Presentation videoThis is a copy-paste from the readme file, too lazy to write another story here :).
Finally, after a long time of mapping this thing I've finished it. Well, it's not actually finished but I said I must release it this year! It lacks some finishing touches, but I'd say 95% of the map is done.
This is a playground style map, so naturally you shouldn't expect a map that is very well adapted to the Gmod playing style. In beta testing, somebody made a complaint about how dark is the map outside. That is why I included a special button somewhere in the map(it's not hard to find, but it is underground, not too far from the automatic gates) to turn... some lights on :). It won't make the map a lot brighter, but the map wasn't supposed to be bright outside in the first place.
I tried to make the map feel a bit more alive by including different non-static and interactive things. For example, you will find a teleporter, and somewhere in the map there is a trap. But the trap only works with those who like to shoot everything, including the walls...
Finally, I also designed this map keeping in mind that it could be used in filming different stuff in it(machinimas).
Have fun! Thank you for downloading my map!
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Installation
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Copy the gm_nightfield folder into your addons folder and you're good to go.
You need Episode 2 to play this map.
If you want to playtest the map and don't have Gmod but have Episode 2, copy the contents from gm_nightfield folder to your ep2 folder.
I'm now waiting for Archie's video review :).[EDIT]
Archie finished the review, thanks Archie!:
REVIEWAlso check his comment for the text.
ran around in it for ten minutes, thoughts:
Not bad striker, some neat touches in here. I can tell that it is 95% done but nothing that could really impede on the gameplay. You ARE going to get complaints about the darkness but do not be mad, I pity the people with low-contrast monitors! No problem seeing in the dark here and I find it a bit refreshing.
+plenty of room(for on-foot shenanigans)
+nets for games
+lightning is cool
+plenty of 3D skybox going on
A bit hard figuring out where exactly I am playing, setting wise. Obviously a lot of chemical/gas things going on in the skybox. Although for GMod I can't really complain, I mean, just look at flatgrass. It is flat. It is grass.
-kind of cramped for vehicles
-skybox trees incorrectly lit
-ramp uses a burned wood texture on the bottom for some reason
-(various other obligatory nit-picks to make myself look smart here)
if it were me I would add stadium lights to illuminate either both ends of the field or just the middle, leaving SOME really dark areas (I suppose that's what people want when they download something called "nightfield" anyways). edit: just saw the lightswitch bit in your description, probably nullifies everything I just said
A solid four star gmod map I think.
Here's the video review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu_cbgB25FE
And the text review (just a more formal version of what I say in the video):
After I pretty savagely reviewed gm_beachplay, I was worried that I'd been too harsh and would have offended Samurai Jack - but no, he bounced right back and let me know that he had taken all my criticism on board and was working on a new map which would be much, much better. It was made under the working title "Abandoned Field" and was released recently as gm_nightfield.
At first glance it seems to be a great improvement on Samurai Jack's previous work, especially in terms of detailing and lighting. There are some very atmospheric areas and it's obvious that a lot of time and effort was put in to give this more of a sense of place - rather than just a level in the middle of nowhere.
Well, I say that, but while it's definitely an improvement that there is a 3D skybox at all, it's very minimalistic and doesn't have any ground, so the world still just falls into the sky at the edges of the playable space and buildings are almost pitch black. Lights work in the skybox as well, so use them! There are also a few bugs with the skybox, for example this group of trees which seem to be fullbright.
There is plenty of playable space, and even some football goal posts for games although I'm not entirely sure where that idea came from considering the rest of the map seems to be based on some sort of oil refinery. It sounds like a Billy Connolly gag - a football pitch in the middle of a working class factory.
Annoyingly though, unlike beachplay, the sky is quite low in nightfield removing any chance of tall constructions, which is pretty surprising considering how tall some of the structures in the map itself are. This platform, for example is only a few metres under the limits of the sky.
Texturing is pretty bland throughout, and I think that now you've gotten really good at lighting, you should concentrate on improving your texturing. There are some pretty odd choices for some textures like the bottom of the ramp which looks pretty terrible or the water next to it which I'm pretty sure is DX7 water considering it doesn't seem to cast any reflections.
Even in some of the best looking parts of the map you can see texturing issues. Take a look at this for a second. You've got this neat, seemingly Portal-inspired area and the metal block texture the walls are made of is divided into squares which fit neatly in the Hammer grid, yet you've cut this big hole out of them in odd places when aligning it to the edges of the texture would have been fairly easy.
Displacements are quite jaggy in places, and here they don't even come close to touching the ground and seriously - what is up with these stairs? That's just lazy.
Once again there're no AI nodes, so NPCs are pretty useless and can you tell me what is meant to be casting this light? There are just a bunch of really obvious bugs that leave this map feeling unfinished that should have been noticed during testing.
I? Hmm?
Uh, so as I was saying - this is probably the best Gmod map I've ever played. The interactive bits are great, like the totally over-the-top teleport system which sends the player flying out of the building and the floodlights with Crossfire-esque alarm system. Really nice touches which give the map a real edge. The lighting outside is really atmospheric and I can see this being really fun to play on with a bunch of mates.
There's even a bunch of easter-eggs to find and more places to explore than you can shake a stick at, although I feel the subtle art of stick shaking is somewhat lost in Garry's Mod.
Seriously, though. This is a pretty damn good map - it just needed to be tested more before release.