[wip] recon

(_prophet) #1

Hello,

Here is a map myself and 3 other mappers have been working on since this past fall with a 5 month break in between :expressionless: (these three did all of the work while i only supplied some of the ideas - i made the command map because i actually wanted to contribute something. It may or not be used in the final version because it sucks ).

It started with Mud-H who did all the original layout and texturing. When he became busy with the Price of Peace mod i got permission from him to pass it onto Six who rearranged the placement of some structures and scenery and fixed some bugs. He started to lose interest in mapping when he got hooked on Wow. A little over a week ago it was passed onto Spaffdog who has been removing most of the custom textures and replacing them with more familiar ET textures. Here are some screenies of what is done so far.

Allies Original Spawn:

Bridge:

Cave Bunker:

Forward Bunker (right) and Transmitter (left):

Comman Post and Main City Gate:

City Shot #1:

City Shot #2:

Story and Objectives:

While on a routine recon mission in Northern <insert placename here>, the allies discover that the axis are holding top secret war plan in a remote Town. The allies must infiltrate the town, steal the documents and transmit them back to allied command to avoid a surprise attack.

// Axis Objective Descriptions

“Primary Objective:**Prevent the documents from being stole and transmit.”
“Secondary Objective:**Defend the Forward Bunker from the Allies.”
“Secondary Objective:**Defend the 3 town gates.”
“Secondary Objective:**Build a Command Post in the Side Bunker.”
“Secondary Objective:**Stop the Allies from constructing a Command Post in the Side Bunker.”
“Secondary Objective:**Stop the Allies from constructing the Ramp.”

// Allied Objective Descriptions
“Primary Objective:**Blow the Bunker Complex Side entrance.”
“Primary Objective:**Steal the Secrets Documents and transmit them.”
“Secondary Objective:**Capture the Forward Bunker from the Axis.”
“Secondary Objective:**Blow the 3 town gates.”
“Secondary Objective:**Stop the Axis from constructing a Command Post in the Side Bunker.”
“Secondary Objective:**Build a Command Post in the Side Bunker.”
“Secondary Objective:**Build the Ramp in-town.”

There should be a beta version ready within the next 10 days or so (it may or may not be a public release).

(kamikazee) #2

No offense intended, but this is my first impression:

  • Some textures tile a lot on the screenshots, eg those on the rooftops.
  • Lots of textures are seen in more than 2 places.
  • The contrast is way of. For a start, the contrast between the sky and the lighting are serisouly out of proportion. I guess it needs a few tries to get it within tolerable limits, but all shadows seem too bright for what the sky could illuminate. There are allso some white textures in the middle of grey walls - some people might complain about snowblindness.

Are there some screens of how it looked like before all custom textures were replaced? If it’s worth it in terms of looks, a larger filesize wouldn’t necessarily matter.

Overall, this map seems to have potential. If the map hasn’t changed a lot in the mean time, I would like to ask you if you could call it a “First Playable” version to show that it still needs work. If the gameplay rocks, people will play it no matter if it’s called beta or FP.
It’s a rather common idea that a beta has all lighting, texturing, brushwork, script and objectives the way the mapper intended it. (Or said otherwise: when a mapper thinks his work is done and awaits response from the public. Truly good maps are really “done” and wouldn’t require another beta.)

(_prophet) #3

i probally made this thread a little prematurely. He is still in the process of changing an awful lot of stuff around (lighting, textures, etc…). The original one looked good with a highq cfg and your vid card settings maxed out(obviously the case with every map), but looked really bad with the customs and just didn’t have an et feel to it (used price of peace textures).

Thanks for the comments and advice. I wasn’t sure what i should call the initial release, i just assumed mappers called them “betas” - “first playable” sounds much better (and much more accurate :))

(Brevik) #4

Looking good mate, I particularly like the view in screenshot 2, it’s nice and open and you’ve avoided the everything at right angles look (something I never managed with Braundorf).

We await a playable version with barely suppressed anticipation… :smiley:

(nUllSkillZ) #5

Are there two exits for the aliied spawn?

(_prophet) #6

Yeah - you will be able to spawn in either of those buildings and at least one of them will have a second exit. Hopefully spawn camping those won’t be an issue (much like the initial allied spawn on supply depot).

(spaffdog) #7

prophet :o

well some textures do repeat but thats really just because of the texture replacement process. i wanted to get rid of all traces of teh customs as the pk3 was 20mb :o

the lighting… another issue that i’ll get round to doing. i’m currently using various min lighting, color and ambient values to try and achieve a decent result. i’d rather not light the whole map by hand using light emitting textures or entities but i probably will need to. we’ll see.

ok please bare in mind i had a HUGE amount of work to do to this map before icould even start texturing it.

the tiling…

the roof’s??? thats the standard texture used on radar :confused: i guess you can tell SD off for that. nothing to do with me that mate.

i know your talking about teh grass as well. again this is something i’ll fix. there are already plenty of places to blend to dirt and what not that i’ll do but for some reason my alpha fades are being annoying. they work for one part but refuse to work on the next. i’ll look at my shader again when i have time.

try not to be too critical of this as it’s only a WIP that i’ve possibly worked on for 3 days. it’s a HUGE HUGE change from the original look of the map.

i really liked the layout (with some tweaks when i get round to it) and really wanted to see this reach it’s potential.

it’s getting there. :smiley:

(Mud-H) #8

:drink: Good Job spaffdog! I’m happy to see recon back in progress! If you need help to make it final, I could help you abit. Should be back at ET mapping very soon :banana:

I understand your concern but that texture .pk3 was a bit early and after a clean up removing unused stuff it was around 5mb. Anyway, it’s fine for me but maybe you could use some of the town textures (just make it 512 x 512 to be more etish) to make a new feeling to the map with only few new textures.

Anyway, if you need some help to finish it, I can put some time on it.

Keep up working! :clap:

**Here’s some link to old recon screen using custom textures. Like you can see they are very big (1024 x 1024) but by resizing them like ET they won’t take much space in a .pk3.

http://www.nordik-gaming.com/nordiklab/et_recon_a3_01.jpg
http://www.nordik-gaming.com/nordiklab/et_recon_a4_01.jpg
http://www.nordik-gaming.com/nordiklab/et_recon_a4_02.jpg
http://www.nordik-gaming.com/nordiklab/et_recon_a4_03.jpg

(spaffdog) #9

it was a shame the original textures didn’t transfer well on low configs :frowning:

I was thinking about the posibility of using the some of the town textures. wasn’t sure what direction i wanted it to go in and settled for the old radar, castle and cathedral textures.

i really did like the look of the map in it’s original incarnation (wasn’t sure about the terrain tho - but as prophet told me it was only early beta or alpha).

i’m probably not going to have a great deal of time to work on it for a week or two. after that it’ll be plain sailing (about a month off work - joys of redundancy). Any help you want to give is appreciated (xfire is just spaffdog). after all. it was your map to start with :smiley:

props on the build quality too. mosty done without trisouping and as such (as brevik said) the terrain is really nice looking.

(d3coy) #10

if your still having problems with your alpha… i did as well when i played with the map some a few weeks ago and I found out that an alpha blend brush CANNOT belong to a func_group or else it will not work… so check to make sure they are not grouped.

(redRum) #11

Alpha blending brushes work with func_groups, but they need to be in the same group than the brushes you want to blend. You can use as many blending groups as you want, so if 2 alpha blending brushes are in the same spot, it will look in which group they are and each will do the job only in its own group.

(spaffdog) #12

thanks for the suggestion d3coy. i had completely forgotten about the func_group problems i’ve had in the past. All the terrain appears to belong to a func_group per half of the map. removed the grouping… et voila! it worked! we have dirt where it needs to be. many thanks. good to see you back btw

(d3coy) #13

thanks… im glad that worked… I must have spent the better part of a day to figure that out… lol

Redrum thanks for that info… i did not know that… its nice to know that they can be part of the same group… although i think would be best to not group them as i tend to redo my terrain alot… lol