Post your screenshots! WIP thread Created 16 years ago2007-12-16 00:58:58 UTC by doodle

Here's one of my abandoned projects:I don't know if I'm ever going to continue working on it. Was thinking about it recently.
Here's the layout, unfinished as the map itself:As for now, I decided I should stop my mapping, ahem... "career", because I started making pure shit.

Reminds me of an old Team Fortress map.

It somehow reminds me of that map with an arena with 4 towers, probably because of that fence. The map would have triggered lights. Basically, if the player goes on a specific place, he gets lit by a spotlight on one of the towers. :3

Drawn a map of Deadlands' overworld layout, soon I'll start working on mapping out a few places in there for showcase.Lands of the Dead are final destination for most of the dead. Here in Deadlands undead slowly lose their senses, and depending on in which section of it they rise, get stuck in a great scheme of dead.

Victims of murder, rape, violence and civillians dead in war wander the Blood Moor. In an endless journey across the moor, undead search for a good place to live that they wanted during life, but never found and neither after death won't find. Overcame by sorrow and grief, they stare at the rising sun - symbol of hope, and move on day after day. Ground in the Blood Moor is soaked with blood of victims, from which heathers and crying willows take nutrients to endlessly thrive.

Outlaws, criminals, murderers and all wrongdoers that don't redeem themselves in their lifes are entrapped in Swamp of the Wicked. Desperately trying to free themselves from clutches of dead waters, they try to fight their way to freedom. Ironically, they often become darker and stronger abominations in their everlasting lust for freedom and redemption. Mighty and giant alders, as well as other vegetation in these swamps feast upon taint of the wicked, turning into deadly and horrifying creatures.

Deadlands try to mimic final resting place for all the dead. That's why Battlefields and burnt villages, ruined keeps and war camps or traces of war machinery are not uncommon in there. Upon these charred, burnt grounds soldiers rise to continue ther struggles in eternal wars.

Up on the Heights of Heroes, a great fortress is kept by noble knights, great warriors and wanderers that proven their worth in their lifelong journey. They protect ruins down on the feet of mountain range from all undead coming from Battlefields, as well as check if any newcomer to the Heights are worthy of coming there.

Road of Death is the biggest mountain range of Deadlands, and holds a high path to Domain of Death, where the dreaded Aspect of Death resides. Many undead try to climb up to the path, but only few succeed. Even fewer are able to defeat guardians of the gate to Domain of Death.

It is possible for undead to not lose it's mind in Deadlands, but it requires realisation that one is dead and acceptance of the new state. Since undead don't feel anything besides grief, wrath or sorrow, all other senses being dead, it is hard to many to keep up in these hostile lands.

@Snehk

Great job. Waiting for the first screenshots.

@Suparsonik

I've never played TFC. Is it still alive?

Mmm... now I want to play TFC again... :]
Just to make a map for it, lol.

Surprisingly there were a few active TFC servers last I checked. Only issue is that I am totally terrible at that game lol.

Started working on map showcase. This one is early exterior area of Height Keep:All of it would be accessible once I'll finish it and add access points, showcase areas would be placed in-game rather than being just some fancy tech demo.

Weren't you going to use 3d-modeling software for the levels?

I considered this, but I prefer working with Radiant. It's quicker, takes much less time to texture and scale geometry properly, I can already do some complex geometry using brushes and patches. I'd have to use level editor anyway to place entities. This way I also have direct control over what gets rendered by using caulk shader.

I agree with you. It's much more comfortable to use your favorite editor.
Oh, and how do you make terrain in Radiant? Do you use those "patches" for that? I'm just going to start learning Radiant. Want to try Q3 mapping.

Which Radiant version you're going to use? I'm using NetRadiant as it still supports Darkplaces. For Q3 you may like to check GTKRadiant 1.6, and if you want I may also upload Q3 mapping tools (compilers, useful Q3 shaders) to my Google drive, and post a link to mapping tutorials.

You can use both brushes and patches (curved geometry) for terrain. In both cases you simply manipulate vertexes. To get a patch of desired size, I usually make a brush first, then turn it into a patch, specifying height and width rows. These can be added to pre-existing patch as well. On my screenshots only the lowest (and most dense) walls are patches.

Mmm, Radiant's interface looks hot... :]
I might try it as well, although I'm not sure how it differs from Worldcraft's derivatives, and whether it can be used for GoldSRC games. (I think it can)

Anyway, I believe I finished 4 versions of de_kobbl. Those include the normal version (day + night) and the GSU version (also day + night). I'm only left with the fun version, but that will come later on...

I'll hopefully put up a pre-release release on TWHL as well as for my test team on GameBanana, although they get all 4 versions, while TWHL gets only 1, the normal version.

I'm also very, but very surprised that hlvis.exe (in full mode) processes the map very quickly.
If we compare it to my school map, VIS would take days or even weeks if I'd leave my laptop running the whole time (which would probably kill it, too).

Edit:
Darn. I've accidentally pressed the Post button before I even took some screenshots for comparison. Ah well, coming soon...

GTKRadiant 1.4 or 1.5 can still be used to map for Half-Life. There are some differences between Hammer and Radiants, but those aren't really that big.

I use GTKRadiant 1.6 if I know right. Because of my stupidity I couldn't set Jackhammer up for Q3 so I had to use GTKRadiant. Even though I'm an intermediate mapper, I couldn't do more than a simple box-like room.

J.A.C.K. has a shader editor for Q3. :3
Just saying. I have no idea about the others. xd

Jackhammer supports Q3. Just setting it up is pretty difficult. And I couldn't find any tutorials about how to do that.

So, I took the screenshots in 1280x768 just so some of you can stop complaining how low-res my screenshots are. Please stop complaining on my low-res screenshots. :3

OK, time for the comparison:

1.16fps31fps

2.26fps32fps

3.18fps24fps

Wow, that's a significant improvement. Of course, 99.9% of gamers on this whole world would say that this improvement is too small to be noticed. I'm annoyed by those...

I use GTKRadiant 1.6 if I know right. Because of my stupidity I couldn't set Jackhammer up for Q3 so I had to use GTKRadiant. Even though I'm an intermediate mapper, I couldn't do more than a simple box-like room.

Take a look at this - it's a beginner's set of tutorials, but it might help you get a better hold of Radiant. And shows a few nice things about Q3...

J.A.C.K. has a shader editor for Q3. :3
Just saying. I have no idea about the others. xd

I write my shaders in Notepad, Q3 shaders are quite easy to do without editors.

Great work on optimisation Admer. Even though it's just a few FPS, it might noticable during gameplay.

@Snehk

I'll take a look at the tutorials, thank you. I felt so confused when Shift+A didn't call the texture application tool xd. At least I compiled my first box map successfully with Radiant. Jackhammer kept doing weird things.

Switching from Hammer's or Jack's shortcuts can be confusing at first, but after a while you can get used to it. Check also compile parameters to know which setting to use for final maps.

Slowly getting used to the controls. The fact you have to manually enter the keys for the entities still shocks me.
Just found out that Del doesn't delete the selected object. It appears that the "Delete" operation doesn't have a shortcut at all. Or I'm just a dumbass.

J.A.C.K. has a built-in command shortcut list. I'm not sure if Radiant has a shortcut list too.

Maybe you can right-click a brush and find "Delete". And there should be a key combination next to it.

No, you can actually delete an object, but you need to go to "edit" -> "delete" to do that. While every other button in the "edit" menu has a shortcut specified at the right, "delete" doesn't have a shortcut.

There is a shortcut list, and every shortcut is specified with tool name. Try backspace to delete next time. You can edit them in preferences.

Try backspace

Oh... I feel so-o-o-o stupid.

Now I only need to understand how do curves work and how to use the texture application tool and then I will be able to create a decent map. Btw the "Curves" tutorial isn't too helpful.

There's nothing too complicated about curves. You do them just like normal brushes and manipulate vertexes to give them shape. Type of curve dependent on what you'd like to do. Like, a cylinder for pillars or pipes, simple patch mesh for curved ground or rock walls etc.

Texturing works quite similar to GS.

The problem is that I just can't make an arched patch mesh:There's just no arch tool for that.

EDIT: Nevermind, I sorted it out. Curves is a wonderful thing:

For some reason, I think that Source's displacement are Valve's version of patches, but then that's just not the case...
I tried playing around with displacements in Hammer 4, and VM-ing displacements has the same limits as VM-ing normal brushes. >:O

But it's OK, I guess... we can still do nice things with displacements, minus the ability to modify them directly with the VM tool instead of using the Displacement tools.

At least you don't have to drag every vertex manually if you don't need to. But sewing and subdividing is still something I barely understand.
What's also frustrating is that the texture you apply to a displacement has some kind of... UV-Lock(?) which causes the texture to stretch sometimes.

You may want to try this way Windawz.Start with a normal brush. Make the top viewport an active one (like, drag view a little bit and don't touch other viewports, makes creating patch facing desired direction easier).Turn it into a simple patch mesh.Specify desired number of height and width rows. If it's too much or not enough, you can add more from curve menu.Now you have a curve - simple patch mesh.Move and rotate vertexes to make your arch. Mine is not too detailed, but it's enough for tutorial purposes.

EDIT: My internet connection is killing me today, everything loads extremely slow and I haven't noticed your posts or edits. On all curves, use Natural option in surface inspector.

There's a simplier way. You just do a W:3 H:3 patch mesh and then... Well, the screenshots will explain better:You just drag verticies like that. No need to divide it in segments - the editor will do it automatically.

As for the Surface Inspector... Well, for me texture application in Radiant is a true torture. I think I have to use Jackhammer for texturing and Radiant for the rest.

You'll still need more segments for complex geometry, to have better control of each face. About surface inspector, I think that I need to get more used to it.

Since I'm considerably much better writer than developer, sometimes I like to test my ideas as forum games. This one is not related to my current project, but the idea is much more appealing and easier to do. A class based, last man standing coop.

With 5 classes: Peasant (challenge, weak to all enemy types), Wandering Undead Hunter (or just wanderer - an all purpose, balanced out class), Inquisitor (tanking, specialised against undead, weak to dark spirits), Exorcist (specialised against dark spirits, weak to undead) and Demonologist (specialised against demons, weak to dark spirits)

Varied items and weapons: Tomes of magic, swords and other meele or ranged weaponry, charms - items granting buffs or protection.

Different enemy and damage types: Undead, dark spirits, demons. Physical, dark, arcane, elemental damage and protection/immunity/resistances.

And a simple story: In world Axewrath, after great world war between kingdoms and several plague outbreaks, humanity lost it's faith and turned it's back towards gods. As punishment, dieties unsealed gates to Underworld and let undead, dark spirits and demons free. This started a worldwide cataclysm, taking even more bloody harvest than wars and plagues combined. After some time, humanity learned how to defend itself - Undead Hunters and Holy Inquisition started to fight back and spread around the world. They were only few and extremely short-lived however, and it is unknown if they'd manage to bring back faith in gods an stop the cataclysm.

Guess that single-player campaign would be about a squad of characters with chosen by player classes that'd have to survive or perform missions.

I'll definitely have to develop it one day... Good to dump an idea from time to time so it won't clog up in your head...

@Windawz

If surface inspector is a torture for you, then you may like to know about a way to texture your level without using it, if you are willing to learns shaders. Q3 shaders allow to apply shaders using DotProduct2 and AlphaFade brushes to get alpha blended textures on brushwork terrain (shader does also texture alignment for you automatically). I'll post a link to article about it later.

You'll need only textures, stuff from tutorial and q3map2 compiler (it's pre-packed with Radiant, as it's the best out there).

EDIT: Here we go. These two tutorials would help you make awesome effects on your maps.

@Snehk

Thanks. Maybe someday (lol) I will start learning coding.

I've been thinking why can't I compile my q3 map with jackhammer. Maybe I have to export it to .MAP (I don't think q3map2 knows what's .jmf) and use something like batch compiler. Or maybe jackhammer automatically exports it to .MAP. I don't know yet.

No coding is needed for Q3 shaders, though you can execute GLSL shaders from them if you want to. Q3 shaders are used when you want a texture to emit lights, scroll, animate, give/remove it's collision to player/enemies/bullets, behave like liquid, prevent surface from being drawn by renderer, etc. It works like all the special textures for GoldSource or Quake, but is easier to do and more powerful.

You can compile with Radiant just as well. Personally, I'm using q3map2toolz - compiling front-end configured for q3map2. I can upload installation files for it to my google drive if you'd like.

Ok, now at least I know what they are.

No-no, I will find a front-end compiler myself. Thanks anyway

I started to use Radiant just because it was unclear to me how to set jackhammer up for q3 arena so I tried Radiant which automatically sets everything up.

If I successfully configure jackhammer for q3 this time, I even may switch back to it. The main page says there's a cool shader editor in J.A.C.K.

Resurrecting the thread:

Adding up to the resurrection:I've added a nice ambient sounds system. It basically consists of a train which goes around 4 path_corners. When it passes each, each one triggers different multi_managers which, in return, trigger different sound combinations (e.g. gunshots in the background + wind).Basically, this screenshot shows that I halved the walls' thickness wherever needed. They used to be pretty thick and now I halved that.
I also fixed the texture scaling on those wooden windows. :3Oh mah gawd, look at them barrlz! Those are 16-sided barrels:They're almost seamless. There's only 1 micro-seam to be found on the sides, and the seam between the sides and the top is, well... unavoidable. But at least I prevented the seams from the sides (and yes, I used Alt+Left-clicking, so that I can avoid that stretching...)The trash cans probably have a more noticeable micro-seam, but I guess that won't be a huge gameplay issue.At the balcony, I sort of skewed the wall here. Try to surf that if you're a daredevil, and you might fall to your death! >:DI also added some sort of a dumpster.Now I have an excuse for not having a door at that entrance. I clipped the bricks! YAAAAAAAAAAAAYI converted the RUSH B CYKA into a sprite and it's far better-looking compared to the func_illusionary with a transparent texture on it.This thing... this is my mechanism for locking and unlocking the secret doors which lead to the Easter egg rooms.
Basically, what I've added is a small, invisible func_door.

The door is triggered by the C4 explosion (be it site A, or B, or whatever). After triggering, the door closes. And when it closes, it triggers a multisource entity, which is both the door's master and the master of all the secret doors. If the multisource is OFF, the door won't trigger it, because it's its master, so it won't unlock the doors after the C4 blast.

However, if the multisource is ON, the secret doors are unlocked, but so is the invisible door. The invisible door will then close, disabling the multisource and locking the secret doors.

In theory, it should work, but I'm yet to test it in practice.I've also made this neat entity setup for fun_kobbl. Basically, this is a mortar bomb. I'll add a secret basement into fun_kobbl where I'll place a monitor which will display the map, and you'll have buttons on it (but no, it won't be like the Half-Life mortar where you can bomb any place). You will have a few options to choose from: site A, site B and the T spawn, respectively.

What will I do next?
I'll move that stupid street lamp 16 units away so it stops blocking me every time I try to walk between it and the wall corner. I'm just so mad at it that I'll even knock it down, literally.

Lastly, remember Vodka95's thread about multiple mapping questions?
Well, here's that map, too:xD

Well, this multimanager looping system looks way easier than the one described in the tutorials section. I'll use it instead if you don't mind.

Looping the multi_manangers with a train, I assume? Sure, use it.

Also:If you're wondering what this is, well, the wall is 240 units long, and I managed to fit 3 256x256 textures with no seams. XD
The side trims have a scaling of X=1.000 and Y=1.000, while the middle one with bricks has X=0.904 and Y=1.000. Cool, eh? I downscaled the middle one so it fits between the normal ones.Also, I think the street lamp situation is better.

looks good admer great progress, I will check out the map when done and review it !

Thank you, Trempler, it would be my honour.

I dug through the source files, and apparently, I started working on it in the 1st of January, 2017. It truly meant something, lol. I stopped developement in the 22nd of January and picked it up again somewhen before the end of May.
So, that's around 2 months of work time on it. For a map like this, this would be my new record.

And my map now has 15k faces... I suppose it's because of the improved arches:I hope at least somebody will notice this map when I finish and upload it.

@Admer456

What about to make Trempler one of the playtesters?

@Windawz
I don't know, really. It would be nice, though.
It solely depends on Trempler's decision, since the playtesting is completely voluntary - and I've got good feedback which led to me fixing 50 or so bugs and issues in the map.
If Trempler wants to see the map before the release, may his mapping highness inform me.

You can send him a PM. He should notice it.

EDIT:Any ideas what to place there?

Place lava there.

Alright. But I think I will fill it with acid instead, because the map has a somewhat greenish tint. In HL there's a little differense between acid and lava anyway.

So while the engine downloads, I can use spare time to work on something unrelated to my project and take a breath of fresh air. This is really early WIP of a hldm map that shows aftermath of HECU vs Xen fights. This one is going to take place a few kilometers from Black Mesa, around a signal transmission station. When the fights spread out and HECU soldiers were trying to take control over mess around Black Mesa, they used it as a temporary checkpoint base.EDIT:Added some more detail here.Still need to flesh out the other side though.