[TF2] ctf_aerospace (beta 4)

Latest update --> http://%7boption%7d

Hi there, this is my very first post for my map ctf_Aerospace WiP thread and kind of a semi-intro.

I'm a slightly not-sane person who likes games so much that I want to make my own. I chose the Source engine, and especially TF2, as my starting point because:

• 
  [*:1oj2tr5i]Valve rocks and HL, HL:2 and The Orange Box are superb.
  [*:1oj2tr5i]I am a half decent modeller/texturer/artist and TF2 offers me the chance to exploit these skills.

I have mapped for HL in the past, back at 1998, but never came close to anything good. I then took a hiatus from mapping until may this year, when I started working on this map.

As I said, I'm not a totally sane person, and I like to detail, report and show off all my work. So expect this thread to be, literally, stuffed with pictures, descriptions, sketches and anything else I may think is important to the making of this map.

I started doing this map at Made in Brazil, that's where I am from, and you can find the original thread in here. There should be some more images and step-by-steps there, but most of the great stuff is already here.

Anyway, I guess you want to know what this map is all about after so much reading eh?

Well, there's more reading then!

Yea, I mean the map's context, story, description:

ctf_Aerospace

Story

"The Government has issued a contract for the creation of the new line of combat planes that are to be the standard for the near future. Two rivalling companies, Red Aerospace and Blue Aviation, are now battling for the contract.

After many months of lawsuits, legal actions and speculation, the The Government has decided to let both companies create a prototype, and has given advanced funding to both. At the end of the deadline, both prototypes will be analyzed and the best one fully produced, giving it's parent company will recieve the funding of a gazillion dollars for it.

Unfortunately, the production must be carried out in a secret location, and both companies have been given one half of the terrain to estabilish their facilities.

After many months of hard work, espionage and peeking over the walls, they each have their own prototype ready ahead of time. They could use this extra time to make their plane better, but stealing the opponent's blueprints and sabotaging their planes seems like a better option.

And so their facilities have became a warzone."

If you are interested in the rest of my working process, take a look at the original thread over here, I have recieved a lot of compliments for the great level of detail I put in my research and development, so I guess it`s a good read. Alpha 1 is released and here are the details behind it:

ALPHA 1 RELEASED!

(download here)

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Planes

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As you can see I have completely revamped the planes textures to be more in-line with TF2 style. The blue plane does not have LoDs or collision yet, but it sure looks pretty!

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Layout

Basic layout hasn't changed radically from the initial project. The two paths leading to each base have been extended and connected.

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Yard

This is the main path, the Yard. I'm setting the map in a deep mountain/forest military secret base, with observatories and towers in the distant mountains, so don't strange the waterfall.

Also, if you can help me on thistopic, I could make this waterfall THAT much prettier by alpha2!

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Base

Major change in the base layout has been the shift of the spawnroom out of the main hangar and into the back. The main hangar has been largely opened and is now a free for all capture-point. The holes in the roof add an extra layer of strategy, as scouts, soldiers and demoman can get there.

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Underground

With the longer walk to each base the sewers was expanded in concept to a sewers/cave area. The pits add extra gameplay obstacles and tough the main path is obvious and strategical, the cave is perilous and frenectic.

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Things I'm looking to improve:

- Does it play well?

- Are the intel rooms too hard/easy to defend?

- Does the map flow in a good pace or does it stall into turtling?

- Any class dominating or is it evenly balanced for each style of play?

- Are there any ways to sneak into an area you don't belong?

- Are there any ways to get "outside" the map?

- Are there any places the displacements are not properly sewn?

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Known Issues:

- Many dev textures

- Custom textures need refinment.

- no ammo/health packs around map.

- Many playerclips are to be more obvious with props (includind the sewer pit)

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Again you can get the Alpha 1 release here:

DOWNLOAD: ctf_aerospace_a1_v2

I`ll repeat in case you missed it: If you are interested in the rest of my working process, take a look at the original thread over here, I have recieved a lot of compliments for the great level of detail I put in my research and development, so I guess it`s a good read.

Yea I know they are needed, top-priority for Alpha 2, but indeed I'm looking for more specific input like if the maps is too small or too big, or if there's any completely unbalanced stuff in there.

Some people have said that it's too much scout-friendly, and indeed the scout does have some cool tricks to do on this map (jumping atop the waterfall, jumping over the fissures). I guess that properly placing ammo kits around will make an egineer's job easier, and they are a natural counter to scouts.

So yes, if you have the time, download and take a look at the layout. I don't mind redoing work to get optimal gameplay, but if I can get some feedback before I spend hours on refining it would be great!

Anyway, some people where also hinting that mixing up the bases and the waterfall with the cave and in a forest would look out of place, so I made a pretty visual aid to show what I intend the map to resempble when done:

[Blocked Image: http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b183/Arhurt/ctf_aerospace/jungle-Concept.jpg]

Another idea would be to make it in the desert, kinda based on this pic:

[Blocked Image: http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b183/Arhurt/ctf_aerospace/pic.jpg]

Now for the cons/pros

Forest:

Pros

• 
  [*:bhqwmkqr]Lots of original models
  [*:bhqwmkqr]Original Theme
  [*:bhqwmkqr]Different look than Stock maps
  [*:bhqwmkqr]Keep the waterfall

Cons

• 
  [*:bhqwmkqr]Lots of new props and materials to make from scratch
  [*:bhqwmkqr]General public will not download a huge map

Desert:

Pros

• 
  [*:bhqwmkqr]In-line with stock maps theme
  [*:bhqwmkqr]Less work to be done
  [*:bhqwmkqr]Faster release
  [*:bhqwmkqr]Better general public acceptance, but the file size will be larger anyway

Cons

• 
  [*:bhqwmkqr]Just another desert map
  [*:bhqwmkqr]Lose the waterfall (doesn't fit)

I'm leaning strongly for the forest theme. I love creating my own stuff and the extra effort really pays off in the end. The map will be a good 70-80Mb download, but heck I'm making this for a select group of people who enjoy custom-made original maps such as yourselves

looking foward to your feedback

Some updates hat went undocumented here:

Here is the new layout. I have considerably shortened the walk between the two bases and compressed the cavern a little bit. It's still big, mind you, but not over what was needed. Unfortunatey any class can now jump over the pits, but as the scout seemed to dominate the map giving this bonus to everyone seems like a fair choice.

[Blocked Image: http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b183/Ar…pace_a20001.jpg]

The main change though is a new connection between the sewers and the yard. You can see the big entrance to the side of the office building. It is large enough that it might attract most of the traffic out of the office building.

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This here is a little space I created for the engineer to setup. It's an obvious place for a sentry, but has it's weak spots. It gives the engineer control of the flag room, since a sentry put up like this:

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Will not only take care of the imediate roof of the hangar and the small window on the side, but will also stare with it's heavy caliber machineguns to anyone getting to the intel:

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Another change to the flag room was the closing of one entrance and narrowing the ceiling opening so a sentry or a demoman can stand in the corner and not be picked off by direct fire from above as seen below:

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Finally, I am starting to add a little detail so the map will be prettier for the next gameday. Not adding a whole lot of detail, but some custom models at least add a little more personality to the blue hangar:

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Now on the last screenshot is a problem I'm facing, apparently the models don't recieve shadow information from the world geometry. I guess I could break that door into two models and add the shadow to the texture, but I wonder if it's something I did wrong while compiling the map maybe.

And here's a look at the hangar door texture:

[Blocked Image: http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b183/Ar…/HangarDoor.jpg]

The windows are supposed to be the kind of safety glass you find in military compounds, but I'm having trouble with the material. Every time I add the transparency filter to the VMF the models looks all wrong with polygons being rendered in front of others. So I'm using "$Alphatest" 1 for now, but it not only kills the glass and makes it a grate, it get's all jagged up on the borders, even with antialiasing turned on.

Here are some screenies of the new cave section for alpha 2:

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I still have to add a lot of detail, but until I reach Beta I guess the cave is pretty much done for.

Oh, and Alpha 2 is out, here's the link: http://%7boption%7d

I`ll release all the models, prefabs and textures after release. Those stalactites and rocks in the cave are models, and the waterfall is a displacement with a scrolling texture applied to it (as buggy as hell, but it looks good and is cheap fps-wise).

• 
  [*:11jvj6zb]Demoman: You can jump on top of the Office building from both sides, just be careful with snipers if you are up front. You can also get anywhere a soldier can rocket-jump.
  [*:11jvj6zb]Soldier: You are able to get to the top of the Hangar (a very good position to defend or ambush a flag carrier. You can also jump right to the balcony of the offices. You can also jump up trough the flag`s room opening in the ceiling to avoid taking the flag trough the beaten path. You can also rocket-jump over trough the opening in the sewer room right in front of the hangar.
  [*:11jvj6zb]Engineer: The raised area by the hangar side is your own stronghold, use it! The office building is a good place for a teleporter exit, as is the inner side of the tower or behind the hangar.
  [*:11jvj6zb]Scout: You can get quickly trough the yard by jumping atop the waterfall rocks trough the raised props (but you will lose cover from snipers). It is also a good way to avoid being ambushed by enemies coming out of the cave. You can double-jump from the inside balcony of the Office to the small platform around the tower and from there get to the top of the Hangar (you have to duck to be able to get across, it`s tricky, but key to a fast capture). Also, in the cavern, you can sometimes survive bumping on the slactites with a well timed double-jump across.
  [*:11jvj6zb]Medic, Pyro, Spy and Heavy: Do your magic and mess up with the other classes plans, they are all spelled out above

Hey, thanks a lot guys!

Quote from FrieChamp

Have you got a portfolio?

Not for mapmaking this is my first map after a loong hiatus (I toyed with worldcraft a bit in 1998-99) so I'm basically learning as I go. That's one reason for such detailed documentation and progress report, so I can get to possible problems early on and fix them.

Quote from Psycho

I demand more. MOAR!

Did you check the original thread at TF2maps.net? ( http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=2157 ) there is a lot more in there from the early stages and concepts of the map.

And if you want to play it on a full server, join us at our Gameday this weekend. Be sure to download the map from the site on a zipped version before since it's a pretty big file! download here

Thanks guys, I'll keep you posted!

Thanks Psycho, that`s some good feedback and I`ll take care of those.

The health pack and ammo pickup on the red side of the cave will be more easily accessible after I finish the red crystal cluster, similar to blue's side, and add it in there. As for the big ammo pick-up, yeah it definately needs more lighning. I have to put some ambient light on the whole cave to lit it up a bit, TF isn't really about too dark spaces.

Thanks again, and dux, looking foward for your comments

Small update.

People were complaining that the cave was too dark and it turns out my monitor was way too bright. Now that I have my monitor calibrated, I'm working on some lightning standards for my map. I do want to have a nice contrast between the dark cave, the indirect lightning of the Hangar and the outdoor areas.

What do you guys think:

Cave (Dark, but not so much as to mess up with gameplay)

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Inside the Hangar (Indirect lightning and a "noir" feel)

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Outside (not as bright as 2fort, almost a sunset)

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Oh, and as you can see the map suffered some major cahges in and around the hangar!

Quote from Psycho

Those hanging lights inside the hanger need to be brighter.

Thanks, yes I have already brightened them up and placed some sprites to make them stand out more.

Quote from DvS

The ducts look a bit off when diagonal like that and the cracked concrete ground texture is just fugly, otherwise I really like it so far

Thanks! Yes I didn't like those ducts as well, need more work on those. I just put them up there because I want to split the roof on two separate gameplay areas. The ground texture has been scaled down as well and looks a lot better now.

I'm running into a little bit of a problem now with compile times, especially in the cave, and I belive it has to do with the visleafs division. As the cave is a whole displacement, and really open, it must not be optimally divided. But I'm having trouble coming up with the best method to solve this. As it stands now, the cave is a big displacement enshrined by square brusheswith nodraw or toolsblack texture that loosely follow it's contour. Here are a couple hammer screenies of the area (with the props hidden)

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My question is how would I go about placing my Hintbrushes on it?