I was not going to ask for it, but I may need assistance..

(MadMaximus) #1

I started a map, and with pm’s to damocles ( who has been very helpful ) I think im coming to an impass soon with my map. I may need some assistance in finishing it off.

I have tons of texture cleanups and alignments, but thats no prob, I’ll finish that off soon, plus the buildings like the terrain are all roughed in, and I should have them all done within the week.

But little things like the textures on the terrain could be layed out better, Im not much of an artist when it comes to alpha/meta shader placements.

Hint placement is also a bear for me to deal with. With damocle’s help and sugeestions, I redid my 4 buildings ( with portals of over 2000 ) and properly made caulk structures and detailed the good looking stuff on them to bring my portals down to under 300. Thanks again damocles.

Scripting is also needed to finish it off. I got a wild idea that i would love to see in an et map. I got a handle on a lot of the scripting but someone who is more proficient at it and would like to help out would really be appreciated.

Im new to mapping and this is my first one for et. Any help offered would get full credits and props. =)

Here are some screens of what I got so far, If they dont show up ( and I had this problem before ) just pm or reply back and I can post links to the screens.

The map is HEAVILY covert and engineers oriented. and I mean HEAVY! although… people who love to snipe shouldnt be without more than a few places they can perch… =)

Allies spawn in 2 train cars initially and have to make their way to 2 fenced compounds on either side of 2 hangers to blow up trucks with barrels of chemicals on them… ( mustard gas?? ) not shure yet. but thats the objective I started with.






The ice under this footbridge has water under it and a way for coverts with engineers to enter the compound via a different way. Actually, its kinda cool to look down at the ice and see someone swimming under it.

this hydro pole is climbable ( there are 3 ) and is another way to access the objectives as long as the power is disabled to them. else you fry when you try to walk across the wires :blah:

Not shown are screenshots of the sewer’s that run under the base. And as you can see I have a lot of building brushes to apply and textures to redo here and there. Im keeping in mind performance coupled with detailed maps, but sometimes when I start doing something I will look over and say “if i added a few angled detail brushes here… and then did this…” I get carried away sometimes… with that said,
By the end of the week The mapping should be done hopefully… a few more buildings, then I can tackle the scripting, the look of the terrain and hint the map up where it might have problems… with a few good ppl who are willing to help out of course =)

Let me know what you think, feedback is never ignored.

(damocles) #2

Glad to see this map is coming along so nicely. Could be really good to play as well.

What sort of scripting help are you going to need?

(MadMaximus) #3

hi again damocles, hope you had a good time when you were away for the week.

just the usual scripting, like i mentioned the map is heavy covert/engineer, although just blowing the main gate and another route is all that is needed to get to the objectives and then dynamite the pen’s to get in and finally dynamite the objectives.

in the sewers there are 2 more dynamitable routes that can be used, totaly optional to the engineer’s, they dont need to do these routes to finish the map. some buildable stuff, mg nests, the usual command post ( 1 only, neutral ) and the top secret idea i’ll pm you about =)

im having a go at the scripting, got the maingate to blow, should be the same for the 2nd route to the hangers, i can build/destroy the footbridge. the command post and mg nests should be ok to do also, but i havent tried to do them yet.

as of now, there are 5 covert doors, like i mentioned, heavy covert action,
one at the choke, 1 at each obj. and a few others scattered here and there.

the one thing i’d like to do is the power wires. I have the fusebox made with the cover off, and 2 wires showing. id like it if they are enabled to start with ( hydro wires enabled… shocky shocky if an engineer tries to use them to get to the objectives ) and to disable them, the allied engy just uses his pliers on them. no satchel or dynamite can disable them.
the Axis of course can re-enable them by repairing the wires.

I dont know if this is possible. I mean, i know they can be built and destroyed ( disabled ) but, can such a thing be done without the dynamite or satchel symbol appearing when an engineer gets near them?

I made a post of this question before without any replies that helped,

http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3319&highlight=

it has links that show some of the really early concepts of the map there.

(ljbade) #4

im a noob so i ont have any help for you, but i would like to say tht train thing is original and is not bad for a first attempt. if your having trouble visualizing terrain use EasyGen, just do a forum search and find out where to get it. it’ll be a good map when your finished can’t wait

(MadMaximus) #5

thanks for the feedback, one of those train sections is a prefab, the tanker, which i doubled and couldnt texture proper because it was meant for rtcw, but as i mentioned before i have to retexture a lot of stuff and do alignemnts. the boxcars where the allies spawn ( 2 boxcars ) i made with brushwork. as for the terrain, i used easygen to create it. 10240x10240 at 80 divisions, 128 block size, and i move all the mountain points by hand. ( took me 2 days… with a few coffee breaks in bewteen ). I dont know how to effectivly use gensurf yet. and as for painting the terrain, i have to experiment a bit. that mountain range at the west end in the pics above im going to redo now… after staring at it for while it reminds me of nessie rising from the loch. :slight_smile:

(damocles) #6

Looks like you have most of it in hand.

Explosives: If making one off dynamitable explosives, the easiest method I find is to make it in two parts. I’ll use a door as an example. Make a door. Then use the clipper to clip out a crude hole in it. Now grab the centre hole brushes and make them a func_explosive - give it a script name and in it’s spawn function add:

constructible_class 3

Bingo, the door gets blown, and the remains of the door that weren’t made into a func_explosive are left behind to look like nice rubble/broken door parts.

I’m guessing seeing as you have the constructible bridge setup that you have most of the explosives/constructibles scripting under your belt. To do the fuse thing, you would make it just like a normal constructible, but where you would make the complete one all shiny to show progress, you could leave that part out. This way oince the progress bar is full, the broken wires brushes appears, the normal version vanishes and it looks like the engie “fixed” them to turn off.

(MadMaximus) #7

thanks for the suggestion damocles, that sounds like exactly what i want it to do, no big notification of the hydro being disabled, just a small message “allies have disable the power lines!” and thats it. then the engy can quickly scramble up the post and run across the wires until he gets to the hangers before the axis enable them again. i put together a sound for the wires when u get shocked. its an electric buzz noise and a guy screaming. funny stuff.

and thanks for the replie on the pm. thats something i really want to try. I dont want to go to over the top on my 1st map though. i’ll see if its do-able… else i’ll skip that idea altogether.

I just didnt want to put that idea out in open forum, else i fear id see it in maps before mine was done. heh.

unless its already been done, then im… im humbled… :slight_smile:

(Irrelevant) #8

Charming.
…or should that be charming? :chef:

Seriously, that looks like a fun map, with some nice original ideas. Whatever you do, do NOT rush the polishing. A map’s no fun if it’s laggy or has bugs, regardless of how good the concept is.

(MadMaximus) #9

heh, no chance of me rushing the polishing now… i just realized i have to much terrain at 3 ends and not enough at one area… so i chopped a 1/4 of the map out of a corner, pinched it off and downsized the other 3 ends… and now am constructing a seperate map where they both will meet up with 2 tunnels… improved fps dramiticly and also, with a new area to play with, that train will probably sit on a train bridge now that overlooks a deep and long chasm with ice at the bottom, a whole new area not hindered by fps of the main base is nice to play with now. the map was originally going to sit in a 10240x10240 square area, thats increase by at least 4096 now. I was hoping for a smaller map in the end, but as long as i dont go over 14 meg bsp ( unzipped ) size in the end, it should be ok. im at 11 meg now, the new area is just the trains/trainyard and main axis defense… and a lot of scenic area for those who like to just daydream…

=)

(Wraith2k3) #10

Some interesting ideas you have. It will be good to play I believe, if you get everything working the way you want it to. One thing though, you want to either make more than one objective, or make the objective very hard to get to, in order to warrant using the alternative routes. Otherwise I can just see people picking the most straightforward way and all other routes getting ignored, which would be a shame.

(MadMaximus) #11

yeah, i gotta make shure its not to easy for the allied team to beat, there are 2 main objectives like in siwa oasis, but they are enclosed in pens that have to have the gates blown 1st. the main route in after the axis lose their initial spawn is really easy to defend i think, so the axis shouldn’t have to much of a problem there… but i dunno… once i get an alpha out and some good feedback on the layout i will know better. but im thinking right now members on the allied team will use the alternate routes maybe close to half the time just to see if they can do it, but time will tell. after i finish up the main airfield compound, i can start on the allied spawn area which is kinda huge also, but should be easy now since i understand more about map making now. ( hopefully =)