MAP: Saberpeak alpha shots

[ratty_redemption]

I hope NOP doesnt mind me posting this... hes got a test map working with soft edge water, here is a thread in the q3map2 forum, where we have been dissussing ydnars alphamod volume brushes, being used to make the new water Ive been developing over the last few months.

[Fusen]

ya nice map although as some have said the waters edge and the start of the beach like abit straight as in they dont really blend it it just stops and starts but other than that its very nice

[G0-Gerbil]

Lovely looking pics, I always love a different and new texture feel to a map (currently playing venice tons, damn fine map Chavo!).
My only criticism would be the cranes - while they look really lovingly modelled, the pure yellow just looks a bit too modern, they scream out ‘from a different time-zone!’. Now of course I’ve done bugger all research into old cranes so could well be wrong, but I’d have thought plain metal (possibly a red) would be more likely what the machinery in those times would be like. Yellow is just a bit too JCB if you get my drift.

[NOP]

@ratty your waterfalls look excellent…loved that mist, looks really great. I’ve been really busy the last couple of days so I haven’t done much work on the map, but hopefully i’ll get back on track soon. I wanna finalize the water since I have most of it done. Like I said in the water thread, the last thing I wanna add to it is some white foam to simulate the waves over the clear portion near the shore, much like the water in battery. The problem i’m having is that I want the waves to start appearing gradually as you get closer to the shore, but at the same time to fade in and out periodically. This means their alpha value has to be controlled by a sin function(for the fade in and out part) but also by the vertex alpha(for the gradually appearing as you get closer to the shore part), if that makes any sense. Of course it’s not possible to have the alpha value be controlled by 2 different sources, so I have to figure out a way to fake it somehow. I have a couple of ideas and I’ll start working on it as soon as I have some free time, but in the mean time any help is appreciated.(on second thought maybe I should’ve posted this on the water thread in the q3map2 forum)

@Fusen I know what you mean about the water and it’s already fixed, thanks to ratty’s suggestions and ydnar’s amazing work. Check out the thread he suggested for some examples of how the water will look in the end.

@Gerbil Well I actually tried a bunch of colors for the cranes and I know they look a little too “contemporary”, but i think it’s okay cause they actually look pretty good in the game(if I may say so myself ) and I don’t think it hurts it that much to sacrifice a little realism for a little familiarity.(even though I have no idea what color they were back in the day either)
The real reason why i actually chose yellow is cause I wanted some more color in the hangar area to break the monotony of the overall grayishness in that portion of the map. There are some red lights and some other colorful objects, but in general the hangar was pretty bleak and the cranes break it up nicely.

[KillerKind]

Very nice work NOP.

How is the performance of this map?

[ratty_redemption]

@NOP, thanx man

and I`ll do some tests on making water foam tomorrow.

and yes we can only have one alphagen per shader stage, although an rgbgen wave sin, can help fade in and out the tex, although not quite as well as alphagen does.

I found with my castle moat water, that its a balance between the tex image darkness, its alpha channel and tweaking the shader values, but I think the result will be ok for your beach water as well, just a little more complex then the main water you have made.

and as for movement, I`ll be testing tcmod turb and stretch, to see which appears more natural for the beach waves.

also Ive got an quite good environment mapped stage to make darker water look more reflective, although Im sure there is room for improvement with the image I made.

also there isn`t much point adding it to bright water layer, like my waterfalls or your foam, as it would then be hardly noticeable, and will impact slightly on the fr, but for the normal water, I recommend something like it.

eh, when we have more to say on this, we can continue it in the other thread, but no harm with us having some cross over, as the water foam is more specific to your tropical beach map.

regarding performance of the new water, it seems pretty good, although I decided to remove deform verts from mine, despite it being a nice effect, it does affect fr, and we can save on hundreds of tris if we dont use it, just something to consider when maps have a lot of water, like NOPs and mine with have.

[ratty_redemption]

NOP, Im working on a test map of the foam, but do you have a foam, wave tex that you could post into this forum, as it would save me time if I dont have to paint one.

[NOP]

unfortunately i don’t…but SD’s seawall_foam texture is pretty good, so you can use that if you want. Here’s a version of it with an alpha channel to get rid of most of the water.

[ratty_redemption]

thanx and I`ll try that

[zero_chAos]

Hey, you know what, stop talking and get it done

Look REALLY nice. As soon as it’s done, its going on my personal beta server, then to my public server. Whats the filesize on it?

[NOP]

thanks zero…actually one of the reasons i posted the screenshots is cause i thought if people liked it, the pressure would push me to get it done faster.(and it’s actually working)

As far as the file size is concerned, it’s a little early to tell but as with all maps with lots of custom textures there’s a price to pay. I’m hoping it will not pass 10 meg but unfortunately stuff tends to add up really fast…so we’ll just have to see.
But I will try to have as much testing done as possible before it goes public so that there aren’t a million versions of it out there that people have to download every time a new bug is found.

[MadJack]

NOP, I don’t know if you tried -light just for fun/checking but that compile will jack up the size… Mine is at 5 MB no light and almost doubles with light. No custom textures (except for the necessary ones like commandmap etc…)

WaHt a PaIn!

[NOP]

Yeah light does increase the bsp size quite a bit, but fortunately the bsp compresses pretty nicely…usually you can get it up to 1/4 the original size after compression.
Textures on the other hand and especially sound don’t compress much. You can get it down to maybe 1/2 the size of the original for the textures IF you’re lucky…and as far as the wave sound files are concerned you might as well not bother with them at all cause you’re not really gonna gain anything( but that’s of course if you’re using any custom sounds in the first place which most people don’t).
That’s actually one of the reasons a lot of people stay away from custom textures, sounds etc. which is a shame cause they can really make a map stand out.

[ratty_redemption]

NOP, although that sd tex you gave me is good, it doesnt work right with my shader and small test map Im making, based on your water test… I`ll try to make it a .jpg rather then a .tga to help keep the files size down.

I think the effect will be pretty cool though

Ive been dev it inbetween doing my own work, I think itll be ready for you in a day or two, I hope that isn`t too late for you to use it, if you like it?

[NOP]

Thanks ratty…I appreciate any help you can give me. That texture was not what i originally had in mind for my waves either .
It’s made mainly of small patches of foam and I wanted more of a long connected strings effect, so in the end i might end up using something else but we’ll see.

However the hardest part is getting the shader right, cause once that’s done you can always replace the textures and tweak little things to make it work.

[ratty_redemption]

I wanted more of a long connected strings effect

thats what Im trying to paint, even if you just use it as a place holder

and I know how to write the shader, so no problem there… it`s just finding time to finish it all, which I will asap.

btw, Im going to start a new topic over the next few days, in the q3map2 forum titled "how to use the new alphamods to make terrain" as thats the other stuff I`ve been working on.

Ive managed to write a dotproduct type shader to work with the alphamod volume brushes, so we can use them on any angled ground, even totally flat, and basically place volume brushes where we want one layer of the shader to have bias, but the blending it uses isnt linear, so creates that speckled, dithered look that I love about dotproduct blending.

it`s just as easy to build as the water brushes, and we can very simply create blend sections to cover up the seams between other tex, and either use linear fading or the dithered type

edit: the reason that topic will start in the q3map2 forum, is because its really in development stage, and newbie mappers might find it confusing, but once weve got all the basics perfected, then me and some other guys, will start making some step by step tutorials, on making water and terrain uses these blending methods.

[zero_chAos]

I’m still in AWE at the quaity of this map. If its as good as your screenshots, it would be my personal favorite map in any game ever. Its THAT nice. AS SOON as it’s done or in beta, PLEASE PM me and send it to me so I can put it up to the public first.

[zero_chAos]

While your at it, care to give us an approximate time until your done? Just take a guess.

[NOP]

There isn’t that much work left on it to tell you the truth…the problem is finding the time to work on it. I’m shooting for a release in about a month from now (hopefully sooner). I wasn’t actually expecting this much response since these were just alpha shots, but now I’m really starting to feel the pressure.

That being said I don’t really want people to raise their expectations too much cause you always run the risk of disappointing some of them in the end.
The map might look good but there are a million other things that might screw it up…like gameplay and performance. People usually get over the eye candy after 5 min in the game and if the gameplay is no good, or the map runs poorly they will stop playing it.
I’m trying hard to balance everything, but in the end it’s very hard to make everybody happy.

Like I said before, you can’t really get an idea of what the map looks like from the screenshots cause i purposely left most of the terrain out since it’s not done yet.
I might post some more screenshots when the terrain is done so you can get a better idea what it looks like, but in general the map although quite big(about 10000x10000) is extremely simple. There are no useless places just to fill space (although you could consider the sea useless) and you’ll pretty much know every spot of this map after the first play.

[zero_chAos]

Well, before release, release to a control group so you have time to change any errors or gamplay that could drag it down. coughlike mecough