Forum posts

The survey is over, thanks to everyone for taking part!

Thanks to everyone who helped out with the survey...anymore, for anymore?

I don't want to hurt his chances of rehabilitation

Thanks Dimbark, this is just for school.
If you want your critique to go in my report, please put it in the survey. Cheers!

Noooo, comparing me to a kidnapper is completely called for

Well anyone can test the levels, especially now they're more accessible in the Workshop, but I wanted to provide an incentive for this important research. We all love playing games, so I hope this will help everyone in the end.

Haha no boats, just regular BF3 I'm afraid

These are now in the Workshop

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=133686812

Thanks for the support guys!

I really do have a free full game to give away and because it's a code from EA Games, you could always give it to someone else, as it's still valued at $40.

Update: I'm currently trying to get the maps published into the Workshop, so it doesn't look so much like a con :P, but having difficulty for some reason...

Hi Community, I'm doing a research project and need your help!

Please play two Portal 2 maps (Level A & Level B). Then take a simple survey to let me know what you think.
Visit (www.graphicsvsgameplay.com)for instructions.

Thank you and please message me with any questions.
Smokey

p.s. you must play both maps, before completing the survey (only one time allowed)

Thanks Trempler. For about an hour and before validating/reinstalling etc. I was having weird lighting and severe slowness issues. I think it's better now, fingers crossed.
Are you in the G Banana competition too?

Anyone else experiencing difficulty with SDK/CS:GO, thanks to the update?

Hey slow down everyone! (haha) I can't start until the new year :/

Thanks guys

It's only been several years since I logged in (haha), so I'm just getting back into it! Excited about a competition...and congrats to Zeeba for winning the last.

Hi TheGrimReafer, is it okay to use CS:GO?

This will be my first competition, so I wondered if there were other competitions (maybe on other sites), and where can I find previous competition winner entries to benchmark what is expected?

Thanks!

Hey guys, sorry I've been away in the mental hospital for a while. But now I feel rested :P. And ready to get back in to this.
Look I now understand that no one else in the world has been able to make a good version of this map and it definately takes more than one person. So if anyone can make the textures for this map, I already have everything else prepared, so please post back!

If no one shows any interest in this, I'm going to start on the Japanese Penthouse map (from Raven Shield), for CS:S. Which I think would be liked, what do you think?

All HL1 and no Source makes sm0k3y a dull boy

The site admin needs to make an option where you can choose which game you are posting about, like when you upload a map, it displays a (very) small icon to indicate this. As people here seldom mention such things.

100's of members should know this, don't know why they don't like to help out the new guys, again lol.
Basically there is 2 ways of doing this the hard way and the easy way. You can code this in the .vmf itself. Or the easy way of just downloading the game data file / .fgd. I would recomend searching for cstrike-jaxon106.fgd. These files basically dictate what entites/properties you can manage. For some reason they decided to take out alot of the object properties for certain entities such as game_player_equip. And also some of the camera stuff for example. Now again, you could edit the .vmf file under the game_player_equip text using your default cstrike.fgd. But it would be so much easier to hunt down a more comprehensive .fgd such as the above mentioned jaxon one.
Then basically you just assign who gets what. You can take away knives, pistols and give everyone awps for example. This would obviously start off the same, every round. Which should take care of your problem

You guys should check out his site for some of the best maps made for CS:S since it came out. He told me it was his latest map, CS_Cabaret that got him that job and when you see it, you'll know why.

No trouble at all my friend. It's just a linear movement you understand. Not flowing water... But it's real simple, just assign your nodraw brush to func_water_analog and have some kind of triggering mechanism like a button or w/e to make it move, don't forget to put the distance you want it to move etc. Apply your water texture to the top, then place a water_analog entity and env_cubemap (pick brushes for reflection) over the top too and you should be all set.

Is that the one with the old cs_747 textures and brushes? Or maybe the one with a few updated textures inside, but still the same old blocky brushes. I see one server hosting that, with 5 bots on, so obviously not too popular for real peeps.
What I'm actually aiming for is more like the RS version. As cheroke team is working on a better version of the original. Although I think they maybe also stopped working on it, for the obvious reasons, too much work.
Anyway I was wanting to make a more accurate version of a 747. The biggest problem I came across and still haven't really sorted out, is the scale of everything. 1 inch = 1 unit in hammer/xsi. But this is no where near reality and continues to stump me :(. I thought I had the perfect combination, but it's proving very difficult, so I may have to start over on the main bits.

Edit: this is what I'm working on rednik, this & this. A bit different to this.

Well I'm thinking that so much more would be expected out of source. You would have to take it to another level. So many attempts have been made but most have failed. It's a lot of work. I left this map a while back because I was frustrated and too busy to finish it the way I wanted to finish it.
Now I have a bit of free time on my hands I'm going to get back on the bull lol. But what inspired me more was I bought the game Lockdown and saw they had an updated version of their 747 map. And I couldn't believe how bad it was. My half finished version looked better than their outside. Hell they even had to make it a night map just to hide how bad it was. apart from a few new model seats, it wasn't much different from the old version, which is about 5-6 years old now. It almost looked like they used the same textures in some places, but it was worse! Because they didn't bother making a cockpit or even stairs to get to the top first class level. Just a plain ladder lol. So I wondered, were these guys that have all the experience and money under such time constraints that they just skipped this map? Or did they come across the same problems as me, that to make a map of todays standards is very difficult unless you don't mind slow fps.
Either way it kind of made me think, I can at least do better than these guys...

I can do that for you if you want

Sorry guys, left here for a while, but now I'm BACK! Going to start back on this right NOW!

func_water_analog ? This is what I used for my moving water in Glass_War. But maybe you want to do something more complex..

hehe

lol Rotator. Funny you should mention an Elevator, I actually made a few different kinds, another coincidence? Well as it was for CS:S, the physics (or whatever) doesn't work the same as it does for hl2/deathmatch. For example, your screen goes all jerky while going up or down. So I just kind of gave the whole idea up in respect to making a perfect elevator in CS:S.
Anyway that unfinished target map should have all that stuff in? If you really want to go complex I could send you more stuff of what I have, however the complicated track train one wasn't made by me, so I wouldn't want to put that on here in my name and the complex move_linear one with 2 sets of moving doors (all move_linear timed perfect), is something I still might want to work on again. Maybe pm me your msn/yahoo and I can give you links to this stuff on my site...

You're welcome man, I just lost enthusiasm with this a while back and unfortunately I reformatted my computer losing the custom content lol. So I just made a real quick material for the target and just filled in a few gaps here and there. I wanted to do so much more with this, but right now all it's good for is just viewing how the track train stuff works, so >Here< you go & good luck!

You could always try tying your target and its holder to func_movelinear. Then just have a button to make it go backwards and forwards or whatever. Which would be the easiest solution.

I tried making a training/ shooting range myself a couple of times, but never finished it off. In the end, I had moving targets on tracks, with phys_ballsockets connecting the func_tracktrain with a func_physbox_multiplayer (the target). So that when the paper targets moved back and forth, they would kind of glide with the moving motion.
If you want I can put this map in the unfinished section where you can examine the train stuff more etc.

If you guys want to have some real fun, you should find the torrent that has all the hl2 models and textures. Makes life so much more simpler. Then use the working version of cannon fodder and decompile whatever .mdl u want to get all the good stuff u need like the qc file etc. Now you can make hl2 your b1tch!

1: Overlapping
2: Polygons are wrong way around; you have to select the polygon that looks darker from the other side, the brighter side, by using U (polygon selection mode). Then once the one you want is selected, just right click and choose invert polygon.
3: Pass
4: Remove Polygons? Select, delete?

Thanks Habboi, just wanted to keep this post active by asking if anyone knows about the nav mesh being able to calculate the colision model of a prop_static? So basically, can bots walk around on and within props, like they can with a brush based area. Cheers.
Made some progress btw, it's shouldn't be too much longer until I'm able to beta test it, any volunteers? And if anyone wants to know how to make a colision model in xsi, I'll give a link to a video tut I made.

Ok this is what I was talking about guys, the image >here< illustrates better the problem I'm inquiring about. Does smoothing add more surfaces in the game (hl2/css)? Is the default smoothing of edges (in model making programs such as xsi) just a light/shading illusion? I've had different feedback on this and it's only confused me more :P. I would prefer to use more triangles for better shading/lighting results, rather than rely on a flat material, (or even flat polys) but I don't want to inhibit multiplay in game. So bearing in mind that I'll need to duplicate this particular model a few dozen times as well as many many others...

Thx Tycell, I've tried quite a few different ways of tackling the map and have searched hundreds of pages throughout the internet for information on 747s, modeling, skinning etc. But I guess what I decided on was putting a brush on the inside, then using seperate models to skin around it. Because I will need to probably change the inside alot (i dont want to have to make models over & over) to fit what is in my head, what has been done in other maps and what a 747 is actually like.
And as far as the scenario goes, I wanna try to go more for the classic rogue spear mission, where counter terrorists use the cover of a fuel truck to move in, while snipers cover them on a hill.

Mmm well I really want to make this map, I've wanted to make it for a long time, ever since I played rogue spears version of an airliner hostage situation. Also the real point of this map is to bring some more exciting and realistic scenarios to CS, there might be alot of well made maps from valve, but the plots seem to defy logic, quaint European villages? It's like when ghost recon came out, they suddenly changed from fighting middle eastern terrorists, to fighting russians, I guess because of 9/11. They have to be politically correct, but that doesn't mean they also have to hide from the reality of the world.
Although I'm starting to see another reason why valve haven't made a remake of cs_747, because it's just too damn hard making it worthy of source. For a start the plane itself is huge in terms of polys and that's not to mention the 100s of seats and other objects inside (a real 747) and of course the map itself (would have to be huge to fit a 747 in). This is my real problem, finding that fine line between reality and what people can get away with on their computer. I do not want to make a cheesy plane with a 10th the number of seats or windows, all spaced out so you could park a car inbetween them. But if I could get away with what you say Habboi, I could go for some major coolness.
I'd love to just make the whole thing a model, make every window sunk in, with dozens of rows of 3 - 4 - 3 seats, but can the average joe's machine take it?? I doubt mine could :(.

When I first started making the plane I made it in hammer, but the brushes just couldn't be manipulated the way I wanted (unless I wanted a dump truck with square wings). So I started modeling again with xsi and that's when I realised I didn't know jack. You really have to be quite proficient in alot of things if you want to make a good map involving many models, photoshop, xsi (or whichever, xsi SUCKS btw), texturing etc etc. And this map certainly involves alot of models, possibly hundreds lol. According to my calculations, there would have to be at least 25 seperate models, (fitted together later in hammer) just for the outer plane to look how it should. So as you can see the task at hand is difficult, but I intend to finish it, even if it kills me!! lol
Oh and thanks again to all the people that have given me their advice on various bits

Hey guys, this is little over a month later so I wanted to update my progress with this report.
Map status = 1%
Models = -50%
Textures = -20%

lol good going huh? I say minus % because I've spent many many hours learning what not to do when constructing a 747. Although it's not all been wasted time, I feel that if I could come up with something I was happy with I could go to the next level. Does anyone know if you can get a precise conversion of units, from xsi to hammer? Because the models I make always seem to be - + .5. Also, any ideas how many polys you can get away with in a css map, without lag on an average player's computer?

Hey thanks alot for uploading it Playbus, it doesn't suck, at least you gave it a go :D. And I appreciate the contribution.

Thanks alot man (let me know what you're going to call it), that would be much appreciated, I'm guessing you don't want to work on such a project again though? lol

Oh that's a shame man, you don't have any backup copies of it? I would very much like to see

Ha! I knew the Cheroke team didn't make that model themselves, I found the exact same fileon a different site, those fraudsters! Now I feel better Habboi lol

Selfish fools!!! haha jk, man this makes me want to get in to modeling again, i just feel so useless!! Can you help me Habboi? I beg you!! lol

Well the reason I ask if they made the model or someone else did, is because, why would anyone in their right mind make a model with the texture of some arabic writings on the side, they could have put anything on there, why not put Cheroke Air or something on the side of the plane?

Whyyyyyyyyyyyy oh why did they have to steal our idea Habboi?? They really ruined us, if only we could sabotage them lol

Mmm so did they actually make these models or did you say they got them off another site? Cause I downloaded their 747 model and it was just a basic skeleton of the aircraft (3ds file). :-s

Hey Habboi was it the cheroke team? I finally found their site, they look to be making a pretty good version of this, with a 747 model

oh boy i would kill for that link lol, i tried filtering a search on the forum here but couldn't find anything. mm thanks though habboi

Hey guys, hope you're all well. I have just started making a 747 hostage rescue map and I was wondering what anyone would think about that? The only reason I can think of that valve hasn't already done it, is that it's still a touchy subject, post 9/11. So if many of you feel the same, let me know and I won't complete it.

However, it's something I've wanted to make for some time and I believe it would be very popular if it was made good. The only thing that put me off making it before now, was that my model making skills weren't up to the job and that perhaps a decent looking aircraft could not be made in hammer. But I've since made some good progress and intend to change the scenario alittle, so it won't be an exact remake of the original, as I know some have already attempted to reproduce a source version but unfortunately they used the original blocky brushes and textures from cs_747. Which in my opinion doesn't do it justice.

So again please let me know what you think, any input would be greatfully recieved and thanks :).

Hey man, I'm just starting off with making textures myself, so perhaps I could help coming from a novice perspective too. Although I've had alot of practise in different microsoft and macromedia products, unfortunately for me I never really got in to adobe (photoshop) until I really needed it, like now lol.
Firstly alot depends on what you're trying to do e.g. what game you're making this for (size limits) and what kind of textures you're making (simple/hard). Do you even have photoshop? Cause you don't really have to use ps if you have a program you're more comfortable with, which can save in the format you need for conversion. Give us more info and we'll take it from there

I am insane!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

just incase you didn't already know this invaluable intel

looks good fancy working on some maps together?

Sure, here is one and another. Nothing special as I said, it's just a glass map. But glass maps can be alot of fun, because you can kill people indirectly(including your own team hehe), by simply shooting the glass under them.
The fundamental outline to any glass map is to have a glass (breakable) floor of some kind and underneath that layer(s), there is typically some kind of pit or hole that players fall in to. Simple huh, well most of them are too simple, too basic and poorly made, which usually doesn't matter as you're too busy dying out of laughter as you and your team mates drop to your death.
However, in the maps I have made such as this one, I have decided to incorporate something different to set it apart from the rest. So I made a hatch at the bottom of the 'pit' which can be seen in the 2nd screen shot. Where players can avoid dying, by shooting it open and dropping in to water, which incidently is the only way to plant the bomb and get back up to the top of the map. 2 doors at the bottom of the map, lead up through pillars of the structure (1st screen shot) and in turn, unlock the doors leading up to the very top of the map. Let me know if anyone wants to have fun dying on it with me :), or any of the other maps i'm working on for that matter, thanks...

Hey everyone,
It's been a while since I've written on here, hope everyone has been keeping well :D. Anyway I wanted to write about a map I am about to release, called glass_hatch. It's only a fun 'glass' map for CS: Source, nothing special.

But the real point to this new topic is, that I don't want anyone to claim it as their own, like they did with another map I made called glass_war. Which I had hosted briefly in the testing phase so I could see if something worked. And I guess from there, certain people started to spread it around, then a few people decompiled it, put a box in the middle of it, ranamed it, then claimed they had made the damn thing.

Strangely enough though, it ended up being the most popular glass map out there (if the amount of servers that host maps is anything to go by), which is kinda weird considering I had only hosted it for about 2 minutes and it wasn't even finished lol. So hopefully this one will be just as popular and it won't get stolen, too much... haha