Return to City 17

[TheMoon]

Let it restart I'd say.

[Tono-Tako]

restart

[Shana]

Let it restart I'd say.

[Blues]

I vote for option 2. There's still a votemap or rtv that can be used in case the players fail every time.
Or another idea:

You could teleport them into, like a closed rock cave with black sand (already made a blend texture like this) and such on the ground and there let them vote if they want to continue or go back to the lobby

BTW, i just fixed the lighting origin of some props on _01. they were totally black before, because they were in the shadows of big displacements. Gonna test it now to see if it works like i want it to...
If that's the case i'll pm you the vmf for you to have a look at it and perhaps change the light of the neon things. i didn't have the time yet. today's the only day this week i'm really working on something related to mapping^^

Edit: looks weird for the rocks. the docks and stuff look fine, but does anyone have an idea how to get the rocks look nice without changing their lighting origin? (now they seem to be lit from behind where the displacement thing is and where no light could come from XD...)
maybe increase the ambient brightness values for the light_environment...?

[DaMaN]

Ok, it seems that most everybody wants the map to restart, so that's what I'll do. (That was the option I was in favor for too).

Or another idea:

You could teleport them into, like a closed rock cave with black sand (already made a blend texture like this) and such on the ground and there let them vote if they want to continue or go back to the lobby

That would be a good idea, but I really don't think the players are going to fail enough to warrant it. Though I'll certainly consider it for another map...

BTW, i just fixed the lighting origin of some props on _01. they were totally black before, because they were in the shadows of big displacements. Gonna test it now to see if it works like i want it to...
If that's the case i'll pm you the vmf for you to have a look at it and perhaps change the light of the neon things. i didn't have the time yet. today's the only day this week i'm really working on something related to mapping^^

Edit: looks weird for the rocks. the docks and stuff look fine, but does anyone have an idea how to get the rocks look nice without changing their lighting origin? (now they seem to be lit from behind where the displacement thing is and where no light could come from XD...)
maybe increase the ambient brightness values for the light_environment...?

Glad to see your making lots of progress on 01. It makes me want to work on 02-06a all the more

As for the rocks, I'd just use the info_lighting_origin. (The light is probably going straight through the displacements from the rear, so if you're having lots of problems with them you might want to put some block_light textured blocks behind them).

[Blues]

Already solved it with a lighting origin about 5 minutes after the post xD

The problem was that the models were stuck in each other and in the displacement, so i put an info_lighting somewhere a little higher.

[DaMaN]

Already solved it with a lighting origin about 5 minutes after the post xD

The problem was that the models were stuck in each other and in the displacement, so i put an info_lighting somewhere a little higher.

Hahaha, awesome! Knew you'd come up with something

[Hydra]

Might I ask how far is the progress with the series? And what annoying bugs and/or problems are still in the way?

[DaMaN]

Might I ask how far is the progress with the series? And what annoying bugs and/or problems are still in the way?

Certainly you may ask. Ask away!

...

Ok, I'll answer you right now - save you the trouble of asking

Ahaha! Now that you've asked (or I assume that you've asked) I get to go on a big huge rant about every little tiny thing I'm working on with the maps!! Oh well, I like ranting, especially with updates.

Well, at the same time as I was updating oc_antlion_attack_01, I was also compiling oc_return_c17_02 through 06a, and checking them over for some final bugs on my other computer. Long story short, I found plenty of little, annoying bugs (annoying to me, perhaps, but probably unnoticeable to most). Most of these I've corrected, one or two of them I need to go over again, and 06a is running really laggily for some reason.

There are only one or three primary problems I'm having:
1. The grass texture I was using for a lot of the map now has lots and lots of annoying little grass shoot sprites. Now, ordinarily that would be fine, except that they're poking through the floors of houses and roads. Which is annoying. Not critical or anything, just annoying.
2. 06a is laggy. Don't really know why, but perhaps I'll see about cutting it back a little bit. Perhaps I can save some cpu time with less npcs and/or physics stuff. (Don't worry, gameplay won't suffer )
3. I want to add a locator beacon (waypoint) to the crystal so that people don't loose it, but it doesn't seem to be going off. Anybody got a quick tutorial on how to get the waypoint entity to work? (Also, I was planning on using the pickup and dropoff commands on it to disable the waypoint when someone has it - Is there any need to know where it is when someone is holding it?)


Aside from those little issues, I'll give a map by map rundown:

oc_return_c17_01 - Blues is handling the optimization of this map, but I get the impression that he's pretty much done. One or two things that need to be tweaked (according to him), but it's compiling, which was the main reason I sent it to him. But I think he's far surpassed that goal, and is making it prettier and smoother to run. Everybody say "Thanks Blues!"

oc_return_c17_02 - This is the main one with the blend texture and sprite plants I don't really like. Hopefully I can either find a better texture to use, or get sick of trying it and use the old one. Either way, I'm probably not going to do more than two additional compiles on it. I added more npcs, made it a bit more interesting to fight through, and added a bit of a shortcut at the end that you can unlock. ('cause it was annoying if you didn't make the last jump - this way you can get back much faster after doing it once).

oc_return_c17_03 - Didn't change too too much on this one. A couple optimizations, re-working of the bigmomma (who is starting to move around a little bit). Oh, and I moved the trigger to start the train back a bit, so it doesn't take off without people as much . Also, like I said, I'd like to add a waypoint on the crystal so people can't loose it quite as easily. Just need to do another compile, buildcubemaps, pakrat, etc.

oc_return_c17_04 - Won't go into too many details (to avoid spoilers) but I reworked a story bit, removed a puzzle that wasn't very fun, tweaked some sequences a bit, and did some optimization. Again, another compile, possibly two, depending on if I can get some things working the first time 'round.

oc_return_c17_05 - I gotta say I'm liking this one better each time I play it. That is, when one of my npc's doesn't screw up. Hopefully he'll be fixed in this next compile, if not, it's another compile.

oc_return_c17_06a - It seemed to be working really well there for a bit, then I guess I just added one too many things and it started lagging up really bad. I'm going to give it another compile or two, and hopefully it'll fix it.


In short, it should be no more than two more compiles (on average) until I'm prepared to re-release the first three and release the next three.

Here's the bad news: I'm going away for a week! Yay! But I'll be back on Friday! Yay! And that gives me about a day and a half (possibly more) in which to do those very compiles. Hopefully, and I mean hopefully, I'll be able to release up to 06a by September 1st. If not, it'll at least be the next weekend


In case you were wondering, here's a few other little blips about the last four maps:

oc_return_c17_06b - Coming along, though I'd like to put another days work into this. I'd like to add another npc we don't usually see in the OC maps, which will mean expanding the map a little. I think it'll add to the whole series feeling though, so I feel confident that that's what I'll do. Probably 4-5 more compiles.

oc_return_c17_07 - (formerly prebeachhead (for those of you who did the beta oh-so-long-ago)) Fun fun fun. This is one of the nicest maps I've done in a while. I kinda want to add a bit more story into it, and I think I've got a way to do it, but we'll see. (I'm low on entities ). 2-3 more compiles.

oc_return_c17_08 - (formerly beachhead for those who played the beta long time ago) Another fun map, though I've got a different plan for the story now. It'll feature a return of some characters instead of new ones. Should be good. ~2 compiles.

oc_return_c17_09 - This one needs some re-working, though I finally decided on an end to it, and hence how to connect it with 10, which will help out a lot. I've got to run through it a few more times to make sure gameplay remains fun and challenging, and to tweak some sequences, but probably only 6 or 7 more compiles will get that.

oc_return_c17_10 - Last but most certainly not least, the big finale. Again, I haven't really started on this one, aside from the geometry, but I'm getting a better and better picture of how it's going to go. In fact, I'm pretty sure it'll be Epic (capital E). Not going to say too much beyond that, but it should be lots of fun to map and even more fun to play.



So yea. There's my rant/ramble on how the maps are coming.

If you skipped (TLDR'ed) the rest of the post, here's the sumup:
01-06a should be done in two weeks tops. (For real this time)
06b-9 should be done in another month or so.
10 will probably be done by Xmas.[/url]

[Hydra]

A few more suggestions.

1: In the currently public 03, the Crystal aint very nice. You should use the Xen Crystal material.

2: Make waypoints in the base where you wake up.

[Blues]

I could make a crystal model with a refract shader or something.

Just an offer

[DaMaN]

2: Make waypoints in the base where you wake up.

Well, I don't really like the idea of waypoints as you wake up, because that's John's job - he's there to show you around. But waypoints might be an idea for the other objectives (like, finding

I could make a crystal model with a refract shader or something.

Just an offer

Actually that would be pretty cool. I'm just using the HL1 textures on a brush. A model would look much better. Physics and dynamic if possible?

Though I guess this will delay the release...

Although you could see about extracting the crystal in the "rotator" in Eli's lab. It's pretty snazzy...

---

In other news, I'm back, and going to be mapping a bunch tomorrow. We'll see about getting 04-06a ironed out, we'll see about this model, then perhaps some work on 06b or 09.

[Hydra]

I was to write more accurate about it. But I closed the computer before. One player triggers John to move on and others load and are confused. They run around without knowing what to do.

[Blues]

I could make a crystal model with a refract shader or something.

Just an offer

Actually that would be pretty cool. I'm just using the HL1 textures on a brush. A model would look much better. Physics and dynamic if possible?

Well, actually i can make it physics and static, but not physics and dynamic. But as a workaround you can use a prop_dynamic_override to make it dynamic.
Or i could make it dynamic only and you could put a nodraw func_physbox around it which you set as parent of the dynamic to make it act a little like a physics object. but then the physics would look weird i think. i recommend the solution with the dynamic_override.
Surely you want it to be dynamic because physics and static don't have the "parent" keyword?

Oh, and btw. i already made this thing, but i still have to tweak the uv map and the normal map a little and adjust the refraction.
Later i'll post a screenshot of how it looks like right now... because now i'll go and have a shower

Edit:


This is how it looks like now.
I'll also edit in a few minutes and add a link for a video to this post

OK, video uploaded:
<object width="800" height="641"> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id= ... llscreen=1"> <embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id= ... llscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="800" height="641"></embed></object>

The avi of better quality can also be downloaded here i think:
http://vimeo.com/1633544

[DaMaN]

I was to write more accurate about it. But I closed the computer before. One player triggers John to move on and others load and are confused. They run around without knowing what to do.

Ahh... yea, that's true.

Ok, I'll make a waypoint to John. That should solve some problems.

I could make a crystal model with a refract shader or something.

Just an offer

Actually that would be pretty cool. I'm just using the HL1 textures on a brush. A model would look much better. Physics and dynamic if possible?

Well, actually i can make it physics and static, but not physics and dynamic. But as a workaround you can use a prop_dynamic_override to make it dynamic.
Or i could make it dynamic only and you could put a nodraw func_physbox around it which you set as parent of the dynamic to make it act a little like a physics object. but then the physics would look weird i think. i recommend the solution with the dynamic_override.

Make it physics, I'll use the dynamic override

Surely you want it to be dynamic because physics and static don't have the "parent" keyword?

Correct

Oh, and btw. i already made this thing, but i still have to tweak the uv map and the normal map a little and adjust the refraction.
Later i'll post a screenshot of how it looks like right now... because now i'll go and have a shower

Edit:


This is how it looks like now.
I'll also edit in a few minutes and add a link for a video to this post

OK, video uploaded:

The avi of better quality can also be downloaded here i think:
http://vimeo.com/1633544

I used this url for the vid: (if anyone else wants to see it) http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1633544&amp

Love it! That's a very very nice crystal, and I think it'd work great in the map! Good size too.

PM me the files - I want to add this.