dm_void - ready to submit

After a month and 5 days, I've finally completed my entry. I've waited until now to show screenshots because I wanted it to be as unique as possible. Even if just one person said "Hey, I should use a blue laser", that was enough of a reason for me to not show screens.

It's the difference between the judges saying "wow, we haven't seen that yet!" and "Cool, another blue laser" (That's just an example, obviously blue laseres are nothing too innovative..)

My plan was to create something that can't be overlooked. The first thing I decided on was to use the citadel textures, since they would probably be the least used. Something that catches their eye gives me that much more of an advantage than yet another urban setting.

I come from the Quake3 community, so obviously the design is inspired by a lot of amateur q3 maps I've seen. Not really the design itself, but the whole "floating in the void" thing.

[Blocked Image: http://www.infosprite.com/members/W01f/dm_void0009small.jpg]

Hi-res: http://www.infosprite.com/members/W01f/dm_void0009.jpg

[Blocked Image: http://www.infosprite.com/members/W01f/dm_void0230small.jpg]

Hi-res: http://www.infosprite.com/members/W01f/dm_void0230.jpg

These screens are out of date, though you probably won't notice:

http://www.infosprite.com/members/W01f/dm_void_2.jpg

http://www.infosprite.com/members/W01f/dm_void_1.jpg

One of my main concerns was the blue. I thought it might just have too much blue. I tried changing the fog colour, but blue looked the best. I tried changing the light colours to orange, multiple shades of green, and white..but blue still looked best. There really was nothing I could do about the monotonous colour scheme without making it look worse overall. Everything blue really does look the best.

It took about three days to perfect the lightning. And when I say three days, I mean doing nothing but working on that. It was hard to find the right sounds, since the only lightning sounds in HL2 are backround global sounds, but I ended up finding something, and I think it turned out pretty well.

As for gameplay, I probably spent just as much time working on the item layout as I did constructing the brushes (and as you can tell, the brush work isn't exactly something that could be whipped up in a few hours, especially when it's coming straight from my brain to the computer without any reference). It's pretty balanced. Should be a good competitive 1v1 map, and good for small team matches. 8 player DM will probably feel crowded.

So tell me what you think. Comments and constructive critisizm are always welcome, though don't expect to see your suggestions make it to the map (unless it's something genius) since it's already burned on CD and ready to go.

There are only a few..ladders, lights, bonoculars Trust me, I tried it with more and it wasn't fun constantly tripping over them.

Thanks for the comments tho

Quote from Bluestrike

Looks pretty nice, different to ruined city looks (what becomes really bored in time).But since HL2:dm is about trowing objects to youre enemies, that type of gameplay might be lost on youre map.

And if you add those objects, they can still fall of the sky, so you would need objects what can get destroyed and respawn.

Still its always nice to see something different with the HL2 textures.

There are still a few objects to throw around, just not a billion like in the 2 stock DM maps. Also, they do come back after falling off the edge..

But thanks for the comments and concern

^lol, do you honestly think I wouldn't realize this after working on it every day for an entire month? Don't worry

As for that last comment about futuristic looking boxes..sounds good, but you can't use custom material for the contest

Actually I think I do remember you Thanks for the kind comments.

For the release, am I supposed to put this in a PAK file like for Quake3, or do I just put the bsp into a zip file and leave it as is?