Some of the sections I helped make for the new Biodome map that came with the latest ns2 update.
The update in video format!
Some of my stuff:
Fuckin' lovely. I really like the use of foliage within the otherwise steely industrial area. That bamboo stuff looks downright great. The only possibly criticism I could give is that the grass in the final two shots looks a bit unnatural, it's quite easy to see the 'lines' of grass.
Shots look great 
I really like what I saw in-game from this map, as well.
really love it, have to check it out.
Bamboo Grove kicks ass
Really great work on the map, Dux! I'm chuffed that a lot of my assets were still used for this too! 
Terrible art, should fire that guy.
Awesome work!
I like grass that grows in straight lines!
That wasn't me, that was outsource 
that's right, blame the outsourcer 
anyway totally digging this, not like a gardener, just as a gamer
Wow.... just... wow!
Biodome:Lighting optimisations in many areas, approximately 300 lights removed.
300 lights removed , wow.
Quote from sven
NS2 requires its own almost light-optimization pass, because you start using a hundred lights to achieve the results you want, but upon later analysis find ways to achieve the same final results using less light entities. Haven't run into that problem on Source, honestly
I never mapped for NS2, so thanks for the explanation. 300 lights less just seemed a lot coming from Source. I haven't played NS2 in a while, but these recent updates sounds like a good reason to try it again. I find if very interesting to see how transparent Unknown Worlds is with the regular updates on the site .
Well Source uses baked lighting so you can do a lot more with less lights, as you get a lot of bounce lighting. There is no bounce lighting in Spark so you have to try and fake it.
The advantage being that you dont need to wait an hour to see what your lights look like in-game.
Quote from TarrySrumanThe advantage being that you dont need to wait an hour to see what your lights look like in-game.
Having worked with both, it doesn't end up being an advantage, you just sit there tweaking stuff endlessly that needn't be tweaked. The Source bounce light system is way better, if you could remove compiling from the equation it would be hands down. The problem with NS2 lighting is that you can't set ambient light to go across the entire map uniformly, and the skybox has no impact on level lighting. Two huge problems that hold the engine back IMO, but then again it reflects the nature of the game (total darkness is sometimes required, such as when aliens cut out the power in a room)
Fully dynamic bounce lighting would be absurdly expensive wouldnt it? Or has some super bitchin engine of the future solved that problem already
CryEngine has probably been doing that since 1987.
Absurdly is the right word here.
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