Quote from Vanx23 minutes ago, Vanx said: A fine piece of work, imho it suffers a little bit from beeing a "one-color-map". But thats good for visibility ?
We are very much looking into giving it a "color pass" adding some colorful details on the pillars and walls.
Hey here's some of our progress. The map is coming along nicely and hopefully it will be in a playable state by the deadline ?
A sizable part of the map is still fully greyboxed so we're working to finish that up. We're also thinking of ways to colorize it or add more contrast because right now it's looking a bit flat. We'll probably go with black marble elements with white/gold writing on them. And some more overgrown stuff by the coast.
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Layout update:
Here's a comparison showing the changes, radars by @Terri's auto radar!
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My wingman map that's going on hold for the exotic contest. Had a modular set and everything ?
Quote from Viter2 hours ago, Viter said: You should post a video/tutorial of painting the displacement mountains like that
Those are nothing special really, I just made a flat grid of 512x512 displacements and painted some geometry on Z axis.
Update: No longer working on this map as of september. I may continue working on it some time after the contest.
My contest map will be set on a hill with a cable car station.
Bombsite A will take place inside the station, while B will be under a huge tent housing an ancient ruins exhibition.
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The layout is very much a WIP and not ready for playtests yet, but hopefully it will be soon. Some screenshots below:
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Quote from Radix1 hour ago, Radix said: So for example pretty much everyone said, de_austria was imbalanced. One half of the players meant it's heavily T-sided. The other half said, it's CT-sided. But according to the data I got from Valve it was pretty much 50:50... ?
Yup been there ?
Quote from RadixOn 1/26/2019 at 6:17 PM, Radix said: What about communication with Valve? I have two guys from Valve in my Steam contact list and an email address. If you want an answer you should probably use the email, lol. Usually they tell you what they want and what you have to do. Sometimes they send you a list of bugs in your map. Once (October 2018) I got some balancing stats of de_austria (T vs CT win percentage in different skill rankings, pistol round vs later in the match), which helped a lot, but it was too late to actually use this information. But I never knew how many players were actually playing the map (compared to other maps). Nothing about which game modes were played or how rounds are won (bomb vs kill them all etc.). And of course I did not know that the map would be removed. Maybe this was all my fault. Maybe I should have asked explicitly for information. But I always felt like "they are busy, don't bother them and just do your thing". But that's probably what's wrong with me. Would be interesting to hear what the other Operation guys think about communication with Valve...
Had pretty much the same experience, except I knew the maps would be switched up in January (because I specifically asked). Didn't know the playtimes, was a little surprised it was biome that stayed, especially since it had the longest MM queue times. Would be good to have a playtime API like operation hydra did. I guess for now it's best to just ask them how your map is doing playtime-wise and hope they answer.
Quote from RadixOn 1/26/2019 at 6:17 PM, Radix said: But things like that should be reported earlier. Why not write a comment on the workshop page of the map (or in this thread)? I mean, I could have changed anything in the map, but nearly never got any useful suggestions (except what's in this thread here and a few bug reports).
Did you check out reddit comments? I think there's a lot of feedback in various update and map related threads on r/globaloffensive.
Quote from RadimaX12 hours ago, RadimaX said: in this spot the the weapons falls trough the map at the bottom edge of the gate and if people die or nades roll off the map you cannot save them for next round, haven't tried with the C4 yet:[Blocked Image: https://i.imgur.com/jGIjWu6.jpg]
Nice catch, I always forget this prop has no collisions on the bottom
Quote from Viter59 minutes ago, Viter said: Love the new changes! Would you ever consider reducing the construction guide stencil's around B?
It literally looks like they are everywhere and makes the nice walls look a bit messy, especially when you are trying to spot enemies.
Also the "double quad" boxes on A looks nice gameplay wise, but maybe add something other than boxes there? Environment/walls since there's so many boxes around the map?
Played the map a lot and it is 100% my favorite map! Keep it up
Thanks! I do think the map could do with another visibility pass, but never thought those little decals would be a problem. Thanks for bringing it up. As for A, I could replace some boxes with chemical tanks.
Definitely gonna wait to see how it all plays out on the faceit tournament before changing the art.
Quote from poLemin3 hours ago, poLemin said: Nice improvements! Looks awesome!
I am not a big fan of that enclosed cubby on A site, but that's a personal opinion. It just feels terribly annoying to clear, since you have to swing around the entire site to check it and people there just need to aim at the entrance. Maybe make it a little bit smaller, so wall spamming is a little bit more reliable for clearing it?
Secondly, I'm a little sad that you kind of copied the bomb site landmark from B to A. By that i mean having this office room overlooking the site. I liked how the sites had two different approaches, both gameplay-wise and visually.
Keep up the good work - Exciting to see more improvements to an already great map!
Thanks for the tips! definitely something I'll look at in faceit demos.
Update!
Thanks to all the feedback I've received I determined that bombsite A needed a few changes. There are now spots where you can comfortably hold the site without having to worry about getting shot in the back, whereas previously you basically had no chance but to fall back or push somewhere.
Here's a gif showing the changes:
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Screenshots of the new bombsite and surroundings:
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And here's some other stuff I've updated recently but haven't posted in the thread:
Wingman mode takes place on bombsite B
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CT Spawn:
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The boost would be too much of a killbox in wingman so I added this staircase which is only spawned in wingman mode.
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Other improvements and polish:
Spoiler Control room and vending machine room:
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Inset props for the rock walls:
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Quote from FMPONE16 hours ago, FMPONE said: I'll have more elaborated thoughts on this map in a video that may or may come out soon, but I did want to share some more detailed thoughts on it.
Starting with art, I feel that some of the indoor detailing in this map is a weak-point for it. In such an otherwise fantastic looking map, I notice that many of the indoor assets such as the displacement walls could use some blendmodulate textures that are more appropriate, some textures that feel a bit higher-resolution and satisfying to look at, and some of the props used to seam the ground and the walls feel a bit dated and low resolution. It's a nit-pick, but in a map this good you are left with nit-picking. While we're nit-picking, I feel that moving clouds in the sky might be a nice touch if your FPS can handle it, remember you can disable certain props on lower settings, so for the super-high end users this would be a nice treat.
Further thoughts: there are many areas in this map where railings are covered, such as in T-Spawn. IMO, that's a bad idea because it really limits the ability of CTs to push into spawn for information. I would remove the covers from the rails so that players have unfettered visibility on those angles.
Overall, absolutely thrilled with this one from a gameplay and art standpoint.
Thanks for the feedback! And also big thanks to everyone organizing this contest, it was fantastic.
I agree that the cave rocks should be improved. I'll probably make some rock inset models, similar to the ones from hr dust2.
Now I might as well use this post to share some progress. Haven't got much done since I had finals last month but there's still something.
Upgrades to the swat van to make it fit Africa better:
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Replaced the last of placeholder brush/displacement dome parts with models, should give a small fps boost and it looks much cleaner.
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Added some construction guide stencil decals to spice up the plaster walls:
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9 hours ago, Xingo said: I love how it plays and I hope it maybe gets in a permanent place in CS (Or at least in an operation)! Only thing i suggest is adding color to the cars in the parking lot. No real parking lot has only white cars, and the Newke cars were designed to be colorized. Just go to there properties and find the color area and color them to your hearts desire
Thanks for the tip. I was looking at some reference pictures and Africa does have a disproportionately high number of white/bright cars. But you're right, an odd dark/colored car wouldn't hurt.
Another update this week!
Spoiler Old skybox:
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New skybox:
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Spoiler The idea was to draw the player's eyes to the important signs like someone suggested on the playtest last month.
I made a new set of models, they're white/tintable and french. I hope google translate didn't let me down 
I used at most 2 red signs per location.
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Speaking of multilingual signs, I also made french/arabic skins to replace english stuff.
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I replaced the old textures with a new hr one. Still needs some tweaking, maybe bring some color back. I'd also like to make the jungle seem thicker in some places.
Update:
I made a second set of dome models. They have about 10% of the old models polys. I've been able to replace about half of them with the new cheap version without any noticeable difference. The other half will switch based on "Shader Detail" setting.
I hope people will find the performance more acceptable now.
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On the visual side I've been detailing the floor and trying out some sun beam models.
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Quote from Flower_Shop_GuyDisplay More10 minutes ago, Flower_Shop_Guy said: Hello, love your work! Here some small feedback/bug report.
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1. You have a two suns
2. Bad shadows on these props. (setpos -1825.166504 -1288.758667 -415.906189;setang 7.348155 -155.748917 0.000000)
3. Floating prop. (setpos -934.181580 -191.483582 -383.906189;setang -29.567822 -13.400933 0.000000)
4. Protruding piece here (setpos -957.649109 -55.576225 -380.109558;setang 41.492107 -147.020050 0.000000)
5. This prop is biased. Also if I were you, I would, add end cap-props on these, this will be look much prettier. (setpos -642.776855 1005.184875 -421.815796;setang 53.548145 114.788528 0.000000)
https://imgur.com/a/hSwHD https://imgur.com/a/tJjYy
6. IMHO, this fake light in these buildings (and in some other ones) looks ugly and too much attracts the player's attention https://imgur.com/a/p3AiY (setpos 1600.782471 -1477.961182 -448.255066;setang -18.743860 -88.786957 0.000000)
7. Bomb-drop exploits:
- 1. https://imgur.com/a/XXrvY - (setpos -955.581299 -1262.787476 -54.862503;setang 52.667385 178.191132 0.000000) (setpos -873.409668 -1398.372559 -439.390839;setang -43.032600 144.311005 0.000000)
- 2. https://imgur.com/a/rmDiz - (setpos -1266.478394 -1288.890991 -415.906189;setang -60.104504 129.526810 0.000000)
- 3. Make giant clip-brush to close this "box"
https://imgur.com/a/LF2CU https://imgur.com/a/RHabo - (setpos -1025.575317 -963.779419 -357.497711;setang -62.128513 36.474751 0.000000)
- 4. https://imgur.com/a/DVOR1 (setpos 249.016357 383.972992 -463.906189;setang -34.364563 -9.965036 0.000000)
- 5. https://imgur.com/a/nBZNG (setpos 2123.963135 545.307007 -591.906189;setang -50.039883 25.983627 0.000000)
- 6. https://imgur.com/a/NBuR9 (setpos 2116.198486 402.400696 -591.906189;setang -32.395889 -117.632126 0.000000)
- 7. https://imgur.com/a/uCqVw (setpos 431.968750 -2415.968750 -406.569946;setang 79.672035 -39.639736 0.000000)
- 8. https://imgur.com/a/rll0f (setpos 664.554199 -1560.000854 -396.905518;setang 66.516106 -11.699324 0.000000)
- 9. Also, I can stuck here. https://imgur.com/a/BXDWc (setpos -598.531433 -678.138489 -446.906189;setang 39.676136 11.524651 0.000000)
8. Bad performance in these areas: (setpos 800.858643 -996.563354 -439.906189;setang 2.728144 106.183739 0.000000) (setpos -1496.549805 -796.236023 -391.656189;setang 1.540148 46.967869 0.000000) (setpos -1077.162720 1735.484985 -442.906189;setang -1.407853 -64.176155 0.000000)
My PC: i5 4690k @4.2Ghz, 8GB DDRIII, GTX660 2GB - On this PC I usually get ~150-250 FPS on old Valve maps and ~100-150 on new Valve maps (new Nuke and new Inferno), in some areas on your map I have drops around ~60-70FPS.
ps: I found dharma easter egg
Thanks man I'll get right on these!
Seems like you're the first guy who found the easter egg, congrats
It's finally time for the release!
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Since the contest deadline I've mostly been working on improving clipping, small lighting bugs etc. One notable thing I did is, I merged the modular dome models. The dome used to be made of about 2500 models, now it's only about 50. This improved the performance by about 15-20% throughout the map (on my system).
I'm hoping to get some feedback on performance improvements. If this was successful on other systems too I'll try the foliage and other models as well.
Here's the workshop link to my map to qualify me for the contest. It's been public all along anyway.
I'll be doing the re-release sometime in the coming week.
Quote from Serialmapper16 minutes ago, Serialmapper said: So, after you win this contest, will they be available to be used in other maps by others? The cliff textures are made in substance designer?
Cliff textures are actually stock valve. I photoshopped some moss on it, changed the color and made a few custom blends. I can release this stuff once I'm done of course.
