My current project: bar shootout Created 17 years ago2006-08-23 19:36:19 UTC by eightballrota

Hello all, I have been working ona project for quite some time. It was started by a guy named Mr. Spoon from CS nation, he got the map started for me and I took over the project. Textures are coming along quite nice, I think it's gonna make a real nice FY map for my clan.
here are some of the non-textured screnshotsHere i have added quite alot of texture to it.I have even changed it alot since the previous screenshot. My only problem is since there is so much clear breakable glass, it slows down alot on less-than-high end PC's. I;ll post a DL link to try the map out later.

What are the average wpolys?

Looks pretty sweet anyway, but at 20 fps, I'm guessing they're gonna be WAY high, that is of course, if you have a really bad pc

Very blocky. it would pwn in CSS, though.

Fits the theme. A wharehouse bar would be "blocky". All his detail items look great, and unblocky, as they should.

glad you like so far. I have an updated version here. I've made changes since this one, but I have more stuff to add before the next release. My old comp only had a 32MB card, thats why fps was so low, but now i have radeon 9250 w/ 128MB. tryt this out and tell me what you think. and i know about the pop machine error.
http://rapidshare.de/files/29928219/fy_rotabar.zip.html

Holy shit! No fucking way! 5600 W_poly's!?!?!?!?! GAAAAAAAAHHHH!!! This thing is going to be a nightmare... Still, it looks damn good.

so, any advice on how to reduce the poly count? as this is my first map. I'm looking into replacing the glass bottles with a model one, 3d_mike did in de_vine, and its breakable, although there is only ONE bottle on the map. I may also cut out the top shelf of bottles and replace it with a "dummy" texture, just so it looks like bottles. The goal is to haveCT's and T's on opposite sides of the bar, shooting at each other through the glass/bottles. It works pretty sweet so far on our clan server. (www.the-rota.com if your interested.) And I should mention the VIS engine has not been run on a compile, i believe that will reduce poly count a little. Oh, and i will probably port it to source once I get it. I think it would be ten times better in source anyway.

Get rid of all of the chairs and replace them with models.

See all the glowing lines? Those show where the geometry is being broken up by normal solids. You should func_wall as much detail as you can. Things like that sign up there, all the supports for the lights, the flourescent lights, the tables, the taps... Every little detail should be turned into a func_wall. Speaking of taps, you should try to limit your use of those and the bottles. Sometimes you have to sacrifice realism for gameplay.

Also, you might want to consider ditching a lot of those smaller things. I noticed these little doorknobs on the cabinets, and they were like 2 units wide! NOBODY will care if you get rid of stuff like that. Hell, they'll be glad!

You should also strongly consider using models in place of much of your detail. There's this website (which I lost the address of) that has tons of Half-Life prop models you can download. If anybody knows the place I'm talking about, please provide the address. I remember it wasn't in English.

yeah, im trying to get rid of the tables. I will prob replace them with cafe.mdl, a nice little table with 2 chairs and some bottles, from cz_stadium i think. I just have to get them scaled right. The cabinets will probably be removed and replaced by a texture of a cabinnet (no one will be shooting at it anyway) good idea about removing some of the taps. I'll try that out. I'll see about setting them all to func_wall. I remeber reading about that in one of the tutorials in the hammer help file. I'm assuming I can just multiple select, hit properties, and tie it to func_wall? I'll post my results tommorow morning. also, i need some ideas for the hallway connecting the T spawn (stage area) to the bar. I'm thinking of making it an outdoor alley way, with a nice sky TGA, but not sure. I'd hate to add more stuff to the map as it already hit the limit for CS.

You probably shouldn't tie every detail into a single func_wall, but should instead choose different objects (Like every table is its own func_wall, every tap is its own func_wall, etc.) There is an entity limit, so you shouldn't turn each brush on an object into its own func_wall.

well, started func_wall'ing everything, and I developed a leak. I func_wall'ed some of the walls, that may have cuase it. I'm gonna go back to the previous version and just func_wall the details like tables/taps/stage props/pool tables and see if that happens. I tried tracing the pointfile, but CS just crashed. It'll be easy to go back to my lat good map anyway, I spent about 1/2 hour func_wall'ing, and about 2 hours looking for the damn leak.

only func_wall the really tiny detailed stuff.. not the main walls. those wont be a problem.. but he ROTA thing... DEFINITLY make it a func wall. Maybe even the legs on the chairs. unless they are func_pushable

okay, I func_walled alot of the stuff, which put the visible entities too high, so I deleted all the chairs/tables (i want to replace with models anyway) and so far the w_poly count has gone down to around 3200 with the bar in view, and only about 300-400 without. Any advice on what to do about all those bottles? I'd like to get he poly's down to around 1500 at least. If they are solid would that lessen it? (as in render amount 255, they are currently around 150) or should I just ditch them all and make the breakable models? (with monster_furniture I think.)

Transparency doesn't affect w_polys. I'd go for the models, personally. You know that CS comes with some, right? Well, you could try reskinning some of those, if you don't like that they look like wine bottles.

And, no, you don't use monster_furniture. There are no monster entities in CS, so you have to use a cycler_sprite.

Yeah, I got a few bottle models to replace it with. But how do you make them breakable? I know it can be done. In 3d-mike's de_deadlock there are two breakable models, a big eightball and a wine bottle. And are models really that much better for poly count than brushes? I would think a brush would be less complex and would take less polys to render

I wondered about this myself, and though I had some ideas how to do it, I instead just decompiled cs_italy and saw how they did it

The Chicken:
Cycler_sprite of a chicken.
Func_breakable "underneath" the chicken, rendered invisble, targeting an env_render and a gib shooter.

This way when you shoot the invisible func_breakable, it renders the chicken model invisble, and simultaneously shoots chicken gibs at you

Wine bottle
Cycler_sprite of the wine bottle.
Func_breakable underneath, and like the chicken, targets an env_render.

This time though, the glass gibs come from the func_breakable, and not a gib shooter. It appears an invisible func_breakable still shows visible gibs when shot, which I never knew!

some new pics of the map
http://www.the-rota.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-196
http://www.the-rota.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-195
http://www.the-rota.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-194

and here's a DL link. I may have not gotten the models in the right folder, I'll fix that later. Pretty sure cafe2.mdl goes in cstrike/models, and popcornmachine.mdl goes in cstrike/models/props.
http://rapidshare.de/files/30863466/fy_rotabar_small_beta5.zip.html

If any obdy knows how to stop the table animation from standing back up after being shot, i'd appreciate it

Ha! I figured that out on my own a long time ago, Rowley! You lose! Now if only I had answered it first...

And yes, the models are easier to render. They're loaded into memory instead of being rendered on the fly. I'm not exactly sure about that, but that's what I've come to understand. However it works, they're still easier to render, and that's what matters.

Doesn't look too bad. Some of the wall textures are very plain, though.

added some new textures. looks better now [img]http://www.geocities.com/heretic66/bar_retextured.JPG[/img

Blocky and bad texturing Put some energy in the details and makeing some fitting textures man! otherwise it might be a fun little map

EDIT sorry, forgot the "]"I did make it less blocky, the bar now curves using arches instead of angles. Other than that, how could I make it less blocky? If I can find models ill try replacing the stools and the microphones, and the large block above the bar is going to be turned into a dance floor/balcony with a few steps. As far as textures, I'm not sure what else to use. I had some brick walls but I thought that looked crappy, so iripped some walls off of cz_italy, I thoguht they looked much better. I replaced the wood grain on the bar with a darker, verticle grain, and the bar top is now tile, although I'd like to find some black marble or something. I'm always open to constructive critisism, what kind of textures should I use?

I'll show you! Opening Hammer

Edit:

Remaked the bar, will finish it tommorow, getting awfully late.

Demo Demo!!

35.4 fps? Lag?

I've got some new screenshots done. Map is near complete. i also added labels to all the bottles(not shown) lemme know what you think of these textures.w_poly's are down to around 3000 with the whole map in view, but getting better at around 2200 closer to the bar. Any ideas on how to improve that further? I already func_wall'd alot of stuff. I'd be happy to post the RMF or MAP if someone is kind enough to look into it. I am using ned's batch compiler with zoner's normal tools, all default setting except VIS is set to full, and i am using the -wadinclude settings.

Wow, that really looks good. Can't wait to play it.

Okay, I added some good details that will make this really fun. The jukebox is now shootable, via an invisble func_breakable which triggers a song "prop me up beside the jukebox wjhen I die" and then explodes after 30 seconds. I also have pictures of duke nukem and lo wang that talk when you walk past, and when you die. Same thing with a ms pac man machine. I'm gonna try to add a fish tank with some bubbles in it too, should look nice.

I agree, demo! 'Like the reflective stuff

The wpolies are still way too high for an MP map.
Did you null every unseen face? That should at least save up to 500 wpolies.

Amazing improvment, so diffrent from the original. No need for my help, even if the map is nearly finished.(only the spot lights left) I don't like mine anyway, I stuck by your layout so it's not mine. Now I'll finish my own projects.

well, elon, I'd sure like to see what you came up with. If i put it in the map i would definetly give you credit (although nobody reads the credits anyway)

About the w_polys. Just about all unseen brush faces contact another brush face (a good side-effect of making a blocky map!!) about the only ones that don't contact are a few of my steps and such, and those are set to null. I'm pretty sure by default zoner's tools (I use nem's batch compiler) does not render any brush faces that contact each other, and anyones exposed to the void. I'm also running vis on full.

I have an idea to cut the w_polys in half, but it would ruin a little of the map. I would make the glass shelves of the bar solid(maybe a glass block texture) and stretch the bar out alittle, and tie it back to world, which hopefully would make the HL engine only render half of the map at a time. However, half the fun in this map is shooting people through the glass, breaking bottles along the way, and I would hate to remove that gameplay element. All details are func_walled and gl_wireframe 1 only shows the large brushes being broken up along their texture lines (and i use big textures too) so I think that may be as good as it gets.

Once the map is as good as i can get it I'll upload it so anyone can take a look if they like. should be done by this weekend. BTW thanks to all who helped with ideas and entities, I'll be sure to put your names and the website forum in my credits!

Normal brushes will have their faces removed if they're touching another normal brush, but if it's a brush based entity (like all your func_walls), then the face will not be removed. This is why you should go around and put the NULL texture on all those faces you can't see.

Another thing you could try is making those corners on the bar less round. I can't tell very well from the screenshot, but they look like they have a lot of faces on them. You really only need 3 for them to look round.

Okay, I made the middle of the bar solid, and put a wall upstairs to effectively divide the map in half. I hope it dosn't detract from the gameplay value, but that has made the w_polys much better. From either side spawn, w_polys are around 2000, but as soon as you move up, they cut down to around 1500, and some areas are even under 1000. My steps are a bit of a mess (gl_wireframe makes my eyes hurt lol) so I need to brainstorm some ideas there, and I have a few transparent wine racks in the back hallway that I ned to build brush frames around (they look alittle funny now.) Here is the (almost) completed map. Is someone woudn't mind taking a look at this for me I woud apprecitate it. I think I packed it up right, lemme know if you get any "model/whatever not found errors" also included is the BSP, and I haven't done a RES file yet.
http://rapidshare.de/files/33218206/fy_rotabar.zip.html
Lemme know what you think. Also, there are a few easter eggs, dealing with the jukebox and pacman machine.

Ok, I'll post it, although it's not as good as your new version, but it might give you a few ideas. It's layout is not completly the same like your old version because I didn't play the map, only saw the screenies.

Welll I'll finish the bottles, spotlights and a few chairs.

okay, i officially screwed up packing up the map. If anyone wants to try it out, after you unzip everything, create a new folder in your models directory called 'props'. Then copy the popcornmachine.mdl into it. I'll be sure to fix that upon release.