Posts by Jselen1

Looks pretty good, 3ds max or maya for those models?

A few last minute design modifications.

I turned the upper mid section into a room rather than a pathway, this should allow easier passage to the B bombsite for the T's, where before I felt like it was too open, and would be a little to dangerous of a path to take under normal conditions. I also turned a portion of the upper level of the T side building into a room for the same reasons. From this point on no more large changes will be made, only the possibility of slight polish here and there, but this is pretty much it.

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To all you non-believers, I now present to you the visually revamped version of de_mistymountain.

BEHOLD!!!!

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If you can see anything that might need improvement, please let me know.

Thanks to everyone for their comments and feedback.

one step at a time here guy...

through a barrage of very positive and very negative reviews across a couple different forums, I have put together my to-do list for the next couple weeks.

- replace some of the brushwork with models. (railings especially)

- diversify texture pallet

- play with displacements, reduce "blockiness"

- play with lightmap scale

- smooth groups

- find a way to replace the wall around the map.

- fix the skybox

So, look forward to a visually revamped version hopefully by the middle of next week, if not sooner. Hopefully I will have changed some minds by then

Ok, first question I have for you guys in order to revamp the visual appeal of my map:

Which looks better? The cold, drab lighting/skybox in the last screenshots i posted, or the lighting/skybox in this screenshot.

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Oh yea, I totally realize and respect that I just wanted to make it clear that i'm aware that it looks a bit drab, but I was just curious about what people think about it despite that fact.

and once again, i DO plan on sprucing it up.

Quote from aevirex

?!

And what Zete said, sorry.

What I mean by this is that something doesn't have to be beautiful to be well designed. I'm talking about fun and playability here.

If people are having a good time on the map, I don't think they are gonna give a crap about the skybox, geometry, etc.

If it were HL2 i'd agree, but CS:S rounds are so short I don't think visuals matter nearly as much.

And like I said before, i DO plan on making it look a little better. That's why it's in the WIP gallery.

alright, I think I need to clear a few things up:

1. The mountains are a 3d skybox, if they weren't no one would be able to run around on this thing with a fps higher than like 6. They aren't exactly supposed to look real, I wanted to give kind of a fantastical feel to the map; something that looks semi-plausible, but also gives the impression of "i'm somewhere kinda strange".

2. As it is a CS:S map, my main concern was playability, not visuals. Hence, barriers are aligned in a geometrically convenient manner, and the architecture is not supposed to be beautiful, it's supposed to be functional. I think a lot of beautiful maps are not functional at all, and as a result they get a lot of praise, but not a whole lot of playtime.

3. All displacements, texturing, and dynamic lighting aside, I think the map as a whole looks pretty cool (am i just crazy?). The architecture is unique, but not insane. Most importantly, both spawn points and bomb sites have been carefully placed for timing purposes. I almost guarantee that the map will play well, and be a lot of fun.

So, say what you will, but I think for CS:S, which is a game with 2 minute rounds and hence no need to create immersion, this map works very well. Although, I get what you guys are saying

Once again, thanks for the comments.

p.s. I do plan on making the map prettier, I just wanted to get some first impressions to make sure that it wasn't just a throw-away.

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A few photos from the new version (mist added for you nitpickers).

Ok, aesthetic concerns aside, what do you guys think of the design? interesting? not?

I can always play with the brushwork and texturing, but the concept is what i'm most concerned about.

thanks for the feedback, both positive and negative, I appreciate it.

its just another shape to make a barrier... having a bunch of boxes and pillars everywhere gets redundant.

Hey all,

Below is a link to a slideshow of my latest CS:S map. Let me know what you think.

http://s260.photobucket.com/albums/ii25 ... eshow=true

Hey everyone,

this may be a stupid question for any number of reasons that i'm not aware of, but of well.

I have been a level designer for some time; however, out of boredom and curiosity, I want to expand into making my own models.

Is maya or 3dsmax the way to go? pros and cons? just looking for some general input.

for anyone tempted to mock me on this, let me get it out of the way for you:

"hahahaha, n00b"

"pshhh, fffhh"

"lawl, yer stoopid"

ok that should take care of it, just looking for some direction.

Thanks everyone.

very very nice, what modeling program did you use?

So, the solution to my hammer problems was embarassingly simple.

I guess since the orange box was released, Hammer's default is to run with that default setting

All I had to do was go into advanced options and type "-engine ep1", and everything started working again.

This still hasn't solved my Maya issues... but hey, it's a start.

thanks to everyone for their input.

thanks dux,

I already have CCleaner, but I didn't think to run it.

Anyways, I ran it, and it turned out not to be the solution. thanks for the info though, I appreciate it.

I just reinstalled both my graphics drivers AND directX, and the problem continues.

However, it seems that now I cannot even open Source SDK. The window pops up that says "Preparing to open Source SDK", but it goes away after about 15 seconds and nothing happens.

Hey all,

So, i'm having a difficult computer issue that i'm hoping someone can provide some insight into. I'll start from the beginning...

Everything was working fine (Hammer, Maya, etc) until I got rid of my trial versions of adobe photoshop and illustrator CS3. After the uninstallation was finished, I attempted to open one of my maps in hammer, and a couple error messages came up that said I was missing one or more files necessary to run the editor. So I completely delted and reinstalled steam and all of it's components. The error messages went away, but every time I try to manipulate the 3d wireframe, the program freezes and closes. I have also noticed that since this, when I attempt to run Maya, the program will open but the main manipulation screen will show nothing but the imprint of my desktop wallpaper. I am pretty sure I must have deleted some common component that's screwing with everything, but I have no idea what it would be. I tried reinstalling both of the adobe programs, but it did not fix the issue. I would appreciate any help with this problem.

thank you.