Comments

I finished it last Friday.
Probably the best VR game available right now (though overall not my favorite VR game, that would be A Fisherman's Tale).

Non-spoiler review but I still reveal important things about the game. Avoid if you must.
+Some amazingly designed environments, with a technical+artistic quality only rivaled by a handful of games like Dishonored 2.
+It was awesome to see City 17 again and recognize high-poly version of the old props. So cool.
+The last level was amazing. It's difficult to find words to describe it. Wish the whole game had been as inventive or poignant. But I understand the reasons.
+Gunplay was solid and the firefights were a highlight. At times I actually believed I was exchanging real fire. Never had such a real VR moment before.

-The cast is very limited. Like literally a handful of characters only. You meet more people in the first 10 minutes of HL2 than in this whole game. Felt like a huge step back.
-Solitary experience. It's mostly you, the environment, the monsters and a voice in a headset. A voice in a headset is fine, but it's not better for being in VR. The face-to-face meetings with NPCs were either great or amazing. Just too few!
-A game played only "on foot". Don't expect a cool train ride. In fact don't expect any "feeling of travel" like the airboat or car sections of HL2. There's nothing here. You are always moving at the same speed throughtout all the environments, minus an eleveator or forklift here and there. Step back in the franchise.
-Some small technical issues, such as metrocops not reacting to objects being thrown, pigeons flying right through one of them in a particular sequence (always happens) and a slight lack of polish compared to original HL2, even if the assets look amazing.
-Lack of melee combat. Having a broomstick and not being able to defend yourself with it is always disappointing.

It's an amazing game. Has some of the best moments in the HL franchise, in VR and gaming in general, but overall it feels like it plays it too safe and doesn't do enough of what the medium offers in terms of events. Interactions are fine and player agency is great. I just wished you could witness more things going on around you, as Half-life has always done via scripted sequences and choreographed scenes. It could've used two or three times the amount of those.

Is the error message related to the files "fallingliquid_bg1" or "fallingliquid_bg1_widescreen" ?
Both are included so maybe the files were corrupt in your download. I can't be sure.
If checking that or re-downloading doesn't help, you can always extract the materials, models, bsp and sound folder into your Ep2 folder structure. For it to work in Ep2 though, you need to set this parameter in the console before loading the map. Otherwise I think it won't load.

r_hunkalloclightmaps 0

An Ep2 version is underway. Almost ready in fact.

That's a known bug which hasn't been fixed. Doesn't happen too often though.
If you haven't, load the map rq_vista manually from the console when you reach that point.

Habboi, I wasn't around when Playbus released this version, so I don't know exactly how the testing process took place. But thanks for the things you spotted! I'll be sure to collect all this info an relay it him.
The oil cans are used to open several stuck doors in the Vort hideout in case you have become hostile to them and can't follow them around as you would otherwise.
Playbus wasn't too happy with the third map either. There were other plans for it but engine limitations killed it. Most of the lightmaps and texture resolutions are also due to engine limitations.
I think Random Quest could really shine with CryEngine2 if we could do what we know how to do in Hammer

Review

DM_bulk is indeed a success if we consider the premise under which it was built.Using only the HL wad, the mapper was able to create a deathmatch level which still looks visually original, and that's not exactly easy. Part of it is thanks to where those textures have been placed (brushwork) and how we get to see them (lighting). While keeping a good performance across the whole map, it's always full of eye candy and keeps a good lighting contrast where needed.The texturing, however, does have occassional flaws, most regarding alignment across curved faces (which stand out due to the quality of the overall texturing) and sometimes it's obvious where the null texture has been applied. In terms of architecture, the brushwork is clean and full of detail. The layout, however, isn't as impressive. While it does work (and offers a lot of potential for close-range combat), we still feel that the map is composed of little to medium sized areas connected by hallways. They look great because as we said, every room has been carefully treated with the right amount of detail. But we could miss some bigger reference area or more overlapping of rooms. It would've required less detail in those places to reduce r_speeds (which wouldn't help the map in its "texturing" contest), but we would've ended up with better gameplay. If a map is stripped of it's fine detail and brushwork and left with a very basic layout, it should still be interesting. Ambience is great throughout the whole map, with your typical HL machinery ambience, computer sounds etc. It would be perfect if some env_sounds had been added to change the echo in some of the rooms.Gameplay is fun for close-range combat as we mentioned, and there's even some room to use the RPG if you're careful. Some decisions of clipping potentially strategic places when it would be obvious a player would reach them is a negative point. Talking about the layout again, the multi-height encounters are too few, and we end up fighting each other almost always at the same level. That makes the use of snarks and grenades a bit less effective.

Bottom Line

A nicely crafted map, which looks fresh considering it only uses standard HL textures. The detail and ambience are spot on. The nature of the layout gives us a map with a correct gameflow and overall nice combat, yet the potential for deathmatch battles in all three dimensions hasn't been considered enough to make the map stand out in that sense.

I really like the theme. My PC is old so it struggles with so many props over reflecting water, but nevertheless it should play nice.

This map has quite a nice set of texture and other custom materials that help us take a break from the default HL2 themes. The brushwork is clean, tidy, and lighting enhances it a lot.
In terms of connectivity, there are quite a few nice touches such as improvised planks that enhance the layout in a believable way, giving players a lot of options. While the map might feel small, there's still plenty of room to move around and hide, which IMO makes it a good choice for a small LAN party.
Among the things I didn't like so much was the darkness in quite a few places , the lack of sound ambience, and some minor things like invisible clip brushes.
Overall 83/100 = 5 stars

Review

Utopium is indeed an intriguing place, with a well crafted theme and good atention to detail.The first thing you noticed in this surreal place is use of important landmarks, such as the main tower, which establish an easy way or orientating players across an otherwise open and uniform area. What I mean by uniform is that the theme is carried through the map without significant changes, which is both good and bad. While it shows the author really accomplished the task of creating this world with a set of texturing and lighting rules, the fact that it always looks the same (good) way and that we have a symmetrical layout would eventually become a problem.In terms of architecture, everything is nicely crafted, curved where it has to, and beautifully textured (Once again, the only problem with the textures would be that there aren't more of them to distinguish more areas).Some people might think the theme of ruins, stone and bricks are a strange combination to be found floating in space with curved shapes. To those of us who have played UnrealTournament maps, we know exactly that the map wants to create that type of contrast.Things like the lamps and volumetric light effects in the middle of the map are certainly worth mentioning. The type of sky and lighting really bring the rest of the map together in that sense. Together with the sounds, those elements constitute the biggest chunk of the ambience. The only problem with ambience (just as it the problem was with textures) is that the single-room type of gameplay makes us be stuck with the exact same sounds most of the time.Part of the gameplay idea of this map is creating a single arena area in which the fragging would take place. There are different height levels players can move around in, but the whole layout really lacks some cover in places. It wouldn't be fair to associate this map with a killbox, but unfortunately it slightly shares that negative point. The symmetrical nature of the map we mentioned before also takes a bit away from the layout, and means that most of the spatial situations in the map are mirrored.

Bottom Line

Dm_utopium is a perfect example of how to combine a beautiful and well crafted theme with a fun layout for a fragfest. The biggest problem is that even if it works on the big scale (theme) and the small scale (fine detail), it lacks some attributes in layout and variation to ensure lengthy gameplay sessions before players start feeling "déjà vu". In other words: All the elements are there, but they could be arranged in different ways to really get the best of it.

I understand. What I really meant was that lighting in a horror map can be used for more than just letting the player see. I know Source doesn't have real time lighting (which would open up a whole field of work in this genre, such as dynamic shadows moving around), so it's kind of hard.
Also, I had to noclip out of some places, as I had no idea what I had to do to move on. For example, the outside courtyard with the 'moon' and the monster coming out of the side halls...

I could spend ages writing about what I just played. I think the presentation, ambience and surreal events were great, and it's interesting to see how most of it was pulled off with elements from the standard HL2 material.
This mod really delivers in those little details, creepy events and OMG moments of surprise. Some of the custom materials and the way they were used were definately interesting.
Although the mapping has improved over your previous work (I'm thinking "The Mansion 2"), it's still sort of irregular. While texturing and entity placement is good, I feel the lighting in some of the areas is weak. There's a lot of dark/bright contrast games you can do with Source, and I don't think you used that enough. I understand horror maps use the flashlight, but It'd be interesting if the lighting was a bit better in some places.
In terms of architecture, I think it was interesting throughout all the maps, but in bigger areas some more detail was needed. The caves towards the end were kind of bad in terms of absolutely flat rock surfaces in some of the passages.
Gameplay was interesting with all that was going on, but one thing I missed was some game_text telling me what I was doing. I kept picking up keys without knowing which of the locked doors it would work on. It makes sense for Gordon to not know anything, but players don't mind a hint here and there. Combat was great, and It's releaving to not fight the Combine.
Good job overall.

I took a look at the map ingame, and the places where the terrain met the walls seemed to be just like the screenshots shows...

I already told you in the map thread to fix the edges of the terrain, and even edited a screenshot to show you how. You didn't bother to do so.
In your map de_barren, I told you to give more variation to the height of the walls in yours maps. You barely bothered to do so. You really need to expand the visual area beyond the gameplay area if you want any realism in a map. And you don't need 3D skyboxes. It's possible with the hl1 engine.
The map is better than your previous work, but It would really help if you took our mapping advice a bit more seriously

Wonderful, original concept which actually looks good and would work for DM. I liked the card that was balancing on the edge of the box tower.
My only two complaints: max_viewable distance runs out and things dissapear. The back side texture of the cards should have a frame in the outermost edge. When you have a row of cards with the backside showing, it's not obvious they are separate cards. You can't clearly see the limit.

I would rate it. If I had CS installed like I did 6 years ago. Now these type of maps just don't do it for many players today. If you enjoyed making it, it's certainly a positive thing. But don't trust many people will be excited by this type of maps. I say the lighting is OK and suits the dust theme, which shows you actually care about mapping, unlike some people. Try your own original theme. That's the only reason (IMO) why someone would want to release a CS map in 2007.

I'm not trying to be mean, but your last sentence "If you gona ask if its full bright. no stop being stupid." means you are unhappy with the lighting and you're aware that it doesn't really offer much visual contrast.
The screenshot alone tells me this layout is a solid improvement over your previous cs maps, as I see height variation, areas blended with each other etc. I don't have CS installed so I can't make a proper review.
Keep it up!

You could've waited until you had a screen to put the map in the vault... Without a screenshot, people might not want to download the map at all! (The fact that it's an aim map doesn't help either).
The way you treat your Map Vault entry (screenshot/s, map description) usually gives people an idea of how much you really care about the map.
And honestly, in this case it doesn't look like much...
Think about it.

The lighting and setting look more convincing than 90% of the aim maps released in this site. And I bet it took less time to make it.
It could use more props for cover, and maybe some cables

The thing is, just because this is an aim map, doesn't mean the screenshot can't look like it belongs to any other type of map. This map is a lesson for aim mappers. A gameplay style doesn't mean you need symmetry and box layout with unrealistic structures built just because the map needs them. You can adapt those elements to a believable setting and have good gameplay AND good looks.

This concept has a lot of potential, but technically this map suffers in almost every department.
-Some squashed textures, small textures tiled over big surfaces...
-Use of bright point lights instead of texlights, strange shadows...
-Brush alignment problems, lots of undetailed elements...
-And of course, layout. Look at this picture, and you will see that the colored area is too big and adds little interest to the map.
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/9329/hkmtrxa7.jpg

After taking a look around, not only do my initial points still stand, but I could add many others. I don't recall saying anything stupid before, btw.

-The map is bigger than I tought, and throught the whole area, the sand is completely flat (I'm not counting the inclination of the areas, I'm talking about small variations to make it actually look like terrain).
-Lighting looks no better than it did in the many screenshots I had seen.
-Layout might work, but the map is so empty that many people wouldn't play plast 3 three rounds. There seems to be some kind of symetry in certain areas, which takes away half the interest of many areas.
-It's OK if you go for walls that have the same height, but It has to show you did so on purpose. The dust theme has more variation and many different buildings here and there.
-If you go for the aztec theme, it won't change much, since the problem is in the map's simplicty. I said it before. You can still do a great map with a limited palette if you work hard enough. A map with simple architecture, simple lighting, simple layout and simple palette will never be an indication of effort
We're not discouraging you, since we give you tips on what doesn't work. A personal recommendation would be to avoid the cliched Cstrike minimal maps, since they are kind of hated in TWHL...

-It's hard to guess where the sunlight is coming from.
-If it's for CS, it could use the de_dust sky instead of the New Mexico desert.
-Some of the arches look unnatural for the material.

I don't really know if you should consider it a complete map. There are still tons of things you could do with the dust theme. There are so many maps with de_dust textures, that it takes a lot to make one special.
I don't know if people appreciate maps with this theme. I certainly don't after so many years...

Seems reasonable.
In that case, perhaps it should look a bit less rigid and perfect. Maybe different metal parts, something to make it look more improvised and rushed instead of looking so correctly assembled.

About the beams, you could always choose any color to paint the concrete!

It looks much better now. Now light bounces the way it should, and the floodlights make interesting effects getting into the buildings.

I made some screenshots in Snarkpit style with some architectural observations you can use in the future. They don't really affect the gameplay.

http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/5089/dmdetritusv20001ur4.jpg

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/2058/dmdetritusv20002iy9.jpg

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/5811/dmdetritusv20003fo9.jpg

http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/8765/dmdetritusv20000uw7.jpg

http://img250.imageshack.us/img250/1857/dmdetritusv20004ht5.jpg

Something went wrong with the lighting, as there seems to be no bounce at all. Most of the shadows are pitch black as if you had compiled a fast RAD (after a bad VIS compile maybe?)
The layout works, but the visuals (and maybe ambience sound) need more work: Besides getting the light to compile right, you could use some more colors besides the usual whites and yellows, or at least make the white lights a bit more blue and the yellow ones a bit more orange.
Texturing seems ok in most places, but some of those textures (inside one of the buildings) where made to tile only horizontally and look bad when the bottom of the texture appears again on top. I would also change the tiles on the stairs, as they don't fit perfectly and end up being cut.
That's all I can say for now. It definitely has potential!

You know, there are endless possibilities to expand the episodes.
For example, the cell door opens only to reveal that your cell is just one of many little boxes inside a huge Combine citadel-type structure (just like Neo waking up from the Matrix).
Another possible scenario would be a flying rebel fortress running away from some Combine gunships while trying to doge huge towering icebergs with low visibility due to fog.

The storyline is indeed good, and the voice acting really adds a lot of novelty to the experience. While I like the concept of this alternate reality, I wouldn't really mind if it looked better. As Highlander said, there are a lot of places where it's hard to see, as there is very little lighting contrast in the areas (for example the last urban parts near the end).
The little puzzles (the zombie one, the activation of the energy path) are the things that make the gameplay special. Shooting the Combine later on is not as fun as when HL2 was released. Unfortunately the only other alternative Valve gave us are headcrab/zombie combinations or antlions.
My advice is to go for something wilder in the next installment. The three episodes you've made so far prove that it's possible to make an interesting and surreal story with normal HL2 elements. Think about better lighting, weirder architecture and materials, different monster situations etc.

Ryo made a few buildings for HL1 and HL2, but I'm not sure if the downloads are available. Check his blog >> http://archlife.skynetblogs.be/

As for the source file, as I said in the readme I can't release it...

Ok, it finally worked.

+Great ambience. It really looked like an underwater facility.
+Good textures. They suited the theme perfectly.
+Cool props. The minisubs were very detailed and unique for a HL map.
+Good lighting, areas are lit differently and each has a unique mood.

-Performance was really bad in some places. r_speeds jumped to 1500 and 6 fps because of the lower texture scale you used and the complexity of some objects.
-Connectivity is sometimes poor. Some rooms are just dead ends and there's little choice as to how to enter or leave a room. Not good for gameflow.
-I think you used a ripple effect with my animated textures without giving me credit

Overall, I think this theme works better for singleplayer. Players won't focus on the great detail while fragging, but they will care about framerates.

I still get errors, no matter what version winzip/rar I use...

"Unexpected End of File" with the zip file

The sad part is that we are limited to 2 MB map uploads because we need to leave room for this type of maps

The whole feel of the map is ok, since there a lot of gameplay possibilities and it could be fun. What doesn't convince me is the way you combined aztec textures with this sort of architecture. The yellow+black stripes and combine glass look weird.
Speaking of architecture, there are things floating in the air which makes the whole thing even less believable (just look at the wooden thing in the screenshot floating over the pillars)
The underground part is too big and too dark in my opinion, and it would only affect gameplay in a negative manner...

Quite nice. It has a lot of interesting details and very good lighting methods. I liked the circular pools with the little waterfalls. Music was also a very nice touch.
The HL2 textures look good, but the default water texture you chose is actually horrible...
Some tips.
*When making a waterfall, make the scale of the texture in the Y axis a bit higher, to give it a good distortion and sense of speed.
*When making a multiple-brushed waterfall, use alt+right-click to give each brush the same alignment values. In some parts of the mini-waterfalls, some segments had the water moving in a different direction!

It looks great, at the cost of +5000 wpolys. A good candidate for a Source map, no doubt.
Besides some places where you used the null texture and the void can be seen, texturing is great. (remember to use gl_clear 1 to see what faces have null)
As for the water, I don't really like the bright blue you picked. And my ripple effect is better achieved with scroll textures, as seen in Idol Hunt.

The lighting and ambience is more or less perfect.
I still feel the whole thing could be more detailed in terms of architecture (I'm sort of spoiled by the Combine architecture in Minerva and Episode1) but it still works and the layout suggest good gameplay and flow.

Well, there are some really nice things about this map. Interesting details both in outdoor and indoor areas, and a lot of nice looking textures. I think the layout is great and looks fun. There's a lot of vertical gameplay and a good flow.
I like the fact that you included lots of buildings this time, and it sure makes the whole thing look more real. The terrain looks great once again.

Some textures don't tile properly in the buildings (I think they are meant to be only at floor level and not extended through all the facade), and as in your previous maps, I still feel there are too many textures. Lighting color doesn't unify the whole theme as it did in xdm_capsule2, so some of them look out of place. I can't really tell which ones, it's a overall effect I feel.

Anyway, this is certainly moving in the right direction. Try lots different light enviroment colors before releasing your next map and see if helps in any way.

The tutorials in this site are quite useful, since mapping for Half-life1 is almost the same as mapping for Half-life2.

http://twhl.co.za/wheretogo.php

This theme works better, although the map still shares similarities with the previous one. You should try to add some more building facades on the map borders, because you usually end up having some really tall and long wall as a limit.
Texturing is great, full of detail like the craters in the terrain. Other things look weird, such as the scale door with the police stripes. If you notice, the door handles are above eye-level
I'm not sure about the layout because there doesn't seem to be a lot of cover, the layout is very basic. But hey, if it works for xdm, I don't have a problem with it.

Your textures look nicer in every new map, although as Caboose said, they don't really make a unified theme.
I like the green lighting a lot, I think it makes the map unique and easy to remember. Item placement seems strange. Weapons with a lot of ammo nearby, a bunch of healthkits together... is this for something other than normal deathmatch?
In terms of architecture, the map really suffers. Your textures look convincing, but the enviroment they are in is mostly empty and most surfaces look boring. I think the map is much bigger than needed. Maybe it has to do with the long-range gameplay you had in mind, in which case you kept a good performance level in the map.
Some indoor lights were good, but others seemed redundant (room with the circle-typle texture in the floor tiles)

Having played most of your maps, I think you should concentrate on building smaller rooms and detailing them more, since a lot of areas in your maps end up being too empty.

Cooool. There were some very nice 3D details on the car surface which seem very hard to make. 812 solids should actually be consider a level higher than advanced! (my car had roughly 500-600 solids)
Besides the scale, the only thing I miss is the white stripes these cars usually have on the outside. I think they would make the curved surfaces more visible (some polygons are kind of visually lost because of the uniform texturing)

Two thumbs up!

Can't find e8.wad !!!!

The living plants looked great, moving with the breeze and all, but they were kind of hidden up there. Try including them and giving them more importance in your next map.

I'm not sure if the exact same flame is available, but I do know that you can even add a heat distortion effect. We could also ask Captain P, since he's worked with particle effects before (my Source maps are usually more static)
I'll investigate a bit.

Well, this map certainly works in the small scale of things. There are some pretty nice details, such as cracks in walls, interesting structures, nice lighting fixtures etc. The textures themselves are also good.
However, the way it's all put together doesn't really work. Even if the textures are nice, the stay mostly the same throughout the whole map. Since lighting is also always in the same range of colours, it's really hard to distinguish one part of the map from another. It would also make the map boring to play after a couple of minutes. Think of it as "visual fatigue".
Navigation works in terms of how it's built on a smaller scale (stairs etc), but the layout seems really messy. The frequent use of teleports makes little sense and adds to the confusion. Unless you appear in the central room, of course.
I haven't played the original map, so these problems might not be entirely your fault.

Very cool! If you manage to get the camera stuff working, you could also add a Google Earth pic of the launch site. Maybe you could use the gfx/env maps only for the sky and clouds and make the ground with a 3D skybox. I don't know if it's possible with Spirit...

The dev textures themselves don't make the map have less lag, although having very few materials saves texture memory. Since the map is small, you could use other textures and actually think up a theme for this. Even fy_pool_day has a pool theme.

Anyway, having a properly compiled BSP doesn't mean you have made "a map". It needs much more thought and dedication.
Even if you consider this scenario fun, you won't get much input or positive comments in this site. CS pseudo-maps aren't loved @ TWHL

Quite a monster map. Possibly the biggest hldm map out there.
I think everyone did a great job since there wasn't any noticeable quality decrease while moving from one area to another. I think what makes each area different from the rest is probably lighting. For example, Orpheus' area is brightly lit and Reno's has a dark orange lighting. I think it actually helps in navigation.
Most of the traps were quite good, and would ensure the fun IF you could get an insane number of people to play the map at once. Think "1 vs 1 in Bootcamp" or something like that
In general terms, I don't really like the theme because there isn't one. It's one of those maps with generic HLDM style, like "scary1" and similar maps. It's obvious that it was needed in order to make the collective idea work, but it's a pity that the map is a huge.... gameplay area, instead of something more defined. Brushwork was still very correct throughout most of the map, and visually pleasing in most areas.
Some details are architecturally very strange, but I won't bother commenting them because we are mappers, not architects building real things
I see no big flaws with this map, besides the size making it mostly unplayable. It's definately worth a look and worth a 5 star rating for the effort.

It's hard to judge since almost everything will be retextured. Since the map is so big, you had to use high texture scales which at the moment make the map look plain. I like the fact that you included so many things from the real Hoth base (I didn't expect to be able to enter 'The Falcon'). The bad part about it is that you will need extra work to make them look good.
In terms of lighting, the map needs more variation. Blue lights, some little red emergency lights somewhere... It would be better if you alternate the position of the light sources. Instead of having most of the fluorescent lights in the ceiling, put them next to the floor or in walls (remember my own Hoth map! )
As for layout and gameplay. I would get rid of the hallways or make them much shorter. The film had them, but it would be best if you could just leave them as extra detail: make the player see them but not enter them due to some ceiling collapse, debris etc.)
Keep it up!

Very solid brushwork and clean texturing. Besides some thin and small hallways, the layout looks potentially fun and the turret works fine (although I couldn't manage to use it in 360 degrees :D).
I'm not going to rate it until we actually get to play it, but it's either a 4 or a 5. The textures look clear and detailed, but they might seem dull after some minutes of playing, I'm not sure.
Either way, it's a very good return to the mapping world!

Lovely. One of the few HL1 engine maps I've seen that try to do something different in scale (another example could be Rimrook's "Sunden")
I liked the skybox + fake HDR combination, it worked very well.
The terrain doesn't look exactly realistic, but it kept the r_speeds in perfect numbers, which is a big feat.
I think some of the dead-ends wouldn't be helpful for deathmatch, but the map could still be fun to play (shouldn't you label it for HLDM?).
A minor adjustment you could also make is using masked textures for the cars. I know they don't have 3d wheels because of performance, so transparency is the way to go in my opinion...
Keep it up.