Posts by NikiOo

  • Lux

    It does miss some flare in that T spawn ngl. I don't get enough vitamin D there and my anxiety is flaring up. Maybe that's why the hallways feel claustrophobic.

  • Lux

    Quote from Roald

    15 minutes ago, Roald said: I think you are on to something here 🤔

    Maybe creating Anubis was one big troll to the CS community.

    Let's see what Skyline will bring.

    You're putting words in my mouth. I never implied anything like that. I meant that you're trolling me with these comments. It kinda looks like you're trying to rally the CS community at me, because I off-handedly said a bad thing about Anubis. So please stop.

    Besides, the fact that Anubis won the last competition doesn't mean that it's infallible, nor that it has won some sort of undisclosed glazing rights. I hope Skyline brings good things. It already looks more interesting.

  • Lux

    What if I'd said "Vertigo sucks for competitive, guys, we gotta make better maps than Vertigo. Maybe try making better maps than Vertigo.", would that be trolling?

    Maybe this was just a teaser for the extended Anubis critique. I think you're confusing teasing with trolling. I can't release the extended Anubis critique right now, thought. I need more time to collect some data.

    Some things about Anubis are really great! How about that? It's the prettiest map in the pool. The fights at the bombsites are really fun, mid is really fun for 1v1s. I like the fast rotate through water, it's kinda like Inferno in that way.

    Maybe think about what you're doing and see if that's maybe trolling.

  • Lux

    Quote from Roald

    Just now, Roald said: You can think what ever you want and you can have your opinion, but once there is no constructive feedback I can't take it seriously. Goodluck with your map 😘

    You don't have to take it any way. This wasn't addressed to you. This is not a feedback thread for Anubis. I don't have to qualify everything I say here.

  • Lux

    Quote from Roald

    5 minutes ago, Roald said: Troll confirmed

    Thinking that Anubis sucks makes me a troll? I've just been analyzing the maps that are in the pool and I think that ... it kinda sucks by comparison. Your new map looks more interesting though. Maybe don't take things personally.

  • Warden

    @lamarrite Rule 5 is there as a guardrail to protect the integrity of the competition, to make sure everyone starts on the same level, but you can't catch everyone since you can't know how long they've been working on it, unless they've shown it publicly. Making a map from scratch within the 4 months that are given for the 1st stage requires skill and confidence and not everyone can do it. It's perfectly within the rules to submit a map that you've been cooking in secret for half a year already and give yourself a bit of a crutch.

  • Skyline

    Very strong Nuke Yard vibes at Yard and very strong Nuke Ramp vibes at Lobby. It feels like the same cover pieces with the same composition and the same overall architecture. Even the routing seems the same. Too much of that Nuke DNA, you might lose originality points for that. I'd suggest that you take more inspiration from architecture and compositions that are unique to your theme, instead of trying to shoehorn your theme onto Nuke. Also, B site feels very cramped — too little space, too many close angles to clear. Maybe take some inspiration from Nuke's B site there — it has just one cube and one cylinder, and still the post-plant fights are super exciting and fun because of all the space and the wrap-around route. A site is really cool and unique. And, this could just be a me-thing, but the ceilings feel too low and claustophobic — you jump and you can almost bump your head into it. Everything except for site A feels tight and cramped, just like Anubis. Mid seems like it's gonna be really boring for the CTs, and a little less boring for the Ts. It's basically Anubis' mid but more boring. I'd shorten those organic-looking benches so that you can walk onto them, rather than having to jump, or get rid of them completely.

  • Lux

    Theme Update[/b]

    I've been thinking about how I could make the theme more epic and this is what I came up with: a solar-system-themed-solar-thermal-power-plant. It's planets, but silos. Planet-painted-silos, and the receiver tower is the Sun. Targets would be the earth silo and the mars silo (sphere-shaped steam condenser). Then I would pick textures and shapes for the buildings to give them a space station sort of vibe. The terrorists arrive in 1972 Maserati Boomerangs. This might be a bit too surreal. I'm still on the fence about it. Here's a quick mockup —

  • Saguaro

    Cool idea! If you were to make a complicated map with a lot of routes work, it would be with something like this, to assists awareness.

    A func_door_rotating camel would also fit the theme.

  • Lux

    The name is Flare now, but I am going to change it Sol some time in the next few weeks. Be ready for it.

    Here's a cool reference photo of a real life ultra-modern building taken from the real world —

    Actually, you go tricked! This is an in game photo. Stunning! I know you wish you could go to this place and brush your naked skin up against the smooth glass panels and taste its metallic trims with your tongue. But you can't. I'm sorry. This is only in the virtual world.

  • Saguaro

    Kudos for taking risks! Very excited to play this. I'm curious if you have some heuristic for measuring the complexity of pathways, or if you're just waiting to see how it plays? You seem to have a lot of loops, twice as many as the single-layer maps in the official map pool (not that that should be a standard, especially since this is a new game).

  • Lux

    Art Update[/b]

    Pantone blue with red and yellow accents is the color scheme of Nuke, so I'm moving away from it.

    Fit check.

    This is the vibe —

    — except a bit more vibrant, and with accent colors of rose, teal, and straw.

    Layout Update[/b]

    I discovered a really cool element of Inferno, which is seen in practically no other map in the pool, and which is — I think — essential to what makes Inferno such a great tactical map. I'm looking for ways to implement it in Lux. It fits the theme and it would complement my other ideas really well. Inferno better watch out! I'm so thrilled. I'll tell you more later.

  • Lux

    Here's some more cylinder-centric geometry —

    A year from now, the pundits in the pro scene will be talking about cylinder-savvy teams and cylinder-dull teams. And new stars will be birth from artificial cylindrical wombs to push the game to new limits.

  • Lux

    Wetness is the essence of beauty — Derek Zoolander

    Hence, here's some water — in a cooling pond and a silo —

    And here's some water — in a tank —

    And here's my zen garden —

    I have almost all the pieces now.

  • Lux

    Lux Flare Lux

    https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/fi…/?id=3302009197

    I scrapped the previous layout and theme that I was working on and started from scratch, with a more interesting theme and more concrete ideas. My new map is set in a solar thermal power plant, in the desert.

    Spoiler

    Key Ideas

    The key ideas that I want to implement are:

    • I like big, arena-like bombsites, à la A site on Train, where you have a lot of freedom to choose where and when you take fights.
    • I like bombsites where the majority of the spots are effective against one of the entrances but vulnerable to the other, meaning that if Ts coordinate well and CTs don't communicate effectively, the Ts can obliterate the CTs.
    • I like areas where players with good movement can use the walkable surfaces more effectively to get an advantage over their opponents.
    • I like long sightlines that penetrate the map, rewarding players with intel about how the enemy is moving so they can make pro-active decisions.

    Layout

    This is the abstract layout. There are two big sites close to one-another, an upper level (purple), and a connector for fast rotations, which can be accessed by the upper level. Everything else is subject to change. A site is called A because Ts get 2 entrances to it and B site is called B because Ts get 1 entrance to it (unlike Anubis and Ancient which have them backwards). Filled circle means ladder, empty circle mans drop-down (maybe boostable). The upper level acts effectively like a "middle" in your generic 3-lane map.

    Bombsites

    I chose the particle receiver tower and the air cooled steam condenser for the bomb targets, because they're most recognizable from afar and I can make them tall enough to be visible from both spawns, which is a neat feature.

    Spoiler

    This is bombsite A. There is a stack of explosives placed next to the receiver tower. There are 4 entrances. Ts come from bottom-left and bottom-right. Connector is top-left. Top-right leads to CT spawn. Everything else is subject to change.

    Spoiler

    This is bombsite B. You're blowing up some pipes connected to the steam condenser. Ts come from the bottom-left. CTs come from the top-left and top-right. Bottom-right is connector. Everything else is subject to change.

  • de_teriea WIP

    I think the best thing you can do to improve the look is to focus on the wall textures. They're too noisy and too saturated and too homogenous. If you look at any real photo of this city, you'll notice:

    • A lot of buildings have soft, desaturated colors.
    • There is often a lot of color in the window details -- the frames, the awnings, the shutters.
    • Newly painted buildings next to buildings with old, weathered paint.
    • Paint aging in different ways. Sometimes paint peels smoothly, sometimes it peels sharply -- I think sharp blending might look better with more saturated colors.
    • Sometimes underneath the paint there is cobblestone wall, sometimes there is white plaster, sometimes there is brick, sometimes there is mud.

    The interiors look really nice, they look like a real place. The exteriors don't -- except for the left one-third of the last photo.

    I think also mixing four different kinds of grass and three different kinds of crate in a single scene makes it look very surreal. Each asset is stylized in its own way and when all the assets are stylized in the same way, you don't notice it, but when they're not, it stands out a lot.

  • de_spiral [WIP]

    Nuke has stacked bombsites. It's also a really good map. So don't let radar readability be a deciding factor on how much verticality you have. I think the staircase doesn't introduce too much complexity. You can still keep the layout readable by making sure that the areas peripheral to the staircase overlap as little as possible — ie, every floor spreading in a different direction — which seems to be what you're doing. You should be able to judge by your own intuition if your map is becoming too complicated. And the CT and T stairways must stand out a lot because it would take a while for players to learn which route goes where. What I would do is I would paint interiors of each staircase in a different color or insert strongly saturated colored lights so that when you look at the entrance you can immediately link it in your head to the other entrances of the same stairway.