eerieone]

tidying up and compiling tonight :)

[The Political Gamer]

Whats new in RC2?

[eerieone]

no big changes anymore, fps-optimization mainly, final vault explosion by jive turkey, minor spawntime-adjustments

[Big Lou]

Nice work, I'm definitely going to give this a try.

May I ask? What software did you use to make the 360 videos?

[eerieone]

the software was:
hugin --> imports pictures and stitches them
pano2qtvr --> makes a jpg to a quicktime-vr mov-file

both freeware, just google

[Steff0o]

nice work, i've found a few very little bugs:
- If you are a scout you stop pushing the cart by double jumping..
- http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb188/brederpic/pl_cashworks_rc0000copy.jpg

[eerieone]

can´t clearly see where you are on the screenshot :(

standing on the cart and doublejumping causes the cart to stop because you jump out of the triggerbrush around the cart

[Phobos]

no big changes anymore, fps-optimization mainly, final vault explosion by jive turkey, minor spawntime-adjustmentsSo basically, RC2 is going to be the last version of cashworks?

[eerieone]

nope, there´s gonna be a pl_cashworks_final

since i had to resort to func_occluders for optimization, i hope they play out well
but i´ve read some sources that say they aren´t good for multiplayer and some tell there is absolutely no problem with them

that´s why i still want to have the _final available if anything goes terribly wrong :)

[Void]

Well, just be sure to get a final out before Valve finishes making updates!

[FlavorRage]

You should update the "Sewer" exit of the blue spawn with sawmill's "wet" ground textures :D

[NoHeroes]

For whatever reason, since the sniper update, both b3 and RC versions crashed our Payload Extreme server everytime they came up (with not an error message to be found in the error logs). To the dismay of my players, I was forced to remove them.

I wish I had more info to give you, but I simply could not track down the problem.

[Arhurt]

Man I always love when cashworks comes up in the server.

Keep up the good work man, can't wait to play this new version.

[eerieone]

can´t tell you the reason for the crashes, i would have guessed entity overlow, but there are plenty of servers (http://www.game-monitor.com/search.php?search=Cashworks&type=map&game=tf2)running it stable :/

[The Political Gamer]

can´t tell you the reason for the crashes, i would have guessed entity overlow, but there are plenty of servers (http://www.game-monitor.com/search.php?search=Cashworks&type=map&game=tf2)running it stable :/
One is running A5. :lol:

[Fearlezz]

One is running A5. :lol:

Haahaha thats sweet :D

[eerieone]

yeah, and it´s a cashworks only server running the a5 :(

[Delusion's Beta]

Well, the fact 10 servers are running the RC version suggests that there isn't a widespread problem with it.

[taraph75]

can´t clearly see where you are on the screenshot :(


Is this directed at me? I said between 2nd and 3rd points, but now I realize it's almost to 4th point. where you have to pass underneath the metal bridges and stuff, there's some rocks in the area right before the cap point. They're on the left side if you're pushing the cart. Those are the rocks I'm talking about.

[eerieone]

RC2 out

it´s on the US/EU/Redirect, so, enjoy
i would love to host a gameevent, but i´m mostly unavailable for a week now, but maybe after that.
friend of mine, who actually has to run everything on lowlow told me framerates improved noticably, so i take that as a good sign

i will monitor rc2 for one week or so, make minor adjustments after that, and then finally finally final

thx for the patience and support to everyone :)

DOWNLOAD (http://forums.tf2maps.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=1718)

___________________

PL_CASHWORKS_RC2

sry for the long delay, was pretty busy

FIXES:
* once again framerates via func_occluder
* added final fx-explosion by jive turkey
* added 3d-eagle-prop by Nik replaced eagle-texture
* readjusted vault-explosion-sound by Tomster
* slightly reduced respawntime for red to defend cp3&4
* changed ammopack at cp3 to a full-ammo-pack
* changed some visuals at construction site
* slight visual changes on building 03
* tons of minor visual bugs corrected
* big crate near cp4 is now accessable without having to duckjump, just walk in
* added ammo-pack there to support defensive structures at that point

[Pianodan]

Just found a minor glitch. If you follow the tracks from the 3rd point to where they go indoors, and then go through the door on the left next to the big sawblade, then turn right:

You see some boxes under a warning sign. However, if you take a step backwards, the boxes disappear. I took some screenshots, but I hope this description is good enough that I don't have to bother converting them from .tga and posting them somewhere.

[pitto]

Similar issue with a disappearing cone next to the saw conveyor belt between cp 1 and 2

[kankle_king]

Played last night, was great. Seems the FPS issues are gone, no one complained or anything :P Really have to give you props for such a fun, dynamic map. Hall of Fame right here

[DontWannaName]

I got some small nitpicks...

1. I dont think its possible for the cart to go over that much dirt :P

2 and 3. Just grass going into stuff.

One last thing, I have found that Red never has a chance to guard the middle area after the 2nd point where it goes through the building. I always see it as a given to blue. I dont really know if thats on purpose or if there is a way to give red a chance there since its when Red and blue change spawns.

[eerieone]

the grass, meh, i know, but its so hard to manage it not going through planks :/

blu is supposed to be able to push the cart without being encountered too much, it´s a buffer to give red a bit time to get back in position at cp3

[kankle_king]

Gotta bump b/c you people need to love this map like we do :P

[Zanpa]

I liked to jump on the bridge through that window, however, it isn't possible anymore...

Well, it isn't possible since a long time ago, but I liked it :D

http://uppix.net/4/4/9/22d10170c95134c0e1414214b4630t.jpg (http://uppix.net/4/4/9/22d10170c95134c0e1414214b4630.jpg)

[drpepper]

this is played EXTENSIVELY on the reddit server. see www.reddit.com
Its a large community so your map has gotten a lot of play there. When it comes up on a vote, it ALWAYS wins. this should tell you something.

I have not noticed any problems with it and i find it really balanced.
Hope it goes final soon.

[eerieone]

goes final soon :)

about the windows, i need to make them higher, since valve changed something about the hitboxes of the player afaik, so we are too fat to fit through :/

[Tyker]

Found some things playing on 2f2f:
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/1664/26346398.jpg This looks weird. It does fade out when moving further away, but from here it looks weird.
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/8514/58341922.jpg Textures not aligned.
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/2420/47372772.jpg There is no mine or mineshaft around here! Just nitpicking there though.

[Sgt.Sausage]

Almost final great work, i have recently got back into cashworks and been playing rc2 and i dont really have any complaints.

Keep it up

[MrTwoVideoCards]

Good job, though the eagle model is a step away from optimizing rather than a step forward. Plus I think players won't really care about it being a texture face or model.

[Sgt.Sausage]

I found a few bugs on reds final spawn door that i have scene before.

These happened to different days, the spawn by the vault on final point for red, the door got stuck half way so you could see outside, and from some angles the skybox. Also a different time it got stuck at a 45 degree angle tilting left.

Otherwise it looks like rc2 has fixed most things. Great work.

[Zanpa]

I found a few bugs on reds final spawn door that i have scene before.

These happened to different days, the spawn by the vault on final point for red, the door got stuck half way so you could see outside, and from some angles the skybox. Also a different time it got stuck at a 45 degree angle tilting left.

Otherwise it looks like rc2 has fixed most things. Great work.

I just wanted to post this ;)
http://uppix.net/6/c/4/ecfdae60602d08409583a91c603e0t.jpg (http://uppix.net/6/c/4/ecfdae60602d08409583a91c603e0.jpg)
http://uppix.net/a/c/f/579bb1b18a198ab3cadc070d80adet.jpg (http://uppix.net/a/c/f/579bb1b18a198ab3cadc070d80ade.jpg)

And even when it's closed, you can see a blue line under it (skybox).
http://uppix.net/a/c/d/218a3d1e29e25a10756d3e99c4636t.jpg (http://uppix.net/a/c/d/218a3d1e29e25a10756d3e99c4636.jpg)

And also, sticky bombs can stick on the door of BLU's forward spawn.
http://uppix.net/b/e/b/7b907664014ac563186a25fdcb936t.jpg (http://uppix.net/b/e/b/7b907664014ac563186a25fdcb936.jpg)
http://uppix.net/7/7/1/dba8cb9e8dde9d337a560f669dd1at.jpg (http://uppix.net/7/7/1/dba8cb9e8dde9d337a560f669dd1a.jpg)

I am supposed to be there ?
http://uppix.net/6/7/a/fb3815e12dd8ddc16c48f234f9628t.jpg (http://uppix.net/6/7/a/fb3815e12dd8ddc16c48f234f9628.jpg)
Imho, it's not overpowered. I'd say keep it, but you might want to clip this area anyway.


Unrelated : I love this bridge.
http://uppix.net/f/c/1/dad250d7914dfdc149b239f19b6dbt.jpg (http://uppix.net/f/c/1/dad250d7914dfdc149b239f19b6db.jpg)

The final area of Cashworks must be where I had all the funniest moments in this game : the bridge and the hallway, the death pit...

Going final soon ? :)

[Tyker]

I found 2 more things:
First screenshot: rope going through the building. Also rope going straight up through a metal cap.
Second screenshot: Whenever I look down there and move, it seems like I get pushed and pulled around. No idea what might cause it.

[Fazer]

There is a minor glitch in the first area, where the blu spawn.

If you're facing the spawn, on the right is a sentry spot and planks. If you jump on the planks and then jump again, you will see what is behind the short wall - http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/7113/plcashworksrc20000.jpg

There is no road behind the truck, only dark surface. You could extend the road a little so it would look more natural.

(btw I posted the same thing on FPS Banana and Steam forum earlier)

[Junge]

bad clipping at this spot, it's hard to double-jump to the bridge
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/7113/plcashworksrc20000.jpg

the house and the stone to the right both look odd.
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/5723/plcashworksrc20006.jpg

unintended demo-spot
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/1213/plcashworksrc20011.jpg

demo above the crosshair
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/1786/plcashworksrc20009.jpg

two powerfull demo-spots. maybe you should remove them.
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/7873/plcashworksrc20003.jpg

http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/5554/plcashworksrc20010.jpg

all screenshots are from rc2

[Sgt.Sausage]

http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/2127/plcashworksrc20001.jpg

Their is a white line that flickers when you walk down that hallway. Its about midway up the stairs.

[eerieone]

giant merci for those, will get on it

you´re not supposed to be able to jump directly, use the support-structure at the wall as tiny ledge
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/7113/plcashworksrc20000.jpg

[x14u2cx]

I was just playing on the noheroes server and they were saying cashworks was being removed due to some issues that they were having, one player in particular said it was crashing while full, this seems to be a problem with rc2 itself.

Also while they were chatting about it they all stated on how beautiful the map was and how well it played, many of them wanted it back on the rotation as soon as it could be so i figured id bring it to your attention.

[Tyker]

Found some more minor things:
Screen one: 2 props in one. I can see why you did it, but it does give the double texture phasing alot.
Screen two:
Misaligned stairs. Yes, it is nitpicking, but it just looks weird when there are only 3 blocks not aligned correctly on both sides.
Screen three:
I was using this as a sniper position, and I noticed alot of bouncing around. It's probably noclipped already, but I think you better look at it again.
Screen four:
A toolblack left from a previous window?

[firething11]

This is by far my favourite custom made map, maybe even out of all the maps. Even once I'd learnt the concept of official and custom maps, I still though this map was official for a long time. I have no criticisms.

[I-Fling-Poo]

I've already asked you if you should be able to build here (you said yes).

But there's still a clipping problem. Not clipping exactly (sorry, not a mapper), as building up there is fine. It's that the sentry can fire through the floor (pipes). Makes for a nasty (and funny!) surprise when the other team comes by.

The opposite is true as well, the other team and fire up through the floor/pipes and destroy the buildings. Last time I build up there a smart demoman from the other team figured it out and stuck stickybombs under the pipes and destroyed everything.

Anyhow, the ability to fire/shoot through the pipes needs to be fixed I think.

Probably goes without saying, but Cashworks is my favorite custom map!

Poo

[Manta_firefly]

Logging on here just to give my opinions here, purely about the functional aspects of this map (Based on observations on a 24 man server with critvoting, classlimits and a decently skilled playerbase). Aesthetically I think this map is absolutely beautiful, perhaps too much as it really hurts the frame-rate of a lot of the players.

Anyway, down to business.

The opening zone is actually something of a triumph of design as you have made an open space that isn't just a sniper-whoring grounds due to well placed rocks and other cover. This play quality however somewhat declines when play nears the first point, as it is essentially one spam-happy chokepoint and can be very difficult to dislodge RED from if they have a decent teleporter/sentry setup in there, even if BLU has taken the first point. All this really needs is some alternate route into this area for BLU (Perhaps one of the high up balconies on BLU's side to penetrate the wall over to red's side, above their first spawn).

Once this gets finally broken we get to the snake-like downhill section. And again this flows quite well for BLU due to the height advantage and overlooking balconies. RED has trouble defending on this downhill section and generally has to dig in around the corner over the second point itself, facing attacks from front and back thanks to that secondary route behind point 2 you've made. To be honest, I can't really complain about this arrangement as it is part of the map's character.

The third section is rather more interesting, albeit somewhat daunting to players unfamiliar with the map layout as it has lots of secondary routes twisting about the place around the track, ultimately culminating in the doorway over the 3rd point, which is where the engineers always seem to love placing their stuff, for obvious reasons. I don't think I've ever seen a game where RED defends this point successfully yet as it seems that red has a longer walk to the action that BLU, in spite of much longer respawn times.

I'm in two minds about the final area, while I feel that there are a few powerful sentry locations in there, and that BLU's approaches to the zone are long and dangerous (The cover on the bridge is only a temporary shelter from sniper fire), I also feel that a last point should be hard, because assault maps like this need to scale in difficulty for them to make sense and have a proper sense of achievement. All I can really say about it is that there is no real safe and useful place for a BLU engineer to set up close to this battle, but a teleporter is essential to BLU to have the numbers to beat RED on the last point.

Basically I'm happy with the map as it stands with the minor exception of point 1.

[Pc_Madness]

Is this ever going to become final eerieone? :p

[Sgt.Sausage]

Is this ever going to become final eerieone? :p

Eventually.............
Yah he said he is, i think a few pages back.

[gamemaster1996]

Should be it's a map that deserves to be taken up by valve.
It is probably my dad's favourite custom map and he focuses purely on playing :)
I also enjoy it alot and it is amazing.

[Koushiro]

This is one of the most played maps on my regular server -- third behind Gold Rush and Badwater -- and for good reason: it's a great map, and the end is fantastic. It's pretty well balanced and I have no real issues with how it plays, but there are a few minor things that I've noticed that may be unintentional:

1. There seems to be a rogue playerclip running from here (http://imgur.com/M1m3Q.jpg)...
2. All the way across to here (http://imgur.com/Abfbh.jpg).
3. This is more likely intentional, but you can safely jump down to here (http://imgur.com/nacAV.jpg).
4. Only thought of this just now so no pic, but you can shoot into a corner of BLU's first spawn from the middle setup gate.

Love the map, and best of luck with this and your future work.