El Paso [Outlaws&Lawmen] (updated 17 jan)

    The shadows are clearly a problem.

    But the one thing that really bothers me is the ground is like a vibrant orange plaster, I think you should really look into blending in some darker dirt inbetween the buildings where they would be most used. Also the wild west was a filthy place, some trails of mud and sewage etc running alongside the main dirt trail roads would be very authentic. On top of that you could throw some occassional horse-carraige tracks. Just something to break the monotony.

    Believe me when I say 32 is more adecuate, 16 is starting to look like sharp at the edges, and thats looks very unrealistic in outdoors. There are other shadow issues related to prop usage, but I'm not sure if that can be fixed. I'm not using complex collision models on the railings, palizade etc because could be overkill on multiplayer I guess. If I make the correct phys models but use box as collision method shadows would be correct? Hope so.

    The ground could be improved but I won't make new art because of the high video memory usage. There are two different ground textures that look much of the same because of the tone, do you think contrast should be higher between them?

    Quote from R_Yell

    Believe me when I say 32 is more adecuate, 16 is starting to look like sharp at the edges, and thats looks very unrealistic in outdoors.

    I would say maybe depending on time of day, very blurred shadows arent terribly realistic either.

    Quote

    ... do you think contrast should be higher between them?

    yes

    Ah yes, shadows are crisper when sun is higher, but I have some doubts. Does an high building produce the same shadows at the edges than a small tree or a road sign. I mean, does affect height?

    Anyway, I wasn't accounting quality only, the size of the lightmap also matters. I was worried about video memory as said, but I checked other maps and maybe I'm not on danger levels yet. Using 16 scale total texture usage was around 240MB, using 32 is about 220MB. I checked de_inferno and it's on 266MB, so I guess mine is okay at the moment.

    Quote from R_Yell

    Ah yes, shadows are crisper when sun is higher, but I have some doubts. Does an high building produce the same shadows at the edges than a small tree or a road sign. I mean, does affect height? Anyway, I wasn't accounting quality only, the size of the lightmap also matters. I was worried about video memory as said, but I checked other maps and maybe I'm not on danger levels yet. Using 16 scale total texture usage was around 240MB, using 32 is about 220MB. I checked de_inferno and it's on 266MB, so I guess mine is okay at the moment.

    Right there, however R_yell you must stop discomposing about the map capacity and volume. Your map looks so forsaken, uninhabited still. Fulfill the map with bushes, shrubs. like in this screenshot example

    [Blocked Image: http://www.energia-info.ru/files/Shrubs%20cactus%20and%20Joshua%20Tree_s.jpg]

    Good find Meotwister, they are so sharp that I'd need a scale of 2 to match them I hope this will be enough (16):

    [Blocked Image: http://img149.imagevenue.com/loc455/th_97214_elpaso_b120022_122_455lo.jpg]

    32 is a bit worse, but not much more, 64 is a much bigger gap.

    Quote

    Your map looks so forsaken, uninhabited still. Fulfill the map with bushes, shrubs. Very Happy like in this screenshot example

    As I told to you there are plans to include more stuff, but also take in mind that those props will fade out at certain distance.

    Love, love, love this. The building etc are sublime, the others have said enough about lighting, so I won't bother. my one gripe is that sand, it does seem a tad too orange at present, especially with HDR. Maybe consider toning down teh saturation a teeny bit, darkening and putting some more yellow in? Also think you could definetly get more barrels, carts and stuff in there without it getting implausible.

    I dare say that a full on muddy, rainy, Deadwood look might work as well, but that would probably require a great deal of re-working.

    Quote from JeanPaul

    R_Yell, stop making lame excuses and just compile (full, no final) with the ground lightmap at 16. I PROMISE it will look 999999 times better.

    Yep.

    Quote from Meotwister

    I think the picture he just put up was at a 16 lightmap scale.

    I think it looks much improved, personally. The lower the better in this situation, as far as I'm concerned

    Quote from JeanPaul

    R_Yell, stop making lame excuses and just compile (full, no final) with the ground lightmap at 16. I PROMISE it will look 999999 times better.

    I think the picture he just put up was at a 16 lightmap scale.

    I stated that last shot was 16 lm scale, normal compile, not fast. Now is it not good enough?

    I don't want to put any lame excuse, don't be arrogant plz, I'm just trying to get everything done under a reasonable memory requirements. Lightmap scale for all the town ground area can affect a lot to this level, so changes need to be taken with care.

    i think youve done a super job with the map and im really impressed, but i cant stop thinking that all the buildings seem so disconnected with the ground, they jsut stick up out of it and dont interact at all, but i cant really think of how to fix that. maybe make a few corners of the buildings have drifts of sand or something. its just something that irks me and i dont know how it can be fixed

    Thx for the coverage zaphod

    Bic-B@ll I agree completely about that issue. It's more a global problem I guess, where all building materials should get affected by weather, dust, etc. You mean that, isn't it? The wooden beams near the ground in the last shot are quite disconnected because of that. There is a possible fix using some decals on those spots. At other areas of the map there is no such disconnection, at least not so big:

    [Blocked Image: http://img15.imagevenue.com/loc548/th_66237_elpaso_b120023_122_548lo.jpg]

    Quote from R_Yell

    Thx for the coverage zaphod Bic-B@ll I agree completely about that issue. It's more a global problem I guess, where all building materials should get affected by weather, dust, etc. You mean that, isn't it? The wooden beams near the ground in the last shot are quite disconnected because of that. There is a possible fix using some decals on those spots. At other areas of the map there is no such disconnection, at least not so big:

    [Blocked Image: http://img15.imagevenue.com/loc548/th_66237_elpaso_b120023_122_548lo.jpg]

    what i mean is that it's like the ground is one huge big ground thing, and the buildings are not even connected to it, they're not relevand or effect the terrain at all. i guess one potential way of making them blend in more is to dirty up the bottom edges of the buildings

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