cs_747 for css? Created 18 years ago2006-02-26 14:11:18 UTC by sm0k3y

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 :).

Dang I can't find it but somewhere on TWHL I think Ant linked to a model website that had a team working on that map for Source.

It looked well good cause it has custom models and textures.

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

Still can't find it...But the plane was a model and looked realistic!
The inside could be better...
However they have news updates on their site which I can't find...If it was Ant then he linked to a models website after someone asked for models...

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

Yeah thats it ;D

http://www.cheroketeam.savana.cz/?text=315-new-screens-map-cs-747

http://www.cheroketeam.savana.cz/?text=319-next-new-screens-map-cs-747

http://www.cheroketeam.savana.cz/?text=296-new-map-in-preparing-cs-747

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

Well I doubt they want people using their models before they released the new map...

Just a crazy thought but maybe they just made the skeleton like you said and ahem made the rest out of brushes! Hence the inside with a seperate TV model and brush floors.

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?

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

That plane models textures look very ugly and blurry for the size its going to be, i wouldnt be too impressed with it as it is anyway.

I remade 747 for CSS and I was almost going to release it, but I felt my plane was not good enough so I decided not to.

I didn't model the plane, I built it in hammer, and although it looked better than the old CS's version -- it still didn't look very "Source".

I was disappointed cos I spent three days making it before I scrapped it.

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

Sure, I still have copies. I'll post up the VMF's up to the map vault for you when I get some time (probably in 6 hours time from now).

I have no use for them anymore. There's two map files, as I did the plane and the rest of the map in seperate files (didn't finish either of them though) but the basic layout is there (few slight changes from original) and it's all leak free etc etc.

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

I've uploaded it, in the unfinished map section of the map vault.

I don't think I want to continue with doing it, so feel free to do what you like with the VMF's.

Even though they suck

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

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?

Well the enemies in HL2 were around 8000 poly's and in Gmod I can spawn around 80-90 before it starts lagging...

I am really shocked no one has decided to try and make CS_747 before now, its true that it may well be a touchy subject for a lot of people but if you let it affect you like that then the terrorist have won.

I would LOVE to play a CS_747 map on source, just because gun fights on planes are so much fun. If you let the events of 7/11 impare your options and abilities in a game then thats another point to the terrorists which commited the acts. I think its high time that somone made a 747 map in source, but then I wasnt affected as strongly by 7/11 as other people may have been and I dare say there may well be some complaints and such made if valve released one.

In the same respect I would happily make a CSS map based in a london underground train station, even after the bomb attacks on it. Again, there would no doubt be complaints made from people in the UK if one was released.

With no disrepect to anyone effected by such events, everyone has problems. You cant expect the whole world to tread on egg shells just because you got burned. I got cancer, that doesnt mean I go around telling everyone they should stop smoking and sign up to the cancer research charity.

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

Sounds good, your points stand though, making a 747 worthy of source would be nearly impossible, taking into account it has to be a playable half decent map. Perhaps if you just mapped the inside? And just did the connection from the terminal into the plane itself, try to cut out as much of the outside of the plane as possible.

Still, this sounds very hard, good luck with it.

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.

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...

If my PC can handle around 80-100 NPC's that are each 800 polys then I think I can easily hand your map. With portals and hint brushes you will be fine.

It is looking brilliant by the way.

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.

If not, make invisible brushes on the walls and floor....I'll beta test it if that's ok with you.

I'll beta test too, definately!

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

cs_timetravel_source

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...

There is already cs_747_css....

[Edit]

Found it! http://downloads.punkassfraggers.com/redirect.php?dlid=1232&PHPSESSID=62ac6b7caefa6b07d11ed8e45cd71333

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.

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?

Yay it lives

Don't kill it! I was looking forward to this map