[L4D2] River Crossing

[sarge mat]

I keep putting of posting this here because I wan't to do more and more to it but I think its time to get more feedback on it. Its a three part campaign, but I am only posting the first part today as the other two are very early still. Anyway here are a few screenshots

I am thinking the lighting is a bit dull at the moment.

Thanks

Mat

(you will see weird errors)

http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/1079/firstmapcorepost16.jpg[/img

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/8213/firstmapcorepost17.jpg[/img

http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/3519/firstmapcorepost18.jpg[/img

Was Playing with the flair lights here and they are a bit too low to the ground now.

http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/7428/firstmapcorepost19.jpg[/img

motion sensor type light. Have to fix some things with it.

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/9325/firstmapcorepost20.jpg[/img

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/2050/firstmapcorepost1.jpg[/img

http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/4097/firstmapcorepost2.jpg[/img

http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/847/firstmapcorepost3.jpg[/img

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/2623/firstmapcorepost5.jpg[/img

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/5233/firstmapcorepost6.jpg[/img

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/4451/firstmapcorepost7.jpg[/img

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/3062/firstmapcorepost8.jpg[/img

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/9431/firstmapcorepost9.jpg[/img

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/2025/firstmapcorepost10.jpg[/img

alarm sets of a non-stop panic event untill switched off at the other end.

http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/3228/firstmapcorepost11.jpg[/img

http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/7011/firstmapcorepost12.jpg[/img

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/8111/firstmapcorepost13.jpg[/img

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/2154/firstmapcorepost14.jpg[/img

http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/6007/firstmapcorepost15.jpg[/img

few more ones to give a better view

http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/34/l4drivercrossingtest000.jpg[/img

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/34/l4drivercrossingtest000.jpg[/img

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/34/l4drivercrossingtest000.jpg[/img

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/34/l4drivercrossingtest000.jpg[/img

[ElectroSheep]

You should increase your water texture scale. Repetition is visible a lot.

[-HP-]

Nice water. naawt!

And tell me how in the world someone painted a spray that big? I mean the none of you will survive spray.

[sarge mat]

lol

Fixed the water but wan't to get rid of the glare on it. Yea that spray was stupid its gone and I want to make that area a bit more interesting than just a flat wall.

Thanks

[Corwin]

Here are a few advices and criticisms. Don't take it too literally, I'm just trying to help. Good luck with the rest of it!

[-HP-]

Wow, that's some awesome feedback!

[OhSnap]

*edit* well damn, Corwin did me better with screenshots... And we both called some of the same stuff. Cheers.

Stuff that popped at out at me;

(Apologies if this seems overly negative. I blame my job)

By screenshot number;

16 - Angled brace made of concrete is odd. I don't think bridges actually do this. Also, the texture is still at 90 degrees and not matching the geometry angle. Those yellow traffic trash cans seem out of place under a bridge, especially with a random lantern there. Why is there a lantern there? You can make some visual narrative that could explain these things, like another survivor group using the trash cans to make a sort of barricade/shelter or something.

17 - Really long unbroken skyline. Antenna's, water towers, electric poles, buildings in the distance, needs *something* to break up a straight line. Huge building with plain brick wall is... dangerous.

19 - Skyline again. This place looks really empty (the ground). The light doesn't seem to cast an actual light on the ground even though it appears to be a pretty powerful light.

20 - Cool, running on busted up boats. Initially thought you could turn it into a dynamic prop and sorta sway, but that'd probably mess with nav mesh. Anyway... Those lights in the background look weird. The light bulb is visible, but the lighting on the wall starts like 20-30 units below it. Another really long unbroken skyline

2 - 2? Weird order of screenshots... Is that boat hanging halfway off a dock or something? It seems odd (ie, physically impossible, unless its resting on something). The wooden trim around the dock is slightly raised, but not under the handrails? Not sure if that was on purpose, it just jumped out at me.

3 - This one prompted my whole post. Ok... Unbroken skyline. Two materials for a building without something breaking the transition. The windows on the second floor of the building on the left look like they're doors. The building also wouldn't have 3 separate doors, within 10 feet of each other. The building on the right, are those awnings or balcony's? They look like balcony's, but they don't have rails. None of the buildings have anything else (gutter drains, power boxes, wires, etc)

7 - What are those black girder things on both sides of this bridge? This entire thing really confuses me. Is this a make-shift bridge or a 'real' bridge under construction or something? Would need a better look at it...

10 - DOOR TRIMS! Magical floating doors connected to a brick wall do NOT exist in the real world. The transition between floor textures is also a bit jarring for me.

11 - Window trims on the ceiling. Also, the texture tiling. You have it split in half on both edges. Something looks weird above the right doorway where the wall meets the ceiling. Not sure if its a different texture or lighting weirdness.

12 - Huge area with nothing in it. Cement bricks look GINORMOUS on the shop on the right. Malls don't usually have visible brick or concrete on the inside...

14 & 15 - Your lights here look weird. Place the light higher to the ceiling, turn off "cast shadow" on the light prop. Place looks too big as a restaurant too.

Ok your next set of screenshots are all named the same thing... Why do you hate me? Comments from top to bottom

1 - Is that a wire connecting crossing a river from lights to a generator...?

2 - The concrete barricade in the street looks really out of place, since it has nothing else there explaining why it's there. The apparently 50 foot long single piece of wood creating a bridge feels MORE out of place.

4 - Dock, connecting to some sort of rock thing, in the middle of a river? How do the boats get past this?

EVERYTHING - There doesn't seem to be any power lines in your part of the city.

[sarge mat]

Corwin and OhSnap post's like those mean the world to me. Going to read it all now.

Thanks so much.

[DaanO]

Only thing i'd like to add to the (great) feedback above is that i'd post less screenshots. Most important thing i've learn about presentation is use 15 images maximum, people will lose attention

[sarge mat]

Yea that's very true, going to hide those ones when I post more and post less next time. Working hard on this one but I am into the last few weeks of my HND so a lot of dev time is going into finishing of assignments.

[sarge mat]

Update time, partly because I want to ask for help. For some reason the nav just can't draw the dots between the start and the end of the level. God knows why at this point as I have tired everything I can think of even doing it from 0 several times and it did all work before all the changes. I would say there is a dam clear path from start to end, the ai follow it no problem. But still the nav error pop's up every time that the map is unplayable. Any tips would be helpful.

Anyway, some new screenshot's I don't think i have quite covered everything people said about the map (some are not clear in the shots) and I have changed the lighting a lot but still working on nailing that down, along with many other things. Parts 2 and 3 where very early and I am re designing them from scratch, i can see they would have the same flaws all over that people pointed out and where not that interesting at all.

Fog is a little harsh me thinks, want to have some interesting lights in the background.

you do now get to go down into the dark area at the start and climb up a man hole and the restaurant at the end is now a bar type club, got some much cooler stuff going on in there. You can see the man hole and its a square for now as I took away the prop in a effort to see what was not working nav wise.

Thanks

[the0rthopaedicsurgeon]

walk through the map on the route you'd normally take in nav_edit mode and check that the mesh is actually constant. it sometimes leaves gaps, especially on stairs (the only way to fix those is to put a flat clip-textured ramp over them and then nav_generate_incremental).

[sarge mat]

Thanks, I think I am making progress on it this morning.

[Serenius]

I'd recommend taking a look at this regarding the clutter in your scenes. Feels obvious once you've read it, but it helps a lot.

http://www.shaddyconceptart.com/categor ... ets/page/2

[sarge mat]

Yea some of it does look shitty. Think I will spend tomorrow working on that stuff and get a break from the fing nav stuff. Have some new fog effects going too which are looking nice but needs a bit more work.

Thanks and thanks again for the link