cp_White_Valley

psihomir

L4: Comfortable Member
Mar 17, 2008
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50lfzl.jpg


A 3-stage, 2-CP each map, set in a snowy valley. I'm done with the first 2 stages with both layout & detailing, 3rd stage is being detailed now.

Screenies:


 
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Spike

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Feb 13, 2008
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I can't see the pictures :S
 

The Scientist

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Mar 11, 2008
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Layout looks good. Can't wait to see it after a visual pass. Are you planning on releasing your snowy textures afterwards? God knows that they are greatly needed for TF2.
 

psihomir

L4: Comfortable Member
Mar 17, 2008
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Layout looks good. Can't wait to see it after a visual pass. Are you planning on releasing your snowy textures afterwards? God knows that they are greatly needed for TF2.

Yes, I do :) I will also make grass textures, and probably new rock ones. And blending textures between rock/snow, grass/snow, etc. The current snow is actually some of TF2's dirt coloured white, it worked quite well I think.

Last night we had another test, I think the area in front of B has turned out fun for fights ;) I have sketches for the layout of stage 2, I think I'll begin work on it today.

About the darkness - yes, there are still a few areas that need a little light buff. You should've seen the first alpha - when we tested it, half the people complained they couldn't see jack in some areas - weird, because it looked OK to me and others. One problem I'm facing, is that setting the environment light too high causes the snow to become blindingly white - I mean pure solid white, which is an awful pain to the eyes. So I have to keep it medium and help it with normal lights in a lot of areas :)

Spike, I'll up the pictures somewhere else when I get home.
 
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psihomir

L4: Comfortable Member
Mar 17, 2008
192
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Well... a lot of time with no updates, but I've been busy studying for my exams (bloody linear algebra, engineering rocks :))

But anyway, I've finished all three stages and tested them with my mates a lot... except for the third one, which is kind of fresh and it's only been tested a few times.

I won't post any screenshots or the level itself for now, since I've still got some work to do. For now, I'll wet your appetite with this: http://i29.tinypic.com/otixat.jpg

We'll do a closed test with my friends tonight, and if everything turns out well, I'd want to do a public one, with as many people as possible, before I start detailing the beast. I'll announce the (possible) test here ;)
 

Nineaxis

Quack Doctor
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May 19, 2008
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Wow, looks like a really cool map. Awesome detailing in the buildings. Cliffs look kind of bland though.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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Looking quite nice, efficient use of props, some more on the walls would be nice though (search for "conduit" or just "con" for a nice selection), and possibly thin out those wooden trims lining your brick walls. Also shrink the chicken wire fence texture you've been using, VALVe uses 0.06 i believe. Your cat walks are a bit chunky, 16 units is that? Try atleast 8 i would say.

Reminds me a lot of tfc epicentre, the outside that is.
 

psihomir

L4: Comfortable Member
Mar 17, 2008
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Thank you for the input. Nineaxis - I'm looking into that issue, I know about it :)

grazr, thanks for the tips. I initally went for 8 on the catwalks but they looked rather rickety. I'll try it now that everything else is in place, though. I'm actually doing it like that for stage 2 and we'll see how it turns out. I've decreased the chicken wire's scaling, it definitely looks right now :) And yes, I added a few more wall details after I posted the screenshots. I do have conduits here and there, by the way, they're just not shown on the screens ;)
 

Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
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I think it looks pretty cool. I'd like to see some displacments of snow on everything though. patches ontop of all the roofs, sewer tunnel ends, ect... I think that would add TONS of atmoshpere with little work.

Snow on the ground and walls just doesn't make it look completely convincing. Also, I'd actually make the snow walls rock, just make puffs of snow on top of them. Right now it kindof looks like they just dug a hole in snow then built inside it.
 

psihomir

L4: Comfortable Member
Mar 17, 2008
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Yeah, I'm tinkering with rooftop snow right now. I'm currently thinking about how to implement it - I wonder if displacements would be the right way. The cliffs are already rocks with snow covering their tops - they just look flat and whitish due to the lack of a bumpmap on them, which I'm currently trying to resolve. The "Right now it kindof looks like they just dug a hole in snow then built inside it" comment makes me wonder though - which screenshot are you referring to?

This whole snow thing turned out to be really troublesome, to be honest. A problem I still haven't found a way around, is that having my environment light too bright causes the snow to turn completely white, which is terribly irritating if you look at it for more than 5 minutes. And that's without HDR... A temporary solution I've found was to set the env light just bright enough, but it's not enough in some areas... If you, or anyone, could shed some light on this, I'd be grateful.

Now that I think of it - I don't play CS:S, but does it have cs_office? Or that other snowy map, was it called de_survivor? If they're there, how did their authors solve that snow problem?

Edit: I just found some screenshots of cs_office for CS:S... http://www.games-fusion.net/images/css_office01.jpg

It looks like the same situation - the map is dark, and you can see that the snow is almost white, which means that this was probably the highest brightness they could get without making it completely white.
 
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Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
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As for snow on roofs, I don't think there could be a better way than displacements to do it.
First, they are easier on the engine than brushes or objects (that comes from valve wiki)
Second, it would be real easy to slap in a brush, make the top a displacement then paint a nice rounded mound of snow.
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http://i31.tinypic.com/286wh21.jpg

That's the shot that really made me think it looked like they dug a hole in the snow. Maybe the rocks are grey, but to me that's not enough contrast.
Probably should be the red rocks so the snow really stands apart.
As for realism, I've lived in seveeral places (or visited ) that were red rocks with snow. Sedona,Az, Moab, Ut, parts of Colorado. Snow does happen in deserty climates. The Grabd Canyon is often covered in snow in the winter.
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As for the lighting issue, try a different approach. Obviously you need brighter lighting so players can navigate. If that's washing out the snow maybe the snow itself is too bright.
This sounds wrong but I think it might work.
Make the snow more grey, then bright lights just may wash it out to white.
 

psihomir

L4: Comfortable Member
Mar 17, 2008
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Thanks for the tip on the cliffs. I'll sure try making them red, it actually sounds interesting. The shot you referenced, as I said, needs a little more work exactly on the cliff part :) More specifically, I need to seal them behin the building.

As for the snow itself - it actually is grey right now. Any more than that and it'll look ugly. Take a look for yourself - it's nothing special, I'm using some of TF2's dirt textures and I just changed their colour in PS - I wanted to keep with TF2's visual style and that meant no HL2 snow. I'm currently using 3 snow textures, here's one of them - http://i31.tinypic.com/cq0ef.jpg (of course I downsized it since the original is 1024x1024)
 

Nineaxis

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May 19, 2008
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_AT31877.jpg

There's a good picture. I think it would be really cool to see the basic TF2 desert theme with snow. Would look much more interesting than miles of gray cliffs, at least. :p
 

psihomir

L4: Comfortable Member
Mar 17, 2008
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You know, this is starting to sound better and better :) I looked through dozens of snowy pictures of all kinds before starting with the details, and I somehow got the impression that those grey cliffs would suit it best. But this looks awesome. I can probably use the Dustbowl yellowish light settings with it and see how those affect the snow.

Many thanks to both of you for the idea.
 
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psihomir

L4: Comfortable Member
Mar 17, 2008
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Ok, the new rocks... rock :) You guys were right. They added a ton of atmosphere to the map, along with a proper sunlight. Here's some screenshots from Stage 2:

(for this one, just as a comparison, you can see how it looked before detailing)
before - after
http://i28.tinypic.com/nqzpls.jpg
http://i28.tinypic.com/eik5f.jpg

(no displacement work has been done on the snow yet)
(also, no snow on the rooftops yet, I haven't gotten to that :))
 
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Nineaxis

Quack Doctor
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May 19, 2008
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Wow, looks cool. Still think the white gradient on the top looks wierd. Might be better to just make it look like snow is piled on top of the cliff and buildings than doing the whole white fade thing.