TWHL Coop Ideas? Created 10 years ago2013-05-12 03:24:08 UTC by Captain Terror

before u start u should keep in my mind how to build the map for TWHL project if we are going to map a goldsrc stuff dont map a big open area just like we did in last project because of FPS fail

Yeah, I added bots (about 18 for a real life school simulation) and it lagged a bit, the school computers being crap, it killed the map, try to reduce on complicating it SOOO much, but nice. You get what I mean, right? No offence or anything to be take, JUST SAYING. :3

This discussion started with a skyscraper in mind:Now the theme of the project will be somewhat like:I understand that we shouldn't have restrictions on the project, but if we are to make something beautiful, we should have some consistency across all the floors.

I voted for Source because Source has limits that can be pushed farther than those of GoldSource. What is the point of making a skyscraper without being able to view it from outside? Also, consider the advantage of a 3D skybox.

Regardless of the engine you're going to choose, I'm going to post here some suggestions:

0. ** The consistency I'm talking here shouldn't be that severe. We can decide on a fixed size for every floor, but taking into account that everybody wants something else, we can decide on more "relative" sizes. By that I mean: if one floor is 30x30, the next floor can't be more than double than that. We should try to keep the shape of the tower, without big fluctuations.
We can also decide on an oddly shaped tower, but in that case everybody will have to be tasked with different room sizes:I. ** The relative depth of the room also has to be known, so we won't oscillate by a lot.

II. ** If somebody will want to make pools, then that person has to:
1) Create 2 floors, for the lower floor taking into consideration the existence of a pool behind the ceiling.
2) Talk to somebody who will create the floor beneath him.

III. ** I don't mind science fiction, but please don't put a spaceship in a tower.

IV. ** We aren't forced to limit ourselves to single rooms. But again, think about consistency: if above you there will be tens of "normal-sized"(a relative term) rooms, you can't create a "normal-sized" single room. Either make that a big hall, or more rooms.

V. ** I think we should try to adapt the outside environment accordingly. This mostly applies to GoldSource, if you're going to choose that, because Source can cram in more floors without changing the level.
What I mean is that on the first floors, we should be able to see some ground scenery, but as we go up, we begin to see less and less details(with a farther horizon).
Eventually, if we can be so extreme, we can reach the clouds and even space, with a nice blue haze of the Earth atmosphere. Now that's where I'd put the high-tech floors!

VI. ** I'm going to repeat this. This is not "Rooms" in cake-style. Rooms was without any restrictions because of its style, but we are creating a tower here. There has to be some consistency.

You guys are going to do the Burj Al Arab?!?!? Are you doing this just to tease me cuz I live in Dubai? -.-

If you want, I can get inside pics... :3Ps I have a mini 3d glass model of the building, if its going to be helpful lemme know guys :3

Don't wet yourself so soon, I only put that image for demonstrative purposes. It seems that you just ignored the rest of my post.

Just... stay away from the bike shed effect.

I did read...

This discussion started with a skyscraper in mind:
Now the theme of the project will be somewhat like:
Regardless of the engine you're going to choose, I'm going to post here some suggestions:
bla bla bla
you just ignored the rest of my post.

Annnd

Just... stay away from the bike shed effect.

NO. I will piss my self and jizz getting myself excited.. That's how I roll.. xD

My simple point was that we started talking about an organized, architecturally beautiful skyscraper and after that, people wanted to do every floor as they wanted, creating a mess.

Restrictions can also increase creativity, you know.

striker has a point...we should build the whole thing first (not detailing every floor)...just to know what we are going to work on...After player enters it we can trigger changelevels between floors hehe.....Anyways what is going on here? We've spent way too much time on this topic instead of actually starting to do sth/planning who has which floor

No, we really haven't spent too much time on the topic. The more figuring out what and how it will work, the better put together it will be. Besides, less things will go wrong and most importantly people will not lose motivation.

What do you mean build the whole thing first? Not detailing beforehand? Do you mean a skeleton? If so, explain how the skeleton can tie in with the changelevels? After the players enter add changelevels? Dude, where the hell is any sign of context in your post?

Not to be a major grammar nazi either because my grammar sucks as well but, I struggled reading your post.

Personally, I think we should decide on a base layout, and then everyone but whoever makes the lobby, basement, and penthouse (if applicable) need to stay within the lines.
Obviously Lobby and Basement would be larger, and the penthouse would be smaller, but use the base layout as roof bounds.
If you get what I mean. Most skyscrapers are a uniform size most/all of the way up.

Yeah, sounds like you just need a basic guideline for size and shape. Something like:

One floor per map
4096 x 4096 box centered on the origin
No more than 512 units high
Allow a 256 x 256 space on the east and west sides for an elevator construct

Or someone could make a template and you could use that. Either way at the end somebody will need to connect them all together with changelevels.

Yay, something small I can try to get me back into mapping.

A wild hotdog appears! =)

My proposal, following PB's and Cstriker's examples:

1. Decide on a skyscraper building design, which we can then prototype into a structure in hammer, and from that build modular floor slices.

2. Take assignments on who is working on what floor(s)*, and/special sections of the building like the aforementioned basement, lobby, penthouse, etc.

*If a user want's to build a bigger floor, for say a pool like cstriker said, then i think we will have enough floors that one author could take 2-3 floor slices if they needed them, to accomodate their design vision.

3. THEN, i would say leave it up to the author, whether he wants to stick to the building plan, OR, variate from the prefab structure. (as long as the elevator tubes line up on that authors floor, i don't see any big deal on going beyond the constraints of the original prefab building)

When all is said and done, the player should be able to walk outside on the bottom floor, and look up at the entire structure of the skyscraper, and on each floor when you look out the windows, you should see the same landscape.

At least, this is the way i envision the project moving forward, and is by no means the only way! =)

I thought the prefab floor structure was the logical way to do things.
I think as long as the author stays within the logical barriers of the shape of the building and height of the floor, he/she (lol) should be able to habitate it with whatever he wants. Maybe a few specially made to make thetower make sense, like an entrance level (with our NEW special door formula!) and, I dunno... a carpark.
I mean, if we were making an actual, realistic tower... kinda dull.

Semi-unrelated: Can anything exist in-game if it passes the edge of Hammer's grid?

Ya, i agree scotch, the prefab floor structure is the best path, tho tet's idea, or sharing only the elevator and stairwell structure whilst having the floors be basically anything has it's advantages. most notably, it would be the easiest to put together =)

Can anything exist in-game if it passes the edge of Hammer's grid?

In source, i know only the entitie's origin(like for say a prop model) has to be inside the grid to exist. (i think it's the same in GS, but not sure)

sorry Moaby if I hadn't made myself clear...I'm not a native you know...Anyways I was thinking of the player spawning in front of the skyscraper so that he could see the whole picture (in this first map the skyscraper can be seen from outside). Then, after he enters the front door or the elevator, the level changes to specific floors in order to be able to add more detail...That's it. Also I think Captain Terror's proposal is good.

Yeah no problem dude, it was just hard to read.

I think going by a limit for example, "make it within 4096x4096x256" is an easier way to keep boundaries set, as PB stated. By setting the bounds in stone it'll be easier to piece together.

We could even go for a more complicated shape such as, an L or a chunky [ shaped building.

I think I'll make the basement and a carpark.

i'll help with lobby & general skyscraper design

i also like lifts
vents
maintenance rooms
lifts

and also lifts

Maybe everyone who's going to participate should get that Hammer patch (Trimesh) that allows for 8192 grid size as well as the floating points fix and "displacement" terrain.

Here's hammer.exe with Trimesh and Vluzacn's hacks already applied:
hammer_trimesh_vluzcan_floatingpoints.zip

I also recommend VHLT, Of course.

Yes peoples, keep pitching in the great ideas! =)

Shall we start recording preliminary assignments? (anyone feel free to update/upgrayedd/remove positions as necessary)

Project Leader
???

Skyscraper Design
Moaby
Ghost129er
Instant Mix
TJB

3Dskybox
Trempler
Captain Terror

Quality Control And Technical Advisors
The_(c)Striker
The Mighty Atom
Trempler
Stojkens

Final Compile
The Mighty Atom

Basement and Carpark
Suture

Lift Design and Maintenance Access
Instant Mix

Captain Terror, you are obviously the project leader

I will happily participate, though I must warn you that next month it's the exam session for me. So you better don't rush up this!

I also think the prefab room, or some dimensions for guidance purposes, is an excellent idea.

I too will gladly participate, since I don't GS, I'll stick to the bldg design. But with Cstriker, I too do have his problem...

MY FINALS START IN TWO WEEKS! D:

I also want to do some furniture and "Fun" stuff, maybe glitch areas that are instant death traps, or teleporters, or like 5 ways to die puzzles. THATS JUST AN IDEA, but saying.

I will totally take part yo.

EDIT: If we have an elevator, WE NEED classic elevator music xD LOL

You mean something like this?

Edit: My bad, didn't know I had to click on the word "this" to see it... xD

Okay, I'll start working on the basement and carpark tonight.

I'll get plans later, My final exams are 19th May 2013 - 11th June 2013... Guys, I think we have a problem, BUT I WANT IN! D':

well thanks for reading the previous posts where I said I'm gonna do the basement

Flame war ahoy! xD

Also, I was thinking about buildings... Is the Burj Khalifa out of the question?

I thought i checked the whole thing Stop!, sorry sir! updated:

Project Leader
???

Skyscraper Design
Moaby
Ghost129er
Instant Mix
TJB

3Dskybox
Trempler
Captain Terror

Quality Control And Technical Advisors
The_(c)Striker
The Mighty Atom
Trempler
Stojkens

Final Compile
The Mighty Atom

Basement
stop!

Basement additional and Carpark
Suture

Lift Design and Maintenance Access
Instant Mix

Ghost: whatever design you want as long as it's reasonably doable in GS

Again, I have NO idea on GS specs, dont have it... Will do some "research" on the game. Wow I feel stupid and low.. XD

Pengi-chans idea is pretty cool.

Im guessing it can work like this:

Enter lift and press up button > lift goes into map change > Map change loads the map and lift opens from there the player can go out of the lift and explore the map than just simply return and press the lift button up again and wooosh > lift level change

We can also make it to start on first floor from where you can explore the basement first or go up.

Isn't that only in Hl2 or single player games?? D: I always wanted to do that in CS for a big map! D:

A CS map like this would have serious gameplay flaws.

Putting game play aside, if the engine could handle a tower map with so much floors and detail a new game mod would probably originate.

If GS could handle very large areas i would be the first one to make a zombie map that takes place in a wood with hills and caves.

A man can dream...

Shall we use spirit of half-life for this?

I think half life will be sufficient.
Entity count is now 1800 per map.

yeah...the Move With function from sohl might be helpful...anyways I thought only cs was updated to 1800 ents...funny of me huh

i feel like sohl would be better in general, though i must admit, i don't have a lot of experience using it

On their website i see no technical information..?
Also Xash3D is the new hype as well.
It even has teleports with displaying whats on the other side.

I vote for SoHL. I'm using it with Particle Fusion anyway.

What's SoHL?

Spirit of Half-Life google it...basically a hl mod with lots of cool stuff added

Also, I'd like to suggest some stuff:
Music? (As in, atmospheric music, elevator music, ambient, bla bla bla)
Cars on roads or something on the skybox? (Life back ground?)
A plane going through the sky once (I love planes, and one is a must!)
Birds? (1 or 2)
An event, something cool to do, like a breach and clear, then a party to celebrate?

I dunno about limitations, but just some suggestions so we just dont make a map, but rather, something...

"gsdajihiuawhnwrahw2nqi6gnvb aq283h v23hnyzsdhy sIO"

You get what I'm saying, any comments or things to add to these points?

Doesn't SoHL allow 3D skyboxes? That would be cool for a skyscraper map.

You can add an airplane passing by on your map. Definitely what i will do.
Music should also be map specific.

Also i never uses SoHL so it will all be new school for me

I'd say to whoever is designing the lift, see if you can do a proper floor number buttons type of thing. It shouldn't be too hard, and would give each floor a definite identifier and (for all intents and purposes) fast travel.

SoHL should allow us to do most if not all entity tricks with little trouble, including the lift controls. (a nice interactive directory of each floor in the lobby might be nice too)

Ghost: agree on all points we want to the map to be an immersive experience

Gameplay
Speaking of the "experience", has anyone given a thought to if we should add some combat, or otherwise some sort of gameplay?

That might be a design choice for any one floor. Otherwise the tower might need to be linear, without the player going to whichever floors he/she wants.